On Blondes

"It’s such a wonderful story. It’s a form of self-stereotyping. There is all kinds of research on this. If you tell women that women are, on average, worse at maths than men, then women will perform worse on a maths test. This is something like that. Joanna Pitman dyed her hair blonde, and was very conscious of it, and looked at herself in the mirror all the way home. She had this image of herself as this blonde woman and when she got home she just couldn’t park her car. The book is full of great stories about blonde hair being a sexual symbol ­– and people from Roman and Greek times dying their hair using all these weird things, like horse urine and bird poo. Sometimes women went bald, because the stuff they were using wasn’t really good for them. But if they were rich, they could use the hair of German slaves and get blonde hair that way. It’s really a wonderful book. Not even half. But it’s a strong part of the stereotype. When I asked around for the stereotypical characteristics of Dutch women, that’s one of the things people came up with – long blonde hair, on a bicycle, hair blowing in the wind, very free. So I really thought I should have a chapter on it in my book – also because, of course, I’m blonde myself. Yes, so I’m very used to being joked about. There are lots of jokes about blonde hair. Is it the same in the US? That women with blonde hair are not only sexually attractive but also very stupid? I was afraid so. In my book, I also wrote about why blonde hair should be considered so attractive. You couldn’t really imagine a book written about brown hair, or black hair. There’s something about blonde hair that’s really interesting, and why is that? According to some scientists it’s because you can spot more easily if someone is healthy – because blonde hair goes together with light skin and on light skin you can spot imperfections more readily. Also, with blonde hair and light skin, you can see fairly easily if someone is sexually interested – because people see blushing more readily on light skin. Maybe that is something that explains the connection between sexual attractiveness and blonde hair. And once that association was made – between sex and blonde hair – all women tried to dye their hair, and tried to be blonde, even if they had brown hair originally. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never dyed my hair dark. That’s something you have to ask someone who has had their hair both colours. I do think it’s different. One of the things Joanna Pitman told me is that she felt happier when she was a blonde. I can understand that. Your day brightens up. If you look in the mirror and your hair is very blonde, it feels like you’ve been on a summer holiday and your hair is bleached by the sun and the sea. It does feel very good."