POLL: Blondes?

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I'm not a blonde, a lot of my friends are though.

Poll Information
This poll contains 3 question(s). 64 user(s) have voted.
You may not view the results of this poll without voting.

Poll Results: Blondes? (64 votes.)

Do blondes have more fun? (Choose 9)
* Yes of course. - 13% (8)
* No Teeny, you twit. - 25% (16)
* I don't know. - 19% (12)
* I don't care. - 27% (17)
* I don't want to know. - 11% (7)
* I am a blonde and i do have more fun. - 8% (5)
* I am a blonde and my life is hell. - 6% (4)
* I am not a blonde. - 27% (17)
* Teeny, are you a blonde? You're certainly stupid enough. - 25% (16)

Are blondes stupid? (Choose 1)
* Yes, really stupid. - 9% (6)
* Yes, a bit. - 9% (6)
* No, not at all. - 30% (19)
* I'm a blonde and i took millions of A Levels and passed - 11% (7)
* I'm a blonde and I took millions of A Levels and failed - 3% (2)
* I'm not blonde - 2% (1)
* I don't know - 2% (1)
* I don't care - 14% (9)
* Teeny is anyway, even if blondes aren't - 20% (13)

Would you ever dye your hair blonde? (Choose 1)
* Yes. - 5% (3)
* No. - 31% (20)
* Only for a dare/joke. - 9% (6)
* Only to get a girl/boy. - 5% (3)
* Only to get a job. - 2% (1)
* Never. - 20% (13)
* I am blonde. - 16% (10)
* I don't know. - 2% (1)
* I don't care. - 11% (7)

 

Most blondes girls that I know, if they go outside when the wind is blowing, their heads whistle.

 

Hey, I'm a blonde... well, under all the black dye, that is.

No, I am not ashamed of being blonde... blonde just doesn't go with my style.

Ara
(Nerdhippiegothpunkrocker)

 

Teeny I'm a blonde MALE and yes I do have more fun then my friends. I'm 12 and I've taken GCE in three languadges and passed. So dont get this smart blondes are so stupid **** coz it's realy anoying. Since I am a blonde I would have to say "I am a blonde".
And just coz my grammar is **** doesnt mean I'm stupid.

Padeen.

 

Er, Ara, "Nerdhippiegothpunkrocker".

Don't want to sound rude but Nerds hate punk rockers (remember the mods vs the rockers) and vice versa, hippies hate nothing, and goths (the ones i know hate most stuff).

Metal all the way.

Oh yeah, something on topic, blondes are kewl, especially if they look like Jenna Jameson.
Not too sure about whether they have more fun etc.

 

I do not care about the hair color. You can say that women are more stupid than men, it is the same.

Ezellohar
(Don't you even dare to say that)

 

Nah, not all blondes are dumb, I know a couple of very smart blonde girls.

 

In my experience, natural blondes are no more stupid than anyone else.

My current GF and my ex are both blondes, and they are both pretty damned clever as it goes. Even my mum (natural blonde) has a Masters in Micro biology.

I think the stereotypical stupid blondes do exist, but generally out of a bottle. I'd say you're more likely to meet a stupid blonde if it's peroxide than if it's natural.

And yes, of course they all have more fun, they are (or were) with me

 

I used to be blonde...

 

In the little bit of experience I've had, hair color doesn't do all that much. Although, there is a little bit of "truth" to the red-head thing.

I would say geography does a lot more than hair color. All the French chicks I've ever known were fairly......un-inhibited.

[ October 08, 2002, 20:05: Message edited by: ejsmith ]

 

I'm a blond, and I have an 84% average, whereas most people my age, in this area, have about a 60% average!

 

I have red hair and I am really happy that I dont have blonde hair. I dont know but I dont really like it. I often joke about blondes and both my mom and my sister are blonds. Some of the girls I hand out with have blonde hair too.
About the redhead thingy...
It is true
I have a very bad temper and I dont give up after the first try. I know several people with red hair that can get really mad...

 

Well there are some studies that indicate blonde women are more sexually attractive to men, and that they are considered less intelligent and therefore make less money. Like this one:

__________________________________________________

The new blonde bombshell

Recent research suggests that having fair hair can seriously damage a woman's career. Psychologist Brian Bates puts it to the test

Sunday July 29, 2001
The Observer

Do blondes have more fun? Women certainly assume so, for while only one in six is a natural blonde, almost half of women lighten their hair.
Peroxide was discovered in 1818. Two centuries on, most blondes get a little help from the bottle. Last year they spent over £100 million on hair dye - and that doesn't include what they pay at the hairdressers 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 freckle-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?

Until recently, being blonde or brunette was reckoned to be merely a matter of fashion. But something much deeper is driving our reactions to hair colour. Recent research conducted by, among others, Diana Kyle at California State University reveals - amazingly - that while being blonde may boost your social life, it can also damage your career prospects. Blonde females are rejected for jobs 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 a changeable feature as hair colour could so influence recruitment decisions but the research findings seem unequivocal.

Certainly recruiters are not aware they are making such biased choices. In a study I did at the London Business School for the BBC television programme 4x4 , MBA students, the bosses of the future, were given six CVs with photos attached, and a job description. They were asked to assess six candidates for a managerial job.

There was one catch. I gave half of them a female candidate with blonde hair. The other half had exactly the same candidate, but this time she was a brunette. I wanted to see if they evaluated her differently.

