Blonde Myth Debunked

No, this is not an April fool's joke. The 'dumb blonde' stereotype is wrong, according to a new national study of young baby boomers. The Ohio State University study of 10,878 Americans found that white women who said their natural hair color was blonde had an average IQ score within 3 points of brunettes and those with red or black hair. The resulting findings showed that blonde-haired white women had an average IQ of 103.2, compared to 102.7 for those with brown hair, 101.2 for those with red hair and 100.5 for those with black hair. None of the differences are statistically significant.

The results for blond white men were similar. They also had IQs roughly equal to men with other hair colors. The study was published during March, 2016 in the journal Economics Bulletin.

Data from the study came from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, a national survey of people who were between 14 and 21 years old when they were first interviewed in 1979. The NLSY79 was conducted for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not sure why it took over thirty years to analyze the data or who paid for this wildly useless bit of old information. Further reading showed this article in close proximity to "Do unions reduce the wage penalty experienced by obese women?" Answer, yes.

Four Common Masculine and Feminine Words

Fiancé vs. fiancée. The former is a male engaged to be married; the latter is a woman engaged to be married.

Blonde refers to a woman with yellow hair and blond refers to a male with yellow hair.

Brunet refers to a man’s hair color and brunette refers to a woman’s hair color.

In education, female is professor emerita and male is professor emeritus.

Blond vs. Blonde

You see the words used interchangeably, but there actually is a difference. The difference is gender. When referring to a woman with yellow hair, you should use the feminine spelling 'blonde'. When referring to a male with yellow hair, you should use the spelling 'blond'.

Hair Color Facts

Hair color helps determine how dense the hair on your head is, and natural blondes, top the list. The average human head has 100,000 hair follicles, each of which is capable of producing 20 individual hairs during a person's lifetime. Blondes average 146,000 follicles. People with black hair tend to have about 110,000 follicles, while those with brown hair are right on target with 100,000 follicles. Redheads have the least dense hair, averaging about 86,000 follicles.