Blond
Encyclopedia
Blond or blonde or fair-hair is a hair color characterized by low levels of the dark pigment
eumelanin
. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellow
ish color. The color can be from the very pale blond (caused by a patchy, scarce distribution of pigment) to reddish "strawberry" blond colors or golden-brownish ("sandy") blond colors (the latter with more eumelanin). On the Fischer–Saller scale
blond color ranges from A to J (blond brown).
". It gradually eclipses the native term "fair", of same meaning, from Old English fæġer, to become the general term for "light complexioned". The French (and thus also the English) word "blond" has two possible origins. Some linguists say it comes from Medieval Latin
blundus, meaning "yellow", from Old Frankish
*blund which would relate it to Old English blonden-feax meaning "grey-haired", from blondan/blandan meaning "to mix" (Cf. blend). Also, Old English beblonden meant "dyed" as ancient Germanic
warriors were noted for dying their hair.
However, other linguists who favor a Latin origin for the word say that Medieval Latin blundus was a vulgar pronunciation of Latin flavus, also meaning yellow. Most authorities, especially French, attest the Frankish origin. The word was reintroduced into English in the 17th century from French, and was for some time considered French; in French, "blonde" is a feminine adjective; it describes a woman with blond hair.
"Blond" and "blonde", with its continued gender-varied usage, is one of few adjectives in written English to retain separate masculine and feminine grammatical genders
. Each of the two forms, however, is pronounced the same way. American Heritage
's Book of English Usage propounds that, insofar as "a blonde" can be used to describe a woman but not a man who is merely said to possess blond(e) hair, the term is an example of a "sexist
stereotype [whereby] women are primarily defined by their physical characteristics." The Oxford English Dictionary
records that the phrase "big blond beast" was used in the 20th century to refer specifically to men "of the Nordic type" (that is to say, blond-haired). Particularly this had associations with Friedrich Nietzsche
's Übermensch
. The OED also records that blond as an adjective is especially used with reference to women, in which case it is likely to be spelt "blonde", citing three Victorian usages of the term. The masculine version is used to describe a plural, in "blonds of the European race", in a citation from 1833 Penny cyclopedia, which distinguishes genuine blondness as a Caucasian
feature distinct from albinism
. By the early 1990s, "blonde moment" or being a "dumb blonde" had come into common parlance to mean "an instance of a person, esp. a woman... being foolish or scatter-brained." Another hair color word of French origin, brunet(te)
, also functions in the same way in orthodox English. The OED gives "brunet" as meaning "dark-complexioned" or a "dark-complexioned person", citing a comparative usage of brunet and blond to Thomas Henry Huxley in saying, "The present contrast of blonds and brunets existed among them". "Brunette" can be used, however, like "blonde", to describe a mixed-gender populace. The OED quotes Grant Allen
, "The nation which resulted..being sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette."
"Blond" and "blonde" are also occasionally used to refer to objects that have a color reminiscent of fair hair. Examples include pale wood and lager
beer
. For example, the OED records its use in 19th century poetic diction
to describe flowers, "a variety of clay ironstone of the coal measures", "the colour of raw silk", and a breed of ray
.
has at least seven variants in Europe giving the continent a wide range of hair and eye shades. Based on recent genetic research
carried out at three Japanese universities, the date of the genetic mutation
that resulted in blond hair in Europe has been isolated to about 11,000 years ago during the last ice age.
A typical explanation found in the scientific literature for the evolution of light hair is related to the requirement for vitamin D
synthesis and northern Europe's seasonal deficiency of sunlight. Lighter skin is due to a low concentration in pigmentation, thus allowing more sunlight to trigger the production of vitamin D. In this way, high frequencies of light hair in northern latitudes are a result of the light skin adaptation to lower levels of sunlight, which reduces the prevalence of rickets
caused by vitamin D deficiency. The darker pigmentation at higher latitudes in certain ethnic groups such as the Inuit
is explained by a greater proportion of seafood in their diet. As seafood is high in vitamin D, vitamin D deficiency would not create a selective pressure for lighter pigmentation in that population.
An alternative hypothesis was presented by Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost
, under the aegis of University of St Andrews
, who published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior
. Frost said blond hair evolved very quickly in a specific area at the end of the last ice age by means of sexual selection
. According to the study, the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males. The study argues that blond hair was produced higher in the Cro-Magnon
descended population of the European region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago following the last glacial period when most of it was covered by steppe-tundra
. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses and finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. This hypothesis argues that women with blond hair posed an alternative that helped them mate and thus increased the number of blonds.