When they had made their choices, the MBA students were asked whether the photos had affected their choices. They were convinced that hair colour had not affected their decision-making process. '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 results reveal a different story. While they had appointed the blonde and brunette almost equally to the job, they had awarded the brunette a higher salary.

Under closer questioning, the MBA students revealed that the blonde stereotype had indeed affected their judgement. 'The woman with blonde hair is more of a wannabe - I would think she is probably an experienced secretary or something,' confessed one. 'She looks like a PA rather than a middle manager,' said another. 'The brunette does look more like one would imagine a middle-manager would look.'

So what lies behind this remarkable bias? We know that women are judged on their appearance more than men. And scientific surveys, which recently formed the basis of an academic paper by distinguished neuropsychologist V.S. Ramachandran, show that men generally find blondes more feminine and more attractive sexually. Why? Because blonde hair is a sexual signal. It attracts light, and attention, to the woman.

But just as blonde hair draws attention to a woman's femininity, it makes it more difficult for them to thrive in jobs that are thought to require masculine skills and talents. Male managers often take this view, without realising why. Some managers feel that 'fake' blondes may be seen as too concerned with their personal appearance and therefore not serious at work. Yet no such bias seems to work against 'fake' brunettes.

In fact, scientists now reckon that the real reasons lie deeper in our evolutionary history. And at the heart of it is the stereotype of the dumb blonde - a stereotype that is still alive and kicking. Basically, men rate blondes as more feminine but less intelligent than brunettes. Studies in Ireland confirmed that men rated blonde females as of significantly lower intelligence than brunettes, and in America blonde job applicants were rated as less capable, and assigned a lower salary, than brunettes. In other words, blondes are seen as sexy but dumb.

So where does this stereotype come from? It turns out that the image of the dumb blonde is not just decades old in Hollywood, it may stretch back aeons, to Stone Age times.

Blonde 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 are less intelligent, more naïve, more vulnerable, less mature and less capable. For women, this translates into 'dumb blondes'.

While this factor is less relevant today, it was important in our distant past. Then, say the scientists, in an age before scientific medicine, health was at a premium. In Stone Age times men were attracted to women who would be fertile and give birth to healthy babies. And that meant young women.

Light hair was associated with being young and so, for evolutionary reasons beneath the level of conscious awareness, in choosing sexual partners, blonde was best. Also, we made judgements about a person's health based on the condition of their hair and skin - and light skin and blonde hair are easier to 'read' for signs of health.

Even today, across all races, when people are asked to rate others for 'attractiveness', they usually opt for those with lighter hair and skin. Images of the virgin are still likely to be blonde - but also so are those of the tart.

But young also means less experienced, and less knowledgable. In fact, naïve. And that is why the association of blonde with young carries the notion of being 'dumb'. But tests show that there is no difference in intelligence between blonde and brunette people. Surely in this enlightened age, such outmoded stereotypes based on mere hair colour should no longer affect our recruiting strategies?

The trouble is, these patterns of thinking and behaving are wired into our brains beneath our conscious awareness. When we see someone, our brain makes an automatic judgement. Often this will be in accord with 'default programmes' wired into our psyches many thousands of years ago in our evolutionary history. Cultural factors can change the ways we express such built-in biases. But as long as we are unaware of the inherited shortcuts in our thought processes, they often override more rational judgement.

There is one final factor which may go even further in understanding our responses to blondes. When people are asked to rate various personality traits of people they tend to judge blondes as weaker and more submissive.

This may be deeper than a stereotype. American psychologist Jerome Kagan has investigated differences in temperament between blue- and brown-eyed infants and young children. He has discovered that children with blue eyes are far more likely to be shy and inhibited that dark-eyed children. Brown-eyed children are naturally bolder. He speculates that the genes for blonde hair, blue eyes and shyness, may be a common biological package.

This may help explain why we think of blondes as vulnerable and innocent. But whether it explains why they have more fun, but earn lower salaries, we can only speculate.

Brian Bates is professor of psychology at the University of Brighton. The 4x4 programme on blondes is broadcast on BBC1, tomorrow at 7.30pm

 

My friend is blonde, she sits beside me in French class and she gets straight A's.

 

I'm a blonde, and I used to have lots of fun...Now it's long periods of boredom interrupted by short bursts of crazy funliness!!!

 

Me blonde. Not stoopid. Like hair, hair good. Want... beer...

 

Hair color doesn't matter, for attractiveness, intelligence or anything else. It depends purely on the personality of the possessor or beholder.

That said, it's true that blonde women generally have a harder time in the business world, just as shorter people do. It's merely stereotyping that many of us are working to change.

 

Rastor, did you steal my whole life philosophy or what?

Good answer, I wholeheartedly agree.

 

I never thought my hair colour held me back! An image consultant told me I should dye my hair brunette to look more "professional", so I tried it, and was shocked by how old and tired I looked. I could only bear it a few months and then it was back to blonde for me. No one has ever, in all my life, called me dumb. Other criticisms have been levelled, certainly, just not of my intelligence. In the office, I am generally considered a bit of a dragon and I'm the person everyone turns to when they need help solving a problem. Blonde roots and all!

I'd be interested to hear just what the blonde woman whose photograph was used in the study looked like. I would bet that there were more differences compared with the brunette than mere hair colour.

 

Sprite, the article above isn't the start of the evidence that blondes are, on average, paid less. One of the initial studies was done in Reykjavik and determined:

There are other studies that have been done subsequently, the author above just chose to do his own study as a basis to write the article.

Here are the findings of one of the studies:

http://www.arabia.com/life/article/english/0,11827,39743,00.html