Talk:Blond
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"blonde is for women, blond is for men", except for the pictures in this article?
So I don't want to go and make changes to this page, but after including a section that states that blonde is for women, and blond for men, shouldn't the pictures including women say "a blonde..." ?? 116.102.19.7 (talk) 08:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
Blonde hair evolved because it is more attractive?
There is much scientific research that blonde hair evolved because it was more attractive. We should incorporate such information into this article. Here is a journal article from the Institute of Psychology on this topic:
Attractiveness of blonde women in evolutionary perspective: studies with two Polish samples.
EasternAryan (talk) 00:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
- Here's another interesting article on blonde hair and helping. In this study, people were more likely to help a blonde!
Hitchhiking women's hair color.
EasternAryan (talk) 00:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
- Isn't that a point of view WP:NPOV? —Sandahl (♀) 05:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
- No, that is what scientific research is showing. EasternAryan (talk) 18:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
- I doubt this. Sounds like POV to me, especially because they only surveyed Polish people (and Eastern Europeans tend to be more fair than other segments of the population).
And why is that Afghan woman pictured? her hair looks like none of the descriptions for blondes, also she is clearly a brunette. --Maladroitmortal (talk) 03:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
- Go to Japan, blond ppl are treated with almost awe there.99.152.112.169 (talk) 17:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
This is just a wild hypotheses, which became popular via the gossip media. Most of the science world disagrees with this single study completely.
According to this logic, blonds would be all over the planet and not just in the dark north. It's obviously a selection due to the sunlight deficiency.
- Actually no. Blond hair is a recessive gene, so even if blond ppl were sought after for breeding, the genes of their darker haired mates would still be more prevalent in their offspring, thus blondes would not dominate the world. You also must consider the fact that until the last 50 years or so, most ppl did not routinely travel to all parts of the globe (and if they did, it usually wasn't to breed with ppl)--another reason blondes aren't found all over the world.99.152.112.169 (talk) 17:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
Thus, it should be made clear, that this view is not the consensus of the majority and even opposed strongly. Pomelo, 24 June 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.226.1.7 (talk) 13:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
- Extreme extrapolation is involved in these studies; what they document is that in controlled experiments, men in a particular cultural context act in supportive-of-blond-women way. The evolutionary thesis involves consistent, reproduction-related actions across tens of thousands of years. Feel free to cite and discuss the actual conclusions (re: Polish men in psychological tests), although it might not be a notable aspect of this topic.--Carwil (talk) 21:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
picture of isabella I
this same picture is in the "auburn hair" article and says she was a natural auburn. i think it is confusing ... and this one looks wrong as i think she really did have auburn hair in the picture. 75.37.162.113 (talk) 01:57, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Billy Idol
Surely it is nonsense to say that Billy Idol is 'best' known for his blond hair? I suspect he is best known for his singing, although he may certainly also be known for having blond hair. --86.15.17.142 (talk) 20:48, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
blondes
Almost all the people in the last section of the article used to present blonde people are not even truly blond, they are people with brown hair who dye. The simple truth is in the fact that their eye brows are from dark brown or black to light brown. The other proof is where you see the finnish girl who has blonde hair, blond eye brows, and blonde eye lashes. My best friend from school for 14 years was an actual blond (both his parents are 100% blond too) and his hairs from his head, eye brows, eye lash, and even arm hair is all blonde. Only people with dyed hair have different color eye lash or eye brow, or arm hair than head hair. I think this article seems to exaggerate the number of blond people and it claims that something like there is 0% of black hair people in scandinavia. That is a joke, there are more black hair white people in scandinavia than blondes. Normal hair colors here are brown, light brown hair. About 1/5th of whites here have natural blond hair into adult hood. the rest brown or black hair. I think lithiuania has most blondes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.239.154.174 (talk) 01:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry to say so, but this is complete nonsense. While it is true that many people have darker hair in Scandinavian countries (especially once they are 30 or 40 years or older - unless they are grey haired), many young people (I'd say: most of them) are blond - of course, it depends on the definition of "blond". By no means, "blond" is a uniform colour.
