Download - Blonde Hair
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THE NEW BLONDE BOMSHELL
October 21, 2009 Volume VIIDo blondes have more fun?
Women certainly assume so, for while only one in six is a natural blonde, almost
half of all women lighten their hair in some way or another.
Peroxide was discovered in 1818. Two centuries
on, most blondes get a little help from the bottle.
Last year they spent over 100 million poundsterling
on hair dye - and that doesn’t include what they
pay at the hairdresser to help to emulate blonde role
models such as
Britney Spears,
Sharon Stone and
Gwyneth Paltrow.
In fact many of
these golden-haired
icons are not natural
blondes either. Even
Marilyn Monroe started out as a frackle-faced
brunette with medium skin tone. She wore pale
make-up and dyed her hair platinum. So what is the
mystery magnet that draws women to becoming
blonde? It must be strong, because even today
across all races - not just white westerners - when
people are asked to rate others for “attractiveness”,
they usually opt for those with lighter hair and skin.
You only have to check out the TV commercials
around the world to see how important the image of
the blonde has become.
Until recently, being blonde or burnette was
reckoned to be merely a matter of fashion. But
something much deeper is driving our reactions to
hair color. In fact, it turns out, being blonde,
whether natural or “fake”, may not do women any
good at all.
Recent research conducted by, among others, Diana
Kayle at California State University reveals -
amazingly - that while being blonde may boost
your social life, it may also damage your career
prospects. Blonde females are rejected more often
than equally-qualified brunettes. And where
blondes and brunettes are given similar jobs, the
darker-haired applicants are awarded higher
salaries. It seems hardly credible that such
changeable features as hair color could so influence
recruitment decisions, but the research findings are
unequivocal.
So what lies behind this remarkable bias? One
theory is that blond hair gives the appearance of
youth. This is because people have lighter hair and
skin when they are children than when they get
older. So blonde people are treated (unconsciously
- we are not aware we are doing it) as if they were
less intelligent,
more naive, more
vulnerable, less
mature and less
capable.
Brian Bates
did an
experiment
for a BBC television program.Business students are given CVs for six job
applicants. There were photos attached. Some of
the candidates had brown hair, some others were
blonde.
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when they were
asked whether the
photos had affected
their choices, the
business students
were convinced that
hair color had not
influenced them.
“The picture, for
me, didn’t play a
major part,” said
one. “I made a
studious attempt to
ignore the
appearance of the
applicants, said
another. “I focused primarily on the CV,” insisted a
third.
But the result revealed a different story. While had
appointed the blondes and the brunettes almost
equally the job, they had awarded the brunettes a
huger salary.
Under close questioning, they revealed that the
blonde stereotype had indeed affected their
judgment. ”The woman with blonde hair is more a
wannabe - I would think she is probably an
experienced secretary or something,” confessed one.
“She looks like a PA rather than a midle manager,”
said another. “The brunette does look more like one
would imagine a middle manager would look.”
Men tend to rate blondes as more feminine but less
intelligent than brunettes. Studies in Ireland confirm
that men rated blonde females as of significantly
lower intelligence than brunettes and in America,
job applicants were rated as less capable and
assigned a lower salary than brunettes. In other
words, blondes are seen as attractive, but dumb.
All blondes, but are they real
blondes?
Taken from Just Reading and Writing,2005. p.61