I recently had my hair colored. My usual blonde with a slightly darker low light. I signed up to be blonde about eight year’s ago as I was sick of my gray and wanted to get it covered up. I have been everything from jet black, to brunette to a red head. My real hair color is somewhere between brown and red, a sort of auburn – I honestly cannot remember! I am now stuck in my comfort zone of being blonde and am too scared to change it again. The older I get the more adverse to change I am.While having my hair done my hairdresser, who has gorgeous long dark naturally curly hair kept commenting about how men prefer blondes and blondes have more fun and she really wished she had the nerve to do it. Hmm… is this really true?
It reminded me of a really interesting show on the Sundance channel I watched some time ago called “Blonde Mystique”, which was all about the obsession with blondes. Do they really have more fun? Why are men so obsessed with blondes? Why have women for decades aspired to being blonde? Why are they always the heroines in movies? What is it with the stereotypes? Do you know in the 16th century women used to try and dye their hair blonde with arsenic! This mystique has been going on for centuries.
They did this test with three women… a blonde, a brunette and a woman with curly black hair. The test asked the women to stand by a broken down car on the highway to see if anyone stops to help them. It was fascinating – cars stopped for the blonde 10 times, literally, more than the two dark haired women. When men did stop for the dark haired women they asked them a lot of technical questions about the car and gave suggestions on how to fix it. They didn’t ask the blonde anything at all – obviously thinking she is not the smartest – they just tried to fix it for her.
Here’s the thing, I don’t think I have ever had more fun being blonde or people have tried to help me more. I would say it is about the same as any other hair color, at least for me. Or maybe I just think about it too much? I really can’t play it dumb so that someone will help me and solve my problems – I think you have to be a certain type of person for that anyway.
I did used to think being blonde made me look a bit younger – not so much now. This brings me to another experiment they did… both the dark haired women got their ages guessed about right and the blonde was guessed everything from five to 11 years younger – fascinating! Maybe, I should try and play up the blonde a little more. Is that really bad and anti-feminist?
So, ultimately “do blondes have more fun?” Thoughts?
