I've mentioned here before that I'm not the most empathetic person in the world. Therefore, while I'm ready to rail against prejudiced thinking whether or not it affects me personally, I confess I'm less likely to notice it when it's against a category I don't fall into. Sometimes, though, it's repeated or blatant enough that even I can't miss it.
One thing I've noticed lately is that even among people who won't stand for any prejudice against women*, prejudice against blonde women seems to be OK. (Including, in some cases, actual blonde women.) I've almost never encountered an assumption that pale-haired men are automatically stupid. I just don't get it. OK, at least it's something that can be changed, and maybe some people don't care because of the other stereotype that says blondes are more attractive, but I still don't understand why it's acceptable to judge anyone's brains by an accident of coloring. (Or even a deliberate coloring.)
An even more blatant example was in a book I read the other day. I'd picked up Emily Dickinson's Dead, by Jane Langton, because I've enjoyed her children's books. This one, though meaning to be a cozy mystery, was considerably more disturbing. The villain (yes, there will be spoilers here, but I doubt it will be a major issue for anyone) is an extremely obese, mentally unhinged, and quite unpleasant young woman. So far, fine, but there were frequent and unmistakeable insinuations that either she was fat because she was crazy or she was crazy because she was fat, most likely the latter. There are all kinds of little asides about how the character hides secrets from herself "in the folds of her neck or the creases under her belly" or wherever. I confess I may harbor some prejudices against fat people, in assuming that they are likely to be less active than thinner people (though I do know some exceptions) but I have not noticed larger people to be any less sane or more violent than smaller ones. (More annoyed at purveyors of retail clothing, yes, often, but that's a pretty sane reponse to provocation and hardly ever leads to murder.) As an antidote, to get the nasty taste out of my mind I'm rereading a bunch of Charlotte MacLeod. She has attractive heroes and heroines of all ages and sizes; petite and (relatively) young Sarah, Dittany, Helen and Janet may get their men, but it's the opulent Theonia and the charismatic Aunt Emma, the dramatic Aunt Arethusa, the Valkyrie Sieglinde and the bountiful blonde Iduna, all well into middle-age, who have men falling all over them. Refreshing.
Posted by dichroic at March 16, 2006 12:07 PMYes! I can think of several books that have driven me nuts with blatant unfair judgments of overweight people. It's often enough to make me not want to read the book. And the blonde thing has often irritated me, for obvious reasons. Most memorable, though, is how my stepfather would frequently pick on me (and his blonde daughters) for our hair color alone. What got me the most about it is that HE is blonde, but he wouldn't make depreciating comments about how HIS hair color affected his mental capacity like he did with us... The double standard of it annoyed me *almost* as much as the unfair stereotype. It seriously impaired our relationship, and made it so that it took me a long time to accept him as my mother's partner. We get along fine, now, but he really put me off for a long time because of his constant teasing.
Posted by: Melissa at March 20, 2006 01:52 PM