We live in a world full of norms, conventions and exemplars, Which get deeply embedded in our minds in an almost automatic manner; without us even realising it or making an extra effort to slide it in our ever expanding memory banks. To give you an example; when you first read the topic of this blog something happened in your mind, something amazing, like a flicker of light illuminating a dark room ( by the way i consider every thought that erupts in our minds being a flicker of light, the brighter the light, the more impactful the thought), you had a thought! and your mind instantly realised that this is an oxymoron. How could a Blonde be Brainy?Aren't Blondes supposed to be dumb? isnt that what all Blonde jokes about? Here is where our preconceived notions and stereotypes come in. Lets go a little back in the history, the inception of this relation between a 'blonde' and dim-wittedness/lack of intelligence dates back to 1775, Where a French courtesan Who was Very Beautiful(as all Blondes are considered to be) but had developed a reputation of being less intelligent or having no or little common sense. what followed was her satirization in a play as a Blonde who never knew what to say or tok unusually long pauses which made her look stupid and dumb. There is another historical association with this theme: within the Roman empire all prostitutes were Blondes or had golden hair. And the ones which were not, went on to dye their hair to look blonde. There is even some radical examples in the Biblical writings, where eve for example was seen as a women with blonde hair tempting Adam. Moreover, there is a huge bias in the Artists who portray Virgin mary, the Mother of Jesus as having dark hair.
But even then, how could such a stereotype prevail so long in our societies? the answer comes from the early 1900 novels,cinema and television advertisements where once again blondes were showcased as desirable and beautiful but not the most intelligent. One of these novels was the famous anita Loo's Gentlemen prefer Blondes. The actress that later were portrayed as blondes in these movies included Marilyn Monroe, judy holliday, Goldie hawn etc. again all of them blondes! Not to mention the enormously popular Blonde jokes that have been circulating for so long that they have further perpetuated the idea and the stereotype (some of them are truly hilarious!).
Now we all know these stereotypes arise inside societies and are a result of popular culture, but could there be actual proof that women with Blonde hair are indeed less intelligent than women with lets say dark hair or no hair at all?
Well, the research is pretty fuzzy. First of all intelligence is a highly general characteristic trait and to measure it is like trying to measure depth of an ocean by throwing a stone in it. Nevertheless, in some studies researchers have tried to find out the link between blonde hair and intelligence. In a survey of 120 people(60 men, 60 women) who were shown the same female model once wearing a brown hair wig and once with a blonde hair wig voted on an average the women with blonde wig as less intelligent.
Another theory that has been floating around for quite a time now has been about how blonde hair color is more prevalent among kids and is thus considered to be sign for youthfulness and a signal for naivety, hence instead of answering the question of intelligence of a person based on their capabilities, our brain substitutes the question and answers a simple one by just looking at the appearance of the person and considering him/her intelligent or not based on their looks (blondes are automatically considered to be less intelligent in this case). There is some bizarre studies also suggesting that men who were exposed to pictures of blonde women performed worse on the intelligence and knowledge based tasks than men who were not shown those pictures.
What remains to be studies is that: is being blonde a criteria enough for someone to achieve a high enough post at a job (we all know that people at higher posts are not always the most intelligent but still..) for example in a study spanning 500 CEOs across UK showed that only 5 men out of those 500 were having Blonde hair that constitutes to a meagre 1%. Furthermore, in a study where the HR department was given a choice to pick one of two women one of which had blonde hair and the other had dark hair, they were predisposed to choose the women with dark hair for the position even though the two women had similar skills required for the post. Where, thus is a genetic component in all this ?well there is none it seems! And even if one is found, we still do not have enough information in our hands to classify intelligence itself as a genetic trait as there is huge nature v/s nurture debate that is prevalent across this area of research. Hence, biologically the 'dumb blonde' phrase seems not to be valid as far the current research goes. But still the idea prevails in the society and can seem to have serious ramifications when it comes to giving equal opportunity to people.
Even history has shown time and again that this stereotype has been futile if anything at all. Still there are some movies like legally blonde(2001), which have tried to fight this stereotype but sadly to no avail. They could not change the public's perception.
Finally, the whole point why this thought transpired in my head was because of the fact i saw the trailer of movie Lucy(2014) which stars Scarlett Johansson(ScaJo) as a blonde woman who has been infested with a bag of some magical drugs that can increase the usage of a mind from 10%(average) to 100%. Now the whole concept of using 10% or 20% or for that matter 100% of your brain power is nothing less than a fictitious idea (One that would probably requires a whole book and not a Blog, but thats for sometime else!). Still, here is one more example of a blonde who single handedly takes on the world, and the people who set her up for this, while living the unique experience of seeing the world in different and in a more deeper way than what usually an average human mind sees. Maybe it was a conscious decision by the directors of the movie to cast a blond woman in the role and say 'look here is a blonde who is more intelligent and smart than a whole country put together (a country not of hippies obviously!oops there goes another stereotype)' or maybe it was just chance that they did'nt realise but they were helping destroy a long held stereotype in the society. Any of which way this is immensely fascinating.