Moreover, it is simply NOT TRUE that darker eyebrows and/or eye lashes indicate a non-blonde person. Not true. Personally, I was blond in my adolescent and young adult years (now I am grey, not completely, but to a high degree), but I have always (except as a very young child) had dark eye lashes and eye brows; then again, I have blue eyes. - Not every natural blond person has the same colour when it comes to his/her lashes and eyebrows - many have a darker colour there. And then again, some people are clearly dark haired but have very light lashes and eye brows! Many of them are blue-eyed.- Regarding black hair colour, one has to be careful. Most people called "black haired" are NOT black haired, but at best have a very dark brown hair colour, this is also true for most everybody in Spain, for instance. The predominant colour is dark brown, not black. The only (if at all) people with "black" hair colour are Asians (let's say Japanes, Chinese etc.), maybe most Indians, and also Indios in Latin America; even black people in Africa often have a hair colour which is better described as "very dark brown", but not "black". To assume that there are so many black haired people in Sweden, is idiotic. There is (apart from some foreigners) almost no one (same for Germany, for instance or other European countries) who could be called "black haired". Just watch the difference in hair colour between a Chinese and your "black haired Swede", lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.215.2 (talk) 15:35, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- There is almost no truth to this entire rant you went on, and it would all be original research anyway. I and my three daughters are all natural blondes, and we all have brown-to-black eyelashes and eyebrows of varying shades of brown. Your statement lacks any merit whatsoever.214.3.138.234 (talk) 12:25, 8 June 2010 (UTC)Steve
- This is certainly not true. My hair is dark brown, but my eyebrows are ash blond. When my hair grows, it turns red-brown. My beard and mustaches are dark brown with individual hairs and patches of hair ash blond. My father has almost black hair, but his eyebrows are ash blond, his mustaches are ash blond too, and his beard is red. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.185.100.155 (talk) 14:09, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Map
There are mistakes in the map. Here is the original: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/214-the-blonde-map-of-europe/. See, northern France is not accurate, and especially, there is no reason to make Latvia yellow. Can the author correct please? --Little sawyer (talk) 23:13, 3 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Little sawyer (talk • contribs)
- You can find various versions of this kind of map. Here's yet another[1] - I believe this comes from one of Carleton Coon's books. I don't think that these maps can ever be regarded as 100 per cent accurate, they just show the general picture that lighter hair is more common around southern Scandinavia and the Baltic, and becomes increasingly less so in concentric bands further away from this region.--Pondle (talk) 01:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- In fact, the work of Coon has been made from the studies of other scientists. And there was a huge problem of methodology between the French and the German ones : the first ones have taken adult samples, while the second have taken children samples. This explains the contrast of the map in so close regions. In fact, according to other studies, in the 19th century, southern Germany would have rather the same hair-standard as south-central France (Auvergne, Dauphiné). This must be mentioned in the article. And light-feature isolation of South-Eastern Italy and Galicia is complete original (and fantasy) research compared to the original Coon's work. I will try to draw a better map (with sources of course). --Plombsoldier (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
source and date issues
The map does not represent actual measurement, but an hypothesis by an unnamed person. Without sourcing, it's not really proper to include in this article. Also it doesn't say when it is relevant: pre-Roman times? rewinn (talk) 03:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- I believe the source is: Peter Frost, where he sumarizes his article Peter Frost (2006), "European hair and eye color - A case of frequency-dependent sexual selection?", Evolution and Human Behavior, n.27, 85-103. The Ogre (talk) 12:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- The legend on the map refers to an "indigenous population" which is a rather comical concept in terms of Europe's history of frequent migrations. Perhaps a more precise legend would be helpful; at least name the source since no dates for that distribution have been offered
- NOW the map legend refers to an "historic" distribution, which is even sillier. Europe has THOUSANDS OF YEARS of history, and the movement of the tribes is known to have varied widely. The hair color map on the web page cited to appears to refer to modern distribution of hair color but does not say so explicitly. Perhaps it is referring to some 19th century work per http://carnby.altervista.org/lundraces/lundman-races1.htm and if so, it should say so: "19th century distribution of hair color". What does this map add to the objective content of this article? rewinn (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
deletion discussion
I have deleted the map since it is weakly sourced, undated, not correct at any known date, and per discussion above most likely not correct at any date at all. The concept that there is a greater frequency of blonds in Northern Europe than elsewhere, if supported, should be supported with more authoritative sourcing and, if illustrated with a map, should be illustrated with a map that is more accurate. I appreciate that someone evidently went to some effort to craft the map but that's no reason to spread inaccuracy. rewinn (talk) 04:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. I believe there is a pretty well established consensus that this map, while vaguely giving the right general idea, is lacking in accuracy and detail.
