Post 4: Busting the myth

How many times have you come across blonde women being portrayed as dumb in the media through

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Click here to watch - "Finally, the reason for blonde jokes"

Everyone knows this stereotype exists but where did this whole "dumb blonde" idea come from? 

One theory is that in the Middle Ages, while the lords and ladies shaded their delicate features, common people worked outdoors in the fields and became tanned and their hair grew lighter. As the lower classes didn't usually have a formal education, tan skin and blonde hair became associated with unintelligent, lower class people.

The original dumb blonde, by most accounts, was the childlike gold-digger Lorelei Lee, the protagonist in Anita Loos' 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Lorelei's motto: "A girl with brains ought to do something else with them besides think."

Since then, blondes have been the target of widespread and paradoxical ridicule and bad jokes. (Did you hear about the blonde who spent 20 minutes staring at an orange juice can? It said "concentrate.")

The color of one's hair is determined by either a gene, or a choice to make a chemical alteration to the color. Does that one gene, or whatever gene we have that makes blondes gravitate toward blonde-ness also affect intellectual capacity? Genetically, it doesn't appear to be that way.

And a quick side note--why is it that when people hear "blonde" or "brunette" or "redhead" they envision women? Why aren’t men ever the victims of such stereotypes?

Bottom line: dumb people are dumb because they are dumb, not because of the color of their hair.