My husband always says that blonde women tend to look softer - note, they are not necesarily softer... they just LOOK softer. So when I first started reading the article and read how the unknown writer compares us with our "ancestral beings" (monkeys) I was not too impressed. I don't buy the whole evolution theory.
The author is not giving much info in the sense of how it works or why it's that way, as trying to convince the reader of the fact that every part of our being stems from monkeys. He does however say a few intesting things.
His research shows that our ancestral scalp colour was black with scatterings of brown in places. Pigmentation increases with age which means that many kids are born with light hair and it gets darker with age. Blonde hair in adults is a 'new human invention'. Hence, blonde hair in adult females remind men of the soft innocence of a child. Like a short adult, a blond adult will carry some subordinate signal element.
The writer says: "We can separate movie sex-goddesses into two types: the baby faced sort and the dominant kind. Generally, the baby face neotenics (childlikes) have blond hair which, of course, complements the signal. Women, in cultures where it is accepted, are fond of bleaching their hair. Like thin-arched eyebrows and "made-up" eyes, blond hair gives them a childlike air, that is, the social posture of an attractive subordinate."
Just like our monkey ancestors, men go bald. In our ancestors, hair was used as a threat symbol, but that now has been replaced by the use of skin. Certain monkeys become red-faced with anger and the writer says this also happens to humans when they get older. "Like the uakari monkey, humans redden with age or anger, and the function appears to be primarily a social signal. Facial reddening does in fact carry important information and serves no other physiological function. As the blood vessels of the face flush, the skin reddens, the angular vein which runs upward from the bridge of the nose is especially distended and has been referred to as the temper or anger vein."
At the present time Western cultures are caught in a pinch between the adulation of youth - which is responsible for our holding low hairlines in esteem - and our continuing respect for status and the high forehead which retains an element of nobility or at least an aristocratic man. The superhero males of the comics almost invariably have a high hairline.
If not very accurate or true, still entertaining!
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