First, we should make sure that false information is removed, as a suggestion I also have an alternative description for the distribution of blond hair:
"According to a 2010 study including over 8000 samples(age 20 to 30), blond hair in Europe reaches its greatest distribution in Finland(58%), followed in decreasing order by Sweden(53%); Norway, Estonia(48%); Denmark, Latvia(43%); Germany, The Netherlands(40%); Lithuania(38%); Belarus(35%); The Czech Republic, Austria(33%); England(30%); Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine(28%); Switzerland, Russia(25%) Scotland, Belgium(24%); France(18%); Wales, Ireland, Hungary, Slovenia(15%); Croatia(13%); Bosnia and Herzegovina(10%); Romania(8%); Italy, Spain(7%); Bulgaria, Serbia, Portugal(5%); Albania(4%); Georgia(3%); Turkey and Greece(2%). Further analysis demonstrates that the overall frequency of fair hair in Europe stands at 20%, with 31% in Northern Europe and 8% in Southern Europe.
Blond hair is also found at 28% for Non-Hispanic Whites in the United States with a maximum frequency in the Midwest(reaching up to 40% in North Dakota, parts of South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin) and at approximately 25% in Canada and Australia, as well as in 1-5% of Caucasian Latin Americans and at generally lower values throughout the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania."
There are also a couple of better maps that demonstrate this:
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/7916/blondehaireurope.png http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/6738/blondehairamerica.png
This research is available for use. Hope this helps. 94.156.40.82 (talk) 20:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
Gender
Seeing as blondism occurs in both genders is there any good reason for this article to be almost entirely about women? I would understand that within a subsection that was about contemporary culture, but not for the page in full. There is almost nothing on blond men, and that's a bit of arrogance. Ilmanuplaut (talk • 11:56, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
This doesn't seem to be the case anymore. --Ilmanuplaut (talk) 18:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)
Only 2%
Only 2% of the world-population have blond hairs. However, blondism seems to die out among these people.--94.219.198.90 (talk) 09:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Photos
It seems odd that in an article about blond hair, three of the six pictures show people where their blond hair is atypical in their region/ethnic group, and only two where blond hair is the norm. Also, two of the three 'normal' blonds are paintings - and the sole photo is of a child - and as we all know, often children are blond but become darker haired with age. Could we have some more European or European-origin adult blond/blondes please? 86.133.211.42 (talk) 17:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
- Yeah, it were mostly pictures of 'blackhaired blondes'. Pictures of real ones are easily to be found via this proposed article: [2].VKing (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
- And now there's a picture of "A natural blond Riffian Berber man" in the article. Well, in the first place this as well looks very much a blonded (= dyed blond) man; under the more or less light curls, there evidently is much darker hair; this is mostly a sign of dying, as the hair grows near to the head, as a result of which the new grown part of it is not dyed lighter (yet), but natural more dark or black.
