-I am a bleached blonde.- I have bleached blonde hair. I did this as an act of rebellion several years ago after watching “Legally Blonde”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250494/ with Reese Witherspoon. That movie is a great example of a rather profound concept being introduced into the collective consciousness. That a person can like small dogs, manicures, and pink, and still be an intelligent, observant, passionate, and articulate person.
To cut to the chase: am I aware that many people dismiss me at first glance as a blonde, shallow, not that bright peson? Yes. Could I die my hair brown to be taken more seriously, more quickly? Yes.
But that would defeat the exercise. If the point of rebellion is to live life independenently of others’ opinions and to dissolve inaccurate sterotypes whenever possible, then blonde continues to be a mantle of courage and consciousness for me.
My task is to manage my #2’s worries that I won’t get the deals, I won’t be taken seriously, etc. because of the blonde thing. It’s so old, this business that women’s appearance so dictates their status and opprtunity in the mainstream culture. But bc it is so old, even modernistas (like myslef) are unwittingly influenced by it.
I am writing about this as I was at the “Podcast and Portable Media Expo”:http://www.portablemediaexpo.com/ last week, which was weighted towards geeky guys. Clearly my presence there with nice camera in tow sporting my blonde hair was a confusing image for people. People don’t know quite where to file me. Add to that confusion that on my video podcast, “Beach Walks with Rox”:http://www.portablemediaexpo.com/ I am often walking the beach in a bikini.
And just yesterday I learned that a project I am working on is being evaluated by “Maryam Scoble”:http://maryamie.spaces.live.com/. I was hoping to meet her at PME but I didn’t find her there. She recently celebrated getting down to a size 16. In the old world, thin women and fat women were on opposing sides of the fence. In my world we share similar prejudices and pressures. In my ideal world, none of this matters. But it is hard to evaluate things without triggering prejudices that have been handed down for generations.
My consciousness is about just showing up to be who I am. I mean, we all experience this gap from perception to reality— not just blondes and fat people. We are all misjudged when only the surface is considered. The Cliff Notes on me is that even though I am thin and blonde, I am not stupid (ask anyone who tries to argue with me), I like pink but I prefer aquamarine and lime green, and I like small dogs but my treasure is “Lexi”:http://flickr.com/photos/miss-darling/sets/918092/, a big hairy black lab.
