to ask what is so special about blond hair

[pocpocpoc]

My husband is white and English, I am not white and foreign. I have dark hair and my genetics pretty much guarantee that my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are almost 100% likely to have dark hair too.

DH's brother is married to a white English woman and their daughter is the same age as DD. She is taller than DD and has blond hair. Both are nice young ladies, reasonably attractive, but in different ways.

Something that bothered me for a long time, but I could only put a finger on recently, is how MIL (and others in the family) talk about DD's cousin's blond hair and height, almost as a counter-point to anything DD does that is of mention. For instance: "Well done for getting 12 A* GCSEs (saving a child from fire, winning Olympics, getting a Nobel prize), so proud of you being so academic/brave/athletic/hard-working and also of your cousin, who is a tall blond". I find it strange that DD is typically praised for something she has done and worked hard for, while her cousin is praised only for her looks.

Where it is getting ridiculous is that I noticed DH's sister doing the same thing, this time with our boys. Not long ago she said to me "aren't you lucky that your son has such a good friend to play with, with his beautiful head of blond hair" - the sentence really didn't make sense to me. Thinking back I realised that the blond hair has been brought up every time we met in the last couple of years.

In my culture we don't attribute any special value to blond hair. It is very rare, usually means that the blond person is of another ethnicity. Some people get their hair bleached, but it does not confer any superiority or praise. So help me to understand: what is so special about blond hair? AIBU to be bothered? AIBU to detect a hint of racism?

[dottiedodah]

I think traditionally blondes were seen as more fertile.thus desirable I suppose. Recently love Island was in trouble for having too many blonde young ladies! I colour my hair and suspect there are only a few natural blondes around!

[BungleandGeorge]

@dottiedodah

I think traditionally blondes were seen as more fertile.thus desirable I suppose. Recently love Island was in trouble for having too many blonde young ladies! I colour my hair and suspect there are only a few natural blondes around!

I think you’re right, light to mid blonde hair is really unusual on adults. All of the ‘blondes’ on live island have bleached hair

[RhonaRed]

Who is measuring hair colour of the population? Maybe it's an online poll of those who get their hair coloured.

Most blond kids end up brown haired. Some then opt for highlights or more which explains the high proportion of blonde women. Notice there aren't so many blonde men out and about.

[mustlovegin]

Very offensive to say 'blondes are attractive, because of Western beauty standards and that's just the way it is.' What about challenging these standards?

I don't understand this constant obsession with challenging standards. Should we then go and demand beauty standards are changed where the OP was born (as she explained blondes are not considered special over there)?

When you travel the world you can appreciate that ideas, 'standards', customs, vary immensely depending where you are, and that's ok. We need to accept that and not get obfuscated because things are not 'the same'

[boobot1]

I don't know but my mum and dad are both brunette with blue eyes. My sister, brother and myself are all blond with green eyes

[mustlovegin]

Growing up, my physical characteristics were very different from the ones of the majority where I lived. In hindsight, what I most struggled with was not having a referent I could identify with in terms of looks (to understand what make up or hair style would look good on me, etc). But there was no Internet, it was a different era. Still, I didn't go all guns blazing demanding to change local 'standards'. What helped me was to understand that everyone is different, and each of us should exploit and make the most of the physical characteristics we have.

Nowadays it's different. It's likely we can all find someone we can identify with, so it's not a question of playing one kind of beauty or colour against another, or getting angry because someone finds somebody else beautiful. It doesn't work like that IMO.