A theory propounded in The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994), says blond hair became predominant in Northern Europe beginning about 3,000 BC, in the area now known as Lithuania, among the recently arrived Proto-Indo-European
settlers (according to the Kurgan hypothesis
), and the trait spread quickly through sexual selection
into Scandinavia. As above, the theory assumes that men found women with blond hair more attractive.
. The pigmentation of both hair and eyes is lightest around the Baltic Sea
and their darkness increases regularly and almost concentrically around this region. A 2009 study found that light hair colors were already present in southern Siberia
during the Bronze Age
. Due to migration from Europe
from the 16th to the 20th centuries, blonds are also found all around the world such as in North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa etc.
Generally, blond hair in Europeans is associated with lighter eye color
(gray, blue, green and hazel) and light (sometimes freckled) skin tone. Strong sunlight also, on some people but not all, lightens hair of any pigmentation, to varying degrees, and causes many blond people to freckle, especially during childhood.
In Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia
, there is also a low frequency of natural blonds found among some ethnic populations. In Pakistan, the Kalash tribe mostly have blond hair. In Afghanistan, blonds are particularly found among the Tajik (10% blond, especially in the Pamir
region), Nuristani people (related to the Kalash) who have a blond hair frequency of one in three. Blonde hair color can naturally occur even among other people from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan; this group includes Khowar people, Pashtuns, Kashmiris
, Shina people
, Burusho, and descendants of European colonists (the latter found in Goa
, Pondicherry).
Blonds are also found in Turkey
, especially in the northern (Caucasus
) and western (European) parts of the country. Blonds are also found in parts of southwest and northern Iran
, especially in the Caspian and Caucasus provinces. Blonds are also found in the Levant
, Israel (especially among the Ashkenazi
), in western Syria, in northern Iraq, and in the Palestinian territories
. Jordan and Lebanon have a frequency of blonds as well. Blond hair is also a common sight among Berbers
of North Africa, especially in the Rif
and Kabyle
region and also among Maghreb
Arabs of Berber descent
.
Aboriginal Australians
, especially in the west-central parts of the continent, have a high frequency of natural blond-to-brown hair, with as many as 90–100% of children having blond hair in some areas. The trait among Indigenous Australians is primarily associated with children. In maturity the hair usually turns a darker brown color, but sometimes remains blond. Blondness is also found in some other parts of the South Pacific, such as the Solomon Islands
, Vanuatu
, and Fiji
, again with higher incidences in children. Blondness was also reported among indigenous peoples in South America known as Cloud People or Chachapoyas. There can be blond hair among Peruvian mestizos of mixed Cloud People and Spanish and/or other European descent.
infants and children, so much so that the term "baby blond" is often used for very light colored hair. Babies may be born with blond hair even among groups where adults rarely have blond hair although such natural hair usually falls out quickly. Blond hair tends to turn darker with age, and many children's blond hair turns light, medium, dark brown or black before or during their adult years.
was described as having a blue-black beard, and Zeus
blue-black eyebrows, Pindar
described Athena
as fair-haired, and Pheidas described her as golden-haired. Hera
, Apollo
and Aphrodite
were also described as blonds. Pindar
collectively described the Homeric Danaans of the time of the war between Argos and Thebes as fair-haired. The Sparta
ns are described as fair-haired by Bacchylides
. In the work of Homer
, Menelaus
the king of the Spartans is, together with other Achaean leaders, portrayed as blond. Although dark hair colours were predominant in the works of Homer, there is only one case of a dark hero, and that is when the blond Odysseus
is transformed by Athena and his beard becomes blue-black. Other blond characters in Homer are Peleus
, Achilles
, Meleager
, Agamede
, and Rhadamanthys.
According to Francis Owens Roman
literary records describe a very large number of well-known Roman historical personalities as blond. In addition, 250 individuals are recorded to have had the name Flavius, meaning blond, and there are many named Rufus
and Rutilius, meaning red hair
ed and reddish-haired, respectively. The following Roman gods are said to have had blond hair: Amor
, Apollo
, Aurora
, Bacchus
, Ceres, Diana
, Jupiter
, Mars
, Mercury
, Minerva
and Venus
. For example, the physical appearance of Emperor Nero
, descended from an aristocratic family, is by the historian Suetonius
described as: "... his hair light blond,... his eyes blue..."
According to Victoria Sherrow, Romans preferred to dye their hair dark in the early period of Ancient Rome
; at one point in time blond hair was even associated with prostitutes. The preference changed to bleaching the hair blond when Greek culture, which practiced bleaching, reached Rome
, and was reinforced when the legions that conquered Gaul
returned with blond slaves.
