KEY POINTS:
It's the question doomed never to be answered. Why do women keep falling for the reasons men give us to compete with each other? Why do we let them wind us up like little Wonderbra-ed clockwork toys vying for their attention? Even when it comes to something as ridiculous as hair colour.
I am referring, of course, to blondes. Those fair-haired women, we're constantly told in hushed stage whispers, the majority of men would prefer to couple with. Blondes, those women who are seemingly Beyond Women. So worshipped that a brunette could get a little antsy, thinking that the only reason she has a man is because some blonde (icy, contemptuous Grace Kelly with a cigarette holder) didn't want him.
Faced with the mythology of Blonde, it's no surprise that differently-hued women often resort to defending their own red/brown/mouse corner. As an out and proud brunette, my counterattack can be distilled into a few simple words: Ava and Gardner. Or more latterly: Dita Von and Teese.
But as time has passed, one's respect and sympathy for the Blonde has grown. If she gets the lion's share of attention, she also gets the flak. Consider that zenith of flaxen-bashing, the Blonde Moment, as conjured by self-deprecating women when they make an error such as forgetting their car keys. It's a seemingly harmless cultural tic, until you realise that no men, not even the blond ones, claim to have these "moments".
Moreover, where is the antidote to the Blonde Moment? The woman doing something clever and announcing: "You know, I think I just had a brunette moment." This doesn't happen, and maybe it should.
All of which sums up the dark side to being blonde - complete strangers get away with calling you dumb. And as if this weren't cheeky enough, now it seems men are trying to blame blondes for masculine stupidity.
Researchers in Paris have discovered that when men were exposed to images of blondes, their mental agility fell sharply. Not because they are testosterone-addled morons who can't control themselves; rather because, the researchers decided, their subconscious gallantly lowered itself to "mimic" the perceived IQ levels of "a blonde female" - which in this study appear to lie somewhere around "hamster" or "chair".
Another study claims that because most white babies are born fair-ish, we all instinctively view the adult versions as adorable, tiny-minded infants who need protecting for their own good.
No one is claiming women don't also lower their IQs in the presence of the opposite sex - talking much more slowly to men, sometimes as if they are small children. But the men in question aren't blond, they are just men.
By the same token, while everyone knows that in certain, shall we say, social situations the male brain becomes a secondary - verging on vestigial - organ, it still seems a bit rich to pin all this on blondes.
In my view, men should be told to own their own "blonde moments". Otherwise where will it end? Today blondes blamed for making men stupid. Next thing you know, brunettes blamed ... for what? Nagging them to death about blondes?
Sure, we've all noticed that men act like slavering fools around blondes.
However, this may have a lot less to do with subconsciously dropping their IQ, rather more to do with the hope that the blonde in question may drop her IQ low enough to consider having a "moment" with him.
- Observer
