LISTEN · EPISODE 3
Dumb or Deadly? Examining the Dumb Blonde and the Femme Fatale
This episode discusses racism, abuse, the sexual exploitation of enslaved Black women, and a woman's execution.
"I know I'm not dumb and I know I'm not blonde." That's Dolly Parton on Larry King Live in 2005, asked whether being called a dumb blonde offends her. Her answer was short, funny and completely unbothered, because she'd figured out something it takes most women a lot longer to learn: the label was never really about her.
This System Episode of Witches, Bitches, and Sluts investigates two labels that seem like opposites, the dumb blonde and the femme fatale, and how the same woman can be cast as either one.
Two labels, two family trees
Blonde didn't start out stupid. For about 2,500 years in the Western world, it meant beautiful. The "dumb" part was added much later, most famously by Anita Loos, a brunette who wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1925 after watching H.L. Mencken fawn over a pretty blonde on a train. But Loos's Lorelei isn't really dumb. She plays dumb because it works.
The femme fatale is much older: Eve, the Sirens, Delilah, Salome. Hollywood's first version was Theda Bara's "vamp" in 1915, sold with a fake backstory about being born in the Sahara. She was actually from Cincinnati. On the American screen, the dangerous woman was supposed to be foreign.
And innocence wasn't handed out equally. The dumb blonde gets laughed at, but she also gets the benefit of the doubt. Black women were handed the "Jezebel" stereotype instead, which was used to excuse the men who exploited them.
Putting the labels on trial
The dumb blonde is one of the few stereotypes that makes a claim you can check. When economist Jay Zagorsky did, blonde women's average IQ was no lower than anyone else's. So what is "dumb" really describing?
The research points to the viewer, not the woman. The same résumé earned less with blonde hair on the photo. When people were told to focus on a woman's appearance, they rated her less competent and less fully human. Attractive women were rated more qualified for clerical jobs and less qualified for management. Mock jurors went easy on a pretty defendant, until her crime involved charming a man. And a 2019 study found attractive businesswomen were believed less, unless the people judging them were first reminded that they felt secure in their own relationships.
One switch
Put it together and the two labels aren't two kinds of women. They're two settings on the same switch. When a beautiful woman seems harmless, she's the dumb blonde. When she seems like a threat, she's the femme fatale. Suzanne Somers was America's sweetheart until she asked for equal pay.
The women who got these labels saw them clearly. Judy Holliday, who scored 172 on an IQ test as a child, played dumb in front of a Senate committee because her lawyers told her to. Paris Hilton built her airhead voice as a mask, then set the record straight: "I'm not a dumb blonde. I'm just very good at pretending to be one." Rita Hayworth's studio changed her name, her hair color and even her hairline before the press called her "the Love Goddess." Not one of them picked the label. It was handed to her, based on her looks.
Sources behind the episode
Read or download the Episode 3 source list (PDF).