In Norse mythology
, the goddess Sif
has famously blonde hair, which some scholars have identified as representing golden wheat
. In the Poetic Edda
poem Rígsþula, the blond man Jarl is considered to be the ancestor of the dominant warrior class.
In Northern European folklore
, supernatural beings value blonde hair in humans. Blonde babies are more likely to be stolen and replaced with changeling
s, and young blonde women are more likely to be lured away to the land of the beings. Elves
and fairies
were often portrayed with blond hair in illustrations in children's book of fairy tales. This continues the theme that blond hair is associated with beauty and goodness.
' Don Quixote, the ideal beauty is Dulcinea
whose "hairs are gold"; in Milton
's poem Paradise Lost
the noble and innocent Adam and Eve
have "golden tresses", the protagonist-womanizer in Guy de Maupassant
's novel Bel Ami
who "recalled the hero of the popular romances" has "slightly reddish chestnut blond hair", while near the end of J. R. R. Tolkien
's work The Lord of the Rings
, the especially favorable year following the War of the Ring
was signified in the Shire by an exceptional number of blonde-haired children.
popularized this idea in her 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
. Blondes are often assumed to have more fun, for example in a Clairol
commercial for hair colorant they use the phrase "Is it true blondes have more fun?" Some women have reported after lightening their hair they feel other people expect them to be more fun-loving. The "blonde stereotype" is also associated with being less serious or less intelligent. This can be seen in blonde jokes. It is believed the originator of the "dumb blonde" was an 18th century blonde French prostitute named Rosalie Duthe
whose reputation of being beautiful but dumb inspired a play about her called Les Curiosites de la Foire (Paris 1775). Blonde actresses have supported this role; some of them include Marilyn Monroe
, Judy Holliday
, Jayne Mansfield
, and Goldie Hawn
during her time at Laugh-In. Alfred Hitchcock
preferred to cast blonde women for major roles in his films as he believed that the audience would suspect them the least, comparing them to "virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints", hence the term "Hitchcock blonde". This stereotype has become so ingrained it has spawned counter-narratives, such as in the 2001 film Legally Blonde
in which Reese Witherspoon
succeeds at Harvard despite biases against her beauty and blonde hair, and terms developed such as cookie cutter blond (CCB), implying standardized blond looks and standard perceived social and intelligence characteristics of a blond. Many actors and actresses in Mestizo America and Hispanic United States seem to have Nordic features—blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin
In science fiction, nordic aliens
are described as human-looking with blond hair and blue eyes, hence the name 'nordic'. They are benign, following the association of blond hair with beauty and goodness in European folklore and mythology.
Pigment
A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...
eumelanin
Melanin
Melanin is a pigment that is ubiquitous in nature, being found in most organisms . In animals melanin pigments are derivatives of the amino acid tyrosine. The most common form of biological melanin is eumelanin, a brown-black polymer of dihydroxyindole carboxylic acids, and their reduced forms...
. The resultant visible hue depends on various factors, but always has some sort of yellow
Yellow
Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green...
ish color. The color can be from the very pale blond (caused by a patchy, scarce distribution of pigment) to reddish "strawberry" blond colors or golden-brownish ("sandy") blond colors (the latter with more eumelanin). On the Fischer–Saller scale
Fischer–Saller scale
The Fischer-Saller Scale, named after Eugen Fischer and Karl Saller, is used in physical anthropology and medicine to determine the shades of hair color. The scale uses the following designations: A to G , H, J , K to V , W , X, Y and Roman numerals I to V and VI ....
blond color ranges from A to J (blond brown).
Etymology, spelling, and grammar
The word "blond" is first attested in English in 1481 and derives from Old French blund, blont meaning "a colour midway between golden and light chestnutChestnut hair
Chestnut hair is a hair color which is a reddish shade of brown hair. In contrast to auburn hair, the reddish shade of chestnut is darker. The chemical pigments that cause the coloration of chestnut hair are frequently brown eumelanin with stronger levels of pheomelanin....
". It gradually eclipses the native term "fair", of same meaning, from Old English fæġer, to become the general term for "light complexioned". The French (and thus also the English) word "blond" has two possible origins. Some linguists say it comes from Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
blundus, meaning "yellow", from Old Frankish
Old Frankish
Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...
*blund which would relate it to Old English blonden-feax meaning "grey-haired", from blondan/blandan meaning "to mix" (Cf. blend). Also, Old English beblonden meant "dyed" as ancient Germanic
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
warriors were noted for dying their hair.