- It seems very much, that this man is a sprout of a Moroccan and a Northern-Europide (blond) parent. (During the last three or four decennia there has been very much 'traveling' between the mentioned Northern-African country and Northern-European ones like Holland, as many relatively young Moroccan men went to work in those countries and in most cases stayed there, whereas a small percentage went back, in some cases taking their (blond) Northern-European wife (and sometimes sprouts) with them to their country of origin). VKing (talk) 16:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
- No matter where the sources are, the blonde types must be shown with photos.Undead Herle King (talk) 00:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, it were mostly pictures of 'blackhaired blondes'. Pictures of real ones are easily to be found via this proposed article: [2].VKing (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
- @Vking, thats an interesting theory you have, but completely unrealistic. If you do some basic background reading you will find that already the ancient romans noted that the rif berber population was predominantly blonde and blue-eyed. In some instances these traits have survived to this day, of which presumably the partly sun-bleached berber boy is one example.
- Some random examples. In a book from 1911 "because I found among the Riff Berbers in Northern Morocco a large number of Jews ... They hold on to their religion, although physically they are decidedly of the Berber race, having blonde hair and blue eyes"[3]
- "It is certain that there was a fair-haired element in libya long before Rome conquered Carthage or the vandals had passed into the ken of history, for Callimachus (cf. vol. I. p. 285) testifies to the existence of blond Berbers in the third century B.C We may hold then, with Sergi and others, that the blond elements in the Berbers is not a survival from invasions of Vandals or Goths or from Roman colonists, but that they rather owe their fair complexions and light-coloured eyes to the circumstance that they were cradled in a cool mountainous region, and not along the low-lying border of the Mediteranean like their dark-coloured relations whose language and customs they share."[4]
- "In the north (Rif) there are relatively large numbers of blonde...[5] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sloppy diplomat (talk • contribs) 22:10, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
cro magnons
this article clearly implies they have been all victorian era monogamists wtf?79.216.151.252 (talk) 14:56, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
Racial Occurrence
No mention of variation by race? Occurrence in African or Asian groups? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.242.81.80 (talk) 00:57, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Removal of information about the specific color "blond"
As the material I removed has been re-added twice now, albeit with no explanation, I just wanted to ask here and see if anyone has any substantive disagreement with me about whether it belongs here. I removed the infobox and categories about the specific color "blond" (visible here) because the article seems to be discussing not that specific color, but instead the general phenomenon of light-colored hair. The color "blond" is a single specific shade, as seen in the infobox; it doesn't make sense to me to have the infobox saying "Blond means this specific color, 247-236-183 on the RGB scale" in an article that says "Blond means a very wide range of shades of hair color." An article about the specific color "blond" would tend to look more like Flax (color), describing a single, specific hue. There are many other color articles, such as Lime (color), that do discuss a range of hues, but it's still specific colors that are being discussed ("lime" is this, "lime green" is this, "electric lime" is this, etc., as opposed to "lime means lots of different colors"). Is there any disagreement here, or anything about my opinion I can clarify? Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:12, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with you. The Ogre (talk) 12:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for saying so. A third user has since tried to undo my edit -- all three of the users who have done so have had extremely brief (and one might say unproductive) contrib histories and none has provided any reason for disagreeing with the changes, so I hope it's acceptable to assume it's just a weird streak of vandalism or something. Theoldsparkle (talk) 00:52, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
List of famous people
Should there not be a list of famous historical people that were blond? Either here in this article or as a separate article? For example Odysseus, Alexander the Great, Emperor Nero, Christopher Columbus, Isaac Newton etc. Possibly also even including Leonardo da Vinci[6]--Sloppy diplomat (talk) 23:15, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
- That would be a really huge list, impossible to maintain. A better approach would be a category, so you can go tag people as blonds. rewinn (talk) 16:32, 7 July 2011 (UTC)
I would have strong expectations that such a list, or a category, would be deleted. See WP:CATEGORY#Which categories should be created and Wikipedia:Overcategorization, and the deleted Category:Famous Redheads and List of redheads. Theoldsparkle (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2011 (UTC)