Serenity… refocus – seek joy – thrive

Well, maybe, I don’t know – but the study behind this London Sunday Times story wouldn’t support the conclusion.

Craig Silverman at CJR has this somewhat odd story:

Dr. Aaron Sell, a researcher at the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, has been hearing from a lot of old friends and colleagues over the past couple of weeks—and he’s not happy about it.

The calls and e-mails are flowing in thanks to a January 17 article published in London’s Sunday Times that prominently featured Dr. Sell’s research. Headlined “Blonde women born to be warrior princesses,” here’s how it started:

IT really is a case of blonde ambition. Women with fair hair are more aggressive and determined to get their own way than brunettes or redheads, according to a study by the University of California.
Researchers claim that blondes are more likely to display a “warlike” streak because they attract more attention than other women and are used to getting their own way — the so-called “princess effect”.
Even those who dye their hair blonde quickly take on these attributes, experts found.

The story quotes Dr. Sell as saying, “We expected blondes to feel more entitled than other young women — this is southern California, the natural habitat of the privileged blonde. What we did not expect to find was how much more warlike they are than their peers on campus.”

Here’s the problem: Dr. Sell’s research, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PDF), had nothing to do with blondes.  It dealt with attractiveness and anger, and found that women who consider themselves to be more attractive are more prone to anger, among related findings.

I’m actually not sure if the real study conclusions are much better, but it’s interesting that the reporter thought that either “attractive = blonde”, or that his readers somehow needed to believe it does.

The author of the article seems to also be a bit of a fabulist:

In regards to the Times piece, Dr. Sell told me that the paper didn’t just misinterpret his data. That quote from him about southern California being “the natural habitat of the privileged blonde”? He said it was “fabricated.”

Good grief.

Anyway, I got the Phantom Blonde comic book cover at the top from Swanshadow’s blog. Here is what he has to say about it:

As for the Blonde Phantom, she’s something of a pioneer herself.

The Blonde Phantom — in everyday life, secretary Louise Grant — was one of the "second wave" of superheroines introduced in the post-World War II era, as the mostly male heroes of the war years began to decline in popularity. Based on the physical attributes of such wartime pinup queens as Betty Grable (whom the Blonde Phantom resembles), these heroines — including Phantom Lady, the Black Canary, Venus, and Sun Girl, — were designed to appeal both to the returning servicemen and to female readers.
Most of these characters, sadly, were short-lived, though interest in many of them (especially Black Canary and Phantom Lady) has picked up in recent years. The Blonde Phantom remains largely forgotten. But you have to love a woman who could fight crime wearing a floor-length, slit-skirted red dress and high heels.

Fun stuff.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 7:11 pm and is filed under feminism, stuff, stupid people. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.