However, other linguists who favor a Latin origin for the word say that Medieval Latin blundus was a vulgar pronunciation of Latin flavus, also meaning yellow. Most authorities, especially French, attest the Frankish origin. The word was reintroduced into English in the 17th century from French, and was for some time considered French; in French, "blonde" is a feminine adjective; it describes a woman with blond hair.
"Blond" and "blonde", with its continued gender-varied usage, is one of few adjectives in written English to retain separate masculine and feminine grammatical genders
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
. Each of the two forms, however, is pronounced the same way. American Heritage
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is an American dictionary of the English language published by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969...
's Book of English Usage propounds that, insofar as "a blonde" can be used to describe a woman but not a man who is merely said to possess blond(e) hair, the term is an example of a "sexist
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
stereotype [whereby] women are primarily defined by their physical characteristics." The Oxford English Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
records that the phrase "big blond beast" was used in the 20th century to refer specifically to men "of the Nordic type" (that is to say, blond-haired). Particularly this had associations with Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
's Übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
. The OED also records that blond as an adjective is especially used with reference to women, in which case it is likely to be spelt "blonde", citing three Victorian usages of the term. The masculine version is used to describe a plural, in "blonds of the European race", in a citation from 1833 Penny cyclopedia, which distinguishes genuine blondness as a Caucasian
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
feature distinct from albinism
Albinism
Albinism is a congenital disorder characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes due to absence or defect of an enzyme involved in the production of melanin...
. By the early 1990s, "blonde moment" or being a "dumb blonde" had come into common parlance to mean "an instance of a person, esp. a woman... being foolish or scatter-brained." Another hair color word of French origin, brunet(te)
Brown hair
Brown hair is the second most common human hair color.Brown hair varies from light brown to almost black hair. It is characterized by higher levels of the dark pigment eumelanin and lower levels of the pale pigment pheomelanin. Its strands are thicker than those of fair hair but not as much as...
, also functions in the same way in orthodox English. The OED gives "brunet" as meaning "dark-complexioned" or a "dark-complexioned person", citing a comparative usage of brunet and blond to Thomas Henry Huxley in saying, "The present contrast of blonds and brunets existed among them". "Brunette" can be used, however, like "blonde", to describe a mixed-gender populace. The OED quotes Grant Allen
Grant Allen
Charles Grant Blairfindie Allen was a science writer, author and novelist, and a successful upholder of the theory of evolution.-Biography:...
, "The nation which resulted..being sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette."
"Blond" and "blonde" are also occasionally used to refer to objects that have a color reminiscent of fair hair. Examples include pale wood and lager
Lager
Lager is a type of beer made from malted barley that is brewed and stored at low temperatures. There are many types of lager; pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world; Pilsner, Bock, Dortmunder Export and Märzen are all styles of lager...
beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
. For example, the OED records its use in 19th century poetic diction
Poetic diction
Poetic diction is the term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry. In the Western tradition, all these elements were thought of as properly different in poetry and prose up to the time of the Romantic revolution, when William...
to describe flowers, "a variety of clay ironstone of the coal measures", "the colour of raw silk", and a breed of ray
Batoidea
Batoidea is a superorder of cartilaginous fish commonly known as rays and skates, containing more than 500 described species in thirteen families...
.
Varieties
Many sub-categories of blond hair have also been defined to describe someone with blond hair more accurately. Common examples include the following:- blond/flaxen – when distinguished from other varieties, "blond" by itself refers to a light but not whitish blond with no traces of red, gold, or brown. This color is often described as "flaxen".
- yellow – yellow-blond ("yellow" can also be used to refer to hair which has been dyed yellow).
- platinum blond or towheaded – whitish-blond; almost all platinum blonds are children. "Platinum blond" is often used to describe bleached hair, while "towheaded" generally refers to natural hair color.
- sandy blond – greyish-hazel or cream-colored blond.
- golden blond – a darker to rich, golden-yellow blond.
- strawberry blond, Venetian blond or honey blond – a light or dark amberish golden blond.
- dirty blond or dishwater blond – dark blond with flecks of golden blond and brown.
- ash-blond – pale or grayish blond.
- bleached blond, bottle blond, or peroxide blond – artificial blond slightly less white than platinum blond.
Evolution of blond hair
Natural lighter hair colors occur most often in Europe and less frequently in other areas. In northern European populations, the occurrence of blond hair is very frequent. The hair color gene MC1RMelanocortin 1 receptor
The melanocortin 1 receptor , also known as melanocyte-stimulating hormone receptor , melanin-activating peptide receptor, or melanotropin receptor, is a G protein-coupled receptor which binds to a class of pituitary peptide hormones known as the melanocortins, of which include adrenocorticotropic...
has at least seven variants in Europe giving the continent a wide range of hair and eye shades. Based on recent genetic research
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
carried out at three Japanese universities, the date of the genetic mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
that resulted in blond hair in Europe has been isolated to about 11,000 years ago during the last ice age.
