What is it about blondes? Why is it that one half of American women color their hair, and forty percent of them color it to a shade of blonde? Despite the fact that only sixteen percent of all American girls are born blonde, forty percent of all Playboy Playmates are blonde. Our society is so infatuated with blondes that parents even want their children to be blond. Ads for egg donors go as far as to offer bonuses for blonde donors. The portrayal of blondes throughout history can be held accountable for these sometimes not so obvious preferences. .
The infatuation with blondes dates back to Ancient Rome and Egypt. During these time periods, women from wealthy households would wear blonde wigs. This began the assumption that blonde hair and fair skin equaled a wealthy woman. This occurrence is also found in southern Europe today. There the upper classes contain a disproportionate number of blondes compared to the lower classes. In 1899 a German gynecologist stated two ideas as to why this is true. He believed that blonde women tended to have fairer body hair that complemented the soft outline of their bodies better. His second thought was that the fairness of the skin that is associated with blondes made it easier to detect the flush of the skin during sexual excitement. These patterns during history led to the most influential factor of society's infatuation with blondes: Hollywood.
At the beginning of the Hollywood heyday' the blonde image was created by adolescent men to fulfill their fantasies of beautiful women. The classic blonde portrayed an image of a bimbo topped with platinum locks and complete with a body that should come with a "Dangerous Curves- warning. The popular image of a movie producer with a cigar in his mouth and a blonde bombshell on his arm became the cliché of success. This image, and many more like it, worked like Pavlovian conditioning. When ordinary men saw thousands of images of happy and rich men with blondes on their side it became an underlying assumption that a blonde was needed for a man to be happy.