I am awaiting for the the movie, are you? And dont forget to ask yourself a question when ScaJo comes with a different coloured hair in the middle of the movie that which one of them seemed more Brainy?
Thanks for reading!
And as always: Stay Curious!
But even then, how could such a stereotype prevail so long in our societies? the answer comes from the early 1900 novels,cinema and television advertisements where once again blondes were showcased as desirable and beautiful but not the most intelligent. One of these novels was the famous anita Loo's Gentlemen prefer Blondes. The actress that later were portrayed as blondes in these movies included Marilyn Monroe, judy holliday, Goldie hawn etc. again all of them blondes! Not to mention the enormously popular Blonde jokes that have been circulating for so long that they have further perpetuated the idea and the stereotype (some of them are truly hilarious!).
Now we all know these stereotypes arise inside societies and are a result of popular culture, but could there be actual proof that women with Blonde hair are indeed less intelligent than women with lets say dark hair or no hair at all?
Well, the research is pretty fuzzy. First of all intelligence is a highly general characteristic trait and to measure it is like trying to measure depth of an ocean by throwing a stone in it. Nevertheless, in some studies researchers have tried to find out the link between blonde hair and intelligence. In a survey of 120 people(60 men, 60 women) who were shown the same female model once wearing a brown hair wig and once with a blonde hair wig voted on an average the women with blonde wig as less intelligent.
Another theory that has been floating around for quite a time now has been about how blonde hair color is more prevalent among kids and is thus considered to be sign for youthfulness and a signal for naivety, hence instead of answering the question of intelligence of a person based on their capabilities, our brain substitutes the question and answers a simple one by just looking at the appearance of the person and considering him/her intelligent or not based on their looks (blondes are automatically considered to be less intelligent in this case). There is some bizarre studies also suggesting that men who were exposed to pictures of blonde women performed worse on the intelligence and knowledge based tasks than men who were not shown those pictures.
What remains to be studies is that: is being blonde a criteria enough for someone to achieve a high enough post at a job (we all know that people at higher posts are not always the most intelligent but still..) for example in a study spanning 500 CEOs across UK showed that only 5 men out of those 500 were having Blonde hair that constitutes to a meagre 1%. Furthermore, in a study where the HR department was given a choice to pick one of two women one of which had blonde hair and the other had dark hair, they were predisposed to choose the women with dark hair for the position even though the two women had similar skills required for the post. Where, thus is a genetic component in all this ?well there is none it seems! And even if one is found, we still do not have enough information in our hands to classify intelligence itself as a genetic trait as there is huge nature v/s nurture debate that is prevalent across this area of research. Hence, biologically the 'dumb blonde' phrase seems not to be valid as far the current research goes. But still the idea prevails in the society and can seem to have serious ramifications when it comes to giving equal opportunity to people.
Even history has shown time and again that this stereotype has been futile if anything at all. Still there are some movies like legally blonde(2001), which have tried to fight this stereotype but sadly to no avail. They could not change the public's perception.
Finally, the whole point why this thought transpired in my head was because of the fact i saw the trailer of movie Lucy(2014) which stars Scarlett Johansson(ScaJo) as a blonde woman who has been infested with a bag of some magical drugs that can increase the usage of a mind from 10%(average) to 100%. Now the whole concept of using 10% or 20% or for that matter 100% of your brain power is nothing less than a fictitious idea (One that would probably requires a whole book and not a Blog, but thats for sometime else!). Still, here is one more example of a blonde who single handedly takes on the world, and the people who set her up for this, while living the unique experience of seeing the world in different and in a more deeper way than what usually an average human mind sees. Maybe it was a conscious decision by the directors of the movie to cast a blond woman in the role and say 'look here is a blonde who is more intelligent and smart than a whole country put together (a country not of hippies obviously!oops there goes another stereotype)' or maybe it was just chance that they did'nt realise but they were helping destroy a long held stereotype in the society. Any of which way this is immensely fascinating.
I am awaiting for the the movie, are you? And dont forget to ask yourself a question when ScaJo comes with a different coloured hair in the middle of the movie that which one of them seemed more Brainy?
Thanks for reading!
And as always: Stay Curious!
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