A typical explanation found in the scientific literature for the evolution of light hair is related to the requirement for vitamin D
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids. In humans, vitamin D is unique both because it functions as a prohormone and because the body can synthesize it when sun exposure is adequate ....
synthesis and northern Europe's seasonal deficiency of sunlight. Lighter skin is due to a low concentration in pigmentation, thus allowing more sunlight to trigger the production of vitamin D. In this way, high frequencies of light hair in northern latitudes are a result of the light skin adaptation to lower levels of sunlight, which reduces the prevalence of rickets
Rickets
Rickets is a softening of bones in children due to deficiency or impaired metabolism of vitamin D, magnesium , phosphorus or calcium, potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries...
caused by vitamin D deficiency. The darker pigmentation at higher latitudes in certain ethnic groups such as the Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
is explained by a greater proportion of seafood in their diet. As seafood is high in vitamin D, vitamin D deficiency would not create a selective pressure for lighter pigmentation in that population.
An alternative hypothesis was presented by Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost
Peter Frost (anthropologist)
Peter Frost is a Canadian anthropologist.He was awarded his Ph.D. from Université Laval in 1995.He is best known for hypotheses on the evolution of hair, eye and skin colors...
, under the aegis of University of St Andrews
University of St Andrews
The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...
, who published a study in March 2006 in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior
Evolution and Human Behavior
Evolution and Human Behavior is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research in which evolutionary perspectives are brought to bear on the study of human behavior. It is primarily a scientific journal, but articles from scholars in the humanities are also published...
. Frost said blond hair evolved very quickly in a specific area at the end of the last ice age by means of sexual selection
Sexual selection
Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is a significant element of his theory of natural selection...
. According to the study, the appearance of blond hair and blue eyes in some northern European women made them stand out from their rivals at a time of fierce competition for scarce males. The study argues that blond hair was produced higher in the Cro-Magnon
Cro-Magnon
The Cro-Magnon were the first early modern humans of the European Upper Paleolithic. The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiometrically dated to 35,000 years before present....
descended population of the European region because of food shortages 10,000-11,000 years ago following the last glacial period when most of it was covered by steppe-tundra
Steppe-tundra
Steppe-tundra is a very cold dry-climate vegetation type consisting of mostly treeless open herbaceous vegetation. it was widespread during Pleistocene times at mid-latitudes of North America and Eurasia. Steppe-tundra can be divided into two types...
. Almost the only sustenance in northern Europe came from roaming herds of mammoths, reindeer, bison and horses and finding them required long, arduous hunting trips in which numerous males died, leading to a high ratio of surviving women to men. This hypothesis argues that women with blond hair posed an alternative that helped them mate and thus increased the number of blonds.
A theory propounded in The History and Geography of Human Genes (1994), says blond hair became predominant in Northern Europe beginning about 3,000 BC, in the area now known as Lithuania, among the recently arrived Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-Europeans
The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...
settlers (according to the Kurgan hypothesis
Kurgan hypothesis
The Kurgan hypothesis is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language...
), and the trait spread quickly through sexual selection
Sexual selection in human evolution
Charles Darwin described sexual selection as depending "on the advantage which certain individuals have over others of the same sex and species solely in respect of reproduction". In animals, he saw the competition for advantage as occurring between males - the most successful of which were chosen...
into Scandinavia. As above, the theory assumes that men found women with blond hair more attractive.
Geographic distribution
Blond hair is most frequently found among the populations of Northern EuropeNorthern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
. The pigmentation of both hair and eyes is lightest around the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and their darkness increases regularly and almost concentrically around this region. A 2009 study found that light hair colors were already present in southern Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
during the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
. Due to migration from Europe
Emigration from Europe
Emigration from Europe began on a large scale during the European colonial empires of the 17th to 19th centuries. This concerns especially the Spanish Empire in the 16th to 17th centuries , the British Empire in the 18th to 19th centuries , the Portuguese Empire and the Russian Empire in the 19th...
from the 16th to the 20th centuries, blonds are also found all around the world such as in North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa etc.
Eye color
Eye color is a polygenic phenotypic character and is determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye's iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris....
(gray, blue, green and hazel) and light (sometimes freckled) skin tone. Strong sunlight also, on some people but not all, lightens hair of any pigmentation, to varying degrees, and causes many blond people to freckle, especially during childhood.
