Does anyone know why blondes are jokingly referred to as naturally dumb? And if so, how long has the concept been around?
Hi and welcome to the board.
I do not have a cite, sorry, but I have always took it as the “blondes have more fun” and are to busy with flirting/dateing to be concerned with education.
They are naturally pretty and do not need to be smart; they can use their looks to hookup with smart/rich guy.
Because they are too smart to pretend to be smart, being that their usual beauty going together with their blondness is enough to get along in life, and well.
Are blonds usually better looking than non-blonds, everything else being equal? That’s the picture. I seem to see more good-looking blonds than non-blonds. But then I must confess I have not really seen as much women or blonds as others might have. I am a one-woman man.
Susma Rio Sep
I’m gonna risk a guess, totally unsupported by anything.
It goes back to Hollywood, and the movies from the 1930’s or before.
Now is this Blondes of both sexes or just Blonde women?
The salacious reputation of blonde women stems from a law passed in ancient Roman times mandating that all prostitutes dye their hair blonde. To this day the mindset of “blondes have more fun” has persisted. As a blond man, I can verify the real life basis for this legend.
Blonde women aren’t statistically prettier than other women. They merely get noticed more because the vast majority of people are not blonde and therefore the blonde “sticks out” in a crowd.
Besides, the prettiest women are redheads.
and i quote…ahem…“Math is hard.”
Two words: Marilyn Monroe
I’m really too tired to search this anymore than what I did just now.
From The Soda Springs Sun, Soda Spring, Idaho, May2, 1940:
So Marilyn Monroe is out of the running.
If I feel energetic tomorrow, I’ll try to go back further.
Got any proof behind that Roman thing Zenster?
The classic dumb blonde was Lorelei Lee in Anita Loos’s 1925 comic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
Who is most likely to have naturally blond hair? A young person. Blond hair darkens or grays in adulthood. Hence, a blondness in a woman is associated with girlishness.
From The Decatur Daily Review, Decatur, IL. JUne 23, 1930
“…and a comedy, Deaf, Dumb, and Blonde.”
I wonder when they started to be able to hear?
Damn you, Walloon. I may have to stay up very late tonight. I didn’t need this.
umm, hello, prettiest women are brunettes!! (take a look at Brooke Burke :))
When i was watching the howard stern show, they had a game show that 3 playboy playmates participated in to get plugs for an upcoming event. There was one naturally born unmistakingly blonde, a brunette, and a brunettish-blond. The brunette, nonsurprisingly, got 2 points. The brunettish blonde: -1. The blonde: -4.
These arent the exact numbers, but they are close and relatively to the point: the blonde answered barely any questions right in comparison to the other.
“Prostitution”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911 ed.)
I’ve noticed that the women who best meet the stereotype of the “dumb blonde” are peroxide blondes. There’s something about women who will base their entire identity on “bleaching my hair so that I can get a man” that screams “idiot!”
Blondes were “dizzy” before they were “dumb.”
I can find an 1878 cite for “dizzy blond.”
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Theory:
Blondes are considered more attractive in our society, and thus can advance further with the same amount of brainpower, knowledge and competence than others can. Thus, one is more likely to encounter an incompetent blond person in a given position than an incompetent person with another hair color. Hence the stereotype.