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Permalink Reply by Roxanne Darling on December 31, 2007 at 9:46am

I have a few answers here - but thena gain I am a blonde, so they may be suspect. :-)

1) What you see is what you get. We can find evidence for just about anything, and there is this powerful principle in like that what we focus on, grows.
2) All beings and all ideas thrive on energy. When the energy is removed, they begin to whither and fade. If we remove our attention from the thought "blondes have more fun" then that can cease to be true for us and them, as we starve that idea of energy.
3) People (dare I get myself into trouble and say "men") can appear so incredibly vulnerable to prettiness and blondeness. There is a whole school of evolutionary biologists out there who maintain it is survival-driven. Well, we don't live in caves anymore and CONSCIOUSNESS is a powerful tool to combat to those urges that may in fact still be deeply programmed in dem bones, err, I mean in the genes.

Derek - it appears you are a good typist. Nice string on that asdf thing.

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Permalink Reply by Derek on December 31, 2007 at 11:18am

Having been blonde all your life, have you ever worn anything on your head (covering you hair), and received any different attention?

Yes, I would admit that the main culprits of this act may be men.

I suppose it's a double-edged sword. Blonde probably get put down before showing their intelligence also. And, if they were to say something intelligent, maybe it wouldn't be taken seriously.

Any experiences like this?

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Permalink Reply by Bill Cammack on January 3, 2008 at 6:28am

Actually, it depends where you are and what you have in abundance around you.

I live in New York, so we have A LOT of naturally dark-haired women and a lot that like to dye their dark hair red. Because of that, blonde is actually a commodity. Not the blonde chicks with the brunette eyebrows, hahahahaha. Not the blonde chicks with the 3" black roots down the middle of their domes! :D ... ACTUAL blonde chicks.

OTOH, I have cousins that live in a different part of the USA. I went to visit them and was totally amazed with the blonde chicks they had in that area... Meanwhile, I noticed that my cousins barely looked at them AT ALL! :D When I inquired as to what was up, I found out that their particular area was TEEMING with blonde chicks, so what was fascinating to THEM was BRUNETTES! :O

I was like "Man... you can't throw a ROCK in NYC without hitting several brunettes before it hits the ground!"... See, so it all depends on what you're used to, and what you have available to you.

Similarly, I grew up around chicks with BODIES. Other guys grew up liking chicks with flat asses 'n stuff like that. So I can look at a chick and think she has the physique of a teenage boy, and the guy standing next to me is thinking "Man! Check out how nice that chick's ass is! :O" Eventually I got used to this, and I realize that it really is "Different Strokes for Different Folks". :D

As far as internet culture in particular, I'd say that you're right, that blonde chicks get more props than brunettes. There are probably a bunch of societal reasons for this including the objectification or perhaps bimbo-fication of blonde chicks ever since television and film started being shown in color instead of black and white. From Marilyn Monroe to Anna Nicole Smith, blondes have been portrayed as the "perfect" combination of sexiness and stupidity. Easy / Quick to give it up. Fun to be with. Not smart enough to make problems. Simple-minded enough to be low maintenance. Who could ask for more? :D

Meanwhile, brunettes are often portrayed as troublemakers, thinking too much, don't like to follow orders, not particularly sexy... This is one of the reasons why chicks dye their hair blonde, to be more attractive to guys that have gone for this "hair color indicates something" bullshit. They get tired of their blonde girlfriends getting all the raps, so they WISELY start hooking themselves up to be more attractive and get more attention.

Bill Cammack
DatingGenius

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Permalink Reply by Roxanne Darling on January 3, 2008 at 10:12am

Oh yes. What works one way will often work it's corollary as well. People make all sorts of assumptions about blondness and other traits (see Bill's comment below a"why chicks dye their hair blonde, to be more attractive to guys that have gone for this "hair color indicates something" bullshit. ")

However I think Bill's "sexy and stupid" label is one that is deeply embedded in the culture. I don't know any chicks who want to be thought of as stupid. I dyed my hair after being inspired by the movie Legally Blond. I loved how she embraced all the silliness and pinkness AND smartness that were all her nature, and claimed them proudly. It is about the freedom to play with all sorts of attributes - since some of the really fundamental ones who nearly impossible to change (gender, height, race, etc.)

The more we ourselves do not buy into the stereotypes - both as participants and as observers - the better for all of us to be free and arty humans who get to reinvent ourselves as will.

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Permalink Reply by Vergel E on January 3, 2008 at 6:34am

What about a blonde showing some body and a blonde only showing their face?

I think girls in general get more responses then guys... just cause there are so many nerdy guys in the twitterverse

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Permalink Reply by Bill Cammack on January 3, 2008 at 6:48am

No doubt, Vergel. That's why all the successful shows have chicks as the "face" of the broadcast, regardless of the fact that it's all guys behind the scenes.

Business is Business. There has to be a reason for people to tune in to a broadcast. In some cases, it's content. In other cases, it's eye candy.

I still think blondes are seen as sexier, whether there's merit to that in reality or not. It has a lot to do with the way blondes have always been shown in the media, and since life imitates art, the same situations get played out in the streets and blonde chicks end up with this larger-than-life presence.

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Permalink Reply by Roxanne Darling on January 3, 2008 at 10:15am

Isn't it amazing what the brain can conjure up from a 40 pixel square photo??? (THe Twitter icon). ShelIsrael was using a version of Firefox last night that did not display avatars. He said it was very weird.

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Permalink Reply by Derek on January 6, 2008 at 9:58am

Well, I gotta admit I "did" at one time have something against blondes. Of course, that was in the '70s - and my hate was toward Farrah Fawcett. I was a Kate Jackson fan, but she wore the pants, and Farrah wore the bikinis. There were poster of Farrah everywhere (almost like Hannah Montana), but none of Kate. Then came the other blonde replacements for Farrah when she quit.

So, I swore off blondes. Then, I went to an integrated school - where there were more than us black folks. And I met a few. Some were just light brown haired - still considered blonde. Then I fell for one (sigh)

I finally stopped being a hater - I just started liking everyone - regardless of haircolor and skin color - 'cause I found that "FINE" was not just created in the Aryan world (as TV tried to show).

But, back to the question, it's still disturbing to see the "power" of blonde, and as Vergel brings up, the "power" of skin. It makes those who DON'T look like the (ie: black men) feel second class, to say the least.

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Permalink Reply by Roxanne Darling on January 6, 2008 at 11:54am

Well Derek I hear ya on this stuff. Even as a white female blonde I am sick of the FF posters too. I traveled in Mexico in the 70's (don't know if this has changed) but because mostly the only magazines they were getting down there were playboy-type, the mexican men assumed every one who looked like me was a hooker variation.

So there is prejudice all over, some more blatant than others, and the only thing we can do is start ignoring ourselves one person one thought one relationship at a time.

I love that Eleanor Roosevelt quote: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Cammack on January 18, 2008 at 8:04am

I had a friend like that. He probably didn't go to an 'integrated' school 'till High School. He had definite issues adjusting to "suddenly" being around a lot of whites.

It's interesting that you developed a bias along hair color lines. I can understand why you did, because Kate Jackson was tha ISH, and completely trumped Farrah. Meanwhile, because Farrah that particular look, she got ALLLLL the props. I can see how that would have an effect on an impressionable youth, the unfairness of it all.

The power of the blonde has been handed to her. Similarly, the power of the skinny girl has been handed to her, because back in the Star Trek and Billy Jack days, skinny girls didn't get any run. It was he thick chicks that had the spotlight and brought Captain Kirk whatever he needed.

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