In Central Asia, the Middle East and South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
, there is also a low frequency of natural blonds found among some ethnic populations. In Pakistan, the Kalash tribe mostly have blond hair. In Afghanistan, blonds are particularly found among the Tajik (10% blond, especially in the Pamir
Pamir Mountains
The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Hindu Kush ranges. They are among the world’s highest mountains and since Victorian times they have been known as the "Roof of the World" a probable...
region), Nuristani people (related to the Kalash) who have a blond hair frequency of one in three. Blonde hair color can naturally occur even among other people from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan; this group includes Khowar people, Pashtuns, Kashmiris
Kashmiri people
The Kashmiri people are a Dardic linguistic group living in Kashmir Valley in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and parts of the Pakistani territory of Azad Kashmir who speak the Kashmiri language...
, Shina people
Shina people
The Shina are the Dardic people originating in southern Gilgit Baltistan and western part of Kohistan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, as well as Dras Valley and Gurais/ Kishenganga Valley region in northern Kashmir of India. They also live in some parts of Pakistani Kashmir....
, Burusho, and descendants of European colonists (the latter found in Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
, Pondicherry).
Blonds are also found in Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, especially in the northern (Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
) and western (European) parts of the country. Blonds are also found in parts of southwest and northern Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, especially in the Caspian and Caucasus provinces. Blonds are also found in the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
, Israel (especially among the Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
), in western Syria, in northern Iraq, and in the Palestinian territories
Palestinian territories
The Palestinian territories comprise the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries as the State of Palestine or simply Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the...
. Jordan and Lebanon have a frequency of blonds as well. Blond hair is also a common sight among Berbers
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
of North Africa, especially in the Rif
Rif
The Rif or Riff is a mainly mountainous region of northern Morocco, with some fertile plains, stretching from Cape Spartel and Tangier in the west to Ras Kebdana and the Melwiyya River in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the river of Wergha in the south.It is part of the...
and Kabyle
Kabyle people
The Kabyle people are the largest homogeneous Algerian ethno-cultural and linguistical community and the largest nation in North Africa to be considered exclusively Berber. Their traditional homeland is Kabylie in the north of Algeria, one hundred miles east of Algiers...
region and also among Maghreb
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
Arabs of Berber descent
Arabized Berber
Arabized Berber is a term to denote an inhabitant of the North African Maghreb of Berber origin whose native language is a dialect of Arabic. According to these persons, the Arab identity in North Africa is a myth coming from the Arabization of the official institutions after French rule.They...
.
Aboriginal Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
, especially in the west-central parts of the continent, have a high frequency of natural blond-to-brown hair, with as many as 90–100% of children having blond hair in some areas. The trait among Indigenous Australians is primarily associated with children. In maturity the hair usually turns a darker brown color, but sometimes remains blond. Blondness is also found in some other parts of the South Pacific, such as the Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...
, Vanuatu
Vanuatu
Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...
, and Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, again with higher incidences in children. Blondness was also reported among indigenous peoples in South America known as Cloud People or Chachapoyas. There can be blond hair among Peruvian mestizos of mixed Cloud People and Spanish and/or other European descent.
Relation to age
Blond hair is most common in CaucasianCaucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
infants and children, so much so that the term "baby blond" is often used for very light colored hair. Babies may be born with blond hair even among groups where adults rarely have blond hair although such natural hair usually falls out quickly. Blond hair tends to turn darker with age, and many children's blond hair turns light, medium, dark brown or black before or during their adult years.
Southern Europe
The Greek gods are attested varying in their appearances. While PoseidonPoseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...
was described as having a blue-black beard, and Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
blue-black eyebrows, Pindar
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
described Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
as fair-haired, and Pheidas described her as golden-haired. Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
, Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
and Aphrodite
Aphrodite
Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....
were also described as blonds. Pindar
Pindar
Pindar , was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich...
collectively described the Homeric Danaans of the time of the war between Argos and Thebes as fair-haired. The Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
ns are described as fair-haired by Bacchylides
Bacchylides
Bacchylides was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets which included his uncle Simonides. The elegance and polished style of his lyrics have been a commonplace of Bacchylidean scholarship since at least Longinus...
. In the work of Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
, Menelaus
Menelaus
Menelaus may refer to;*Menelaus, one of the two most known Atrides, a king of Sparta and son of Atreus and Aerope*Menelaus on the Moon, named after Menelaus of Alexandria.*Menelaus , brother of Ptolemy I Soter...
the king of the Spartans is, together with other Achaean leaders, portrayed as blond. Although dark hair colours were predominant in the works of Homer, there is only one case of a dark hero, and that is when the blond Odysseus
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
is transformed by Athena and his beard becomes blue-black. Other blond characters in Homer are Peleus
Peleus
In Greek mythology, Pēleus was a hero whose myth was already known to the hearers of Homer in the late 8th century BCE. Peleus was the son of Aeacus, king of the island of Aegina, and Endeïs, the oread of Mount Pelion in Thessaly; he was the father of Achilles...
, Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
, Meleager
Meleager
In Greek mythology, Meleager was a hero venerated in his temenos at Calydon in Aetolia. He was already famed as the host of the Calydonian boar hunt in the epic tradition that was reworked by Homer....
, Agamede
Agamede
Agamede was a name attributed to two separate women in classical Greek mythology and legendary history:-Mythological:Agamede was, according to Homer, a Greek physician acquainted with the healing powers of all the plants that grow upon the earth...
, and Rhadamanthys.
According to Francis Owens Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
literary records describe a very large number of well-known Roman historical personalities as blond. In addition, 250 individuals are recorded to have had the name Flavius, meaning blond, and there are many named Rufus
Calvisius Rufus
... Calvisius Rufus was a governor of Britannia Inferior, a province of Roman Britain some time between AD 222 and 235. Little else is known of him although an inscription does record him adding a building at Old Penrith....
and Rutilius, meaning red hair
Red hair
Red hair occurs on approximately 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations...
ed and reddish-haired, respectively. The following Roman gods are said to have had blond hair: Amor
Cupid
In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love. He is the son of the goddess Venus and the god Mars. His Greek counterpart is Eros...
, Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, Aurora
Aurora (mythology)
Aurora is the Latin word for dawn, the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry.Like Greek Eos and Rigvedic Ushas , Aurora continues the name of an earlier Indo-European dawn goddess, *Hausos....
, Bacchus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
, Ceres, Diana
Diana (mythology)
In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...
, Jupiter
Jupiter (mythology)
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon....
, Mars
Mars (mythology)
Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
, Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
, Minerva
Minerva
Minerva was the Roman goddess whom Romans from the 2nd century BC onwards equated with the Greek goddess Athena. She was the virgin goddess of poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, crafts, magic...
and Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...
. For example, the physical appearance of Emperor Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
, descended from an aristocratic family, is by the historian Suetonius
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era....
described as: "... his hair light blond,... his eyes blue..."
According to Victoria Sherrow, Romans preferred to dye their hair dark in the early period of Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
; at one point in time blond hair was even associated with prostitutes. The preference changed to bleaching the hair blond when Greek culture, which practiced bleaching, reached Rome
Battle of Corinth (146 BC)
The Battle of Corinth was a battle fought between the Roman Republic and the Greek state of Corinth and its allies in the Achaean League in 146 BC, that resulted in the complete and total destruction of the state of Corinth which was previously so famous for its fabulous wealth...
, and was reinforced when the legions that conquered Gaul
Gallic Wars
The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes. They lasted from 58 BC to 51 BC. The Gallic Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the...
returned with blond slaves.
Northern Europe
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
, the goddess Sif
Sif
In Norse mythology, Sif is a goddess associated with earth. Sif is attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson, and in the poetry of skalds...
has famously blonde hair, which some scholars have identified as representing golden wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. In the Poetic Edda
Poetic Edda
The Poetic Edda is a collection of Old Norse poems primarily preserved in the Icelandic mediaeval manuscript Codex Regius. Along with Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, the Poetic Edda is the most important extant source on Norse mythology and Germanic heroic legends, and from the early 19th century...
poem Rígsþula, the blond man Jarl is considered to be the ancestor of the dominant warrior class.
In Northern European folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, supernatural beings value blonde hair in humans. Blonde babies are more likely to be stolen and replaced with changeling
Changeling
A changeling is a creature found in Western European folklore and folk religion. It is typically described as being the offspring of a fairy, troll, elf or other legendary creature that has been secretly left in the place of a human child. Sometimes the term is also used to refer to the child who...
s, and young blonde women are more likely to be lured away to the land of the beings. Elves
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
and fairies
Fairy
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
were often portrayed with blond hair in illustrations in children's book of fairy tales. This continues the theme that blond hair is associated with beauty and goodness.
Fiction
In Miguel de CervantesMiguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
' Don Quixote, the ideal beauty is Dulcinea
Dulcinea
"Dulcinea del Toboso" is a fictional character who is referred to in Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote. Seeking the traditions of the knights-errant of old, Don Quixote finds a true love whom he calls Dulcinea. She is a simple peasant in his home town, but Quixote imagines her to be the most...
whose "hairs are gold"; in Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's poem Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
the noble and innocent Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
have "golden tresses", the protagonist-womanizer in Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
's novel Bel Ami
Bel Ami
Bel Ami is French author Guy de Maupassant's second novel, published in 1885. An English translation titled Bel ami, or, The history of a scoundrel: a novel appeared in 1903....
who "recalled the hero of the popular romances" has "slightly reddish chestnut blond hair", while near the end of J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's work The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
, the especially favorable year following the War of the Ring
War of the Ring
In the fictional high fantasy-world of J. R. R. Tolkien, the War of the Ring was fought between Sauron and the free peoples of Middle-earth for control of the One Ring and dominion over the continent. The War of the Ring took place at the end of the Third Age. Together with the Quest of Mount Doom,...
was signified in the Shire by an exceptional number of blonde-haired children.
Contemporary popular culture
In contemporary popular culture, it is often stereotyped that men find blonde women more attractive than women with other hair colors. For example, Anita LoosAnita Loos
Anita Loos was an American screenwriter, playwright and author.-Early life:Born Corinne Anita Loos in Sisson, California , where her father, R. Beers Loos, had opened a tabloid newspaper for which her mother, Minerva "Minnie" Smith did most of the work of a newspaper publisher...
popularized this idea in her 1925 novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (novel)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady is a comic novel written by Anita Loos first published in 1925. Loos was inspired to write the book after watching a sexy blonde turn intellectual H. L. Mencken into a lovestruck schoolboy. Mencken, a close friend, actually...
. Blondes are often assumed to have more fun, for example in a Clairol
Clairol
Clairol is a personal care products division of Procter & Gamble. The Clairol company was started in 1931 by Lawrence M. Gelb and wife, Joan, who named their enterprise after a hair-coloring preparation they found while traveling in France....
commercial for hair colorant they use the phrase "Is it true blondes have more fun?" Some women have reported after lightening their hair they feel other people expect them to be more fun-loving. The "blonde stereotype" is also associated with being less serious or less intelligent. This can be seen in blonde jokes. It is believed the originator of the "dumb blonde" was an 18th century blonde French prostitute named Rosalie Duthe
Rosalie Duthé
Catherine-Rosalie Gerard Duthé was a celebrated French courtesan. A companion of French kings and European nobility, she has been called "the first officially recorded dumb blonde." Duthé was an often requested subject for portraits, including partial and full nudes, many of which still exist in...
whose reputation of being beautiful but dumb inspired a play about her called Les Curiosites de la Foire (Paris 1775). Blonde actresses have supported this role; some of them include Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday
Judy Holliday was an American actress.Holliday began her career as part of a night-club act, before working in Broadway plays and musicals...
, Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress working both in Hollywood and on the Broadway theatre...
, and Goldie Hawn
Goldie Hawn
Goldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969...
during her time at Laugh-In. Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
preferred to cast blonde women for major roles in his films as he believed that the audience would suspect them the least, comparing them to "virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints", hence the term "Hitchcock blonde". This stereotype has become so ingrained it has spawned counter-narratives, such as in the 2001 film Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde
Legally Blonde is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Robert Luketic, written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and produced by Marc E. Platt...
in which Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon
Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon , better known as Reese Witherspoon, is an American actress and film producer. Witherspoon landed her first feature role as the female lead in the film The Man in the Moon in 1991; later that year she made her television acting debut, in the cable movie Wildflower...
succeeds at Harvard despite biases against her beauty and blonde hair, and terms developed such as cookie cutter blond (CCB), implying standardized blond looks and standard perceived social and intelligence characteristics of a blond. Many actors and actresses in Mestizo America and Hispanic United States seem to have Nordic features—blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin
In science fiction, nordic aliens
Nordic aliens
Nordic aliens are said by self-described contactees and some UFOlogists to be a group of humanoid extraterrestrials who resemble European racial images, or more specifically Nordic-Scandinavians....
are described as human-looking with blond hair and blue eyes, hence the name 'nordic'. They are benign, following the association of blond hair with beauty and goodness in European folklore and mythology.
See also
- Red hairRed hairRed hair occurs on approximately 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations...
- Human hair color
- Human eye colorEye colorEye color is a polygenic phenotypic character and is determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye's iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris....
- Human skin colorHuman skin colorHuman skin color is primarily due to the presence of melanin in the skin. Skin color ranges from almost black to white with a pinkish tinge due to blood vessels underneath. Variation in natural skin color is mainly due to genetics, although the evolutionary causes are not completely certain...
- Disappearing blonde geneDisappearing blonde geneThe disappearing blonde gene is a pseudoscientific claim that has periodically surfaced in the media since 1865. The most recent version started in 2002...
- Nordic race