Research explains why half the female CEOs of S&P 500 companies are blonde.
Research schmesearch. If they are CEOs, they can’t be young. If they are not young, they color their hair. Coloring it red is useless because red washes out like crazy. Coloring it dark needs constant upkeep because grey roots are more visible against dark than against blonde. So women go with generic blonde because it’s the most low-maintenance.
Yeah, the article is feminutty silliness. A version of it was posted on Slate a couple of days ago, and dozens of female commenters said exactly the same thing you did about generic blonde coloring.
One of the nice things about being a man in America is that you (meaning me) don’t have to worry about graying hair. In China, where the communist leadership is almost universally geriatric, practically all of the government officials dye their hair jet black to avoid looking “old.”
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Poor Putin has pumped himself so full of botox that he now looks like a person of another race. Which is dangerous given how racist Russian people are.
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Also, most women in the west are (rightly) advised by their stylists to go a few shades lighter when they get older, because dark hair negatively emphasizes (i.e., visually deepens) the wrinkles. So even if you had jet-black hair when young, stylists will advise one of the warmer auburn shades when you dye it. I totally agree, and older people (women and men) with fair complexion who dye their hair jet black always look to me like the the hair dye is dry paste and about to crumble off.
Blonde highlights (especially multishade) are also extremely popular in the US, and with good reason — they do an excellent job of hiding grey hairs.
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Research schmesearch. If they are CEOs, they can’t be young. If they are not young, they color their hair. Coloring it red is useless because red washes out like crazy. Coloring it dark needs constant upkeep because grey roots are more visible against dark than against blonde. So women go with generic blonde because it’s the most low-maintenance.
What is the median age of these (white) female CEOs? (There are people who are naturally blonde or red haired who aren’t white, but it’s so unusual as to be seen as “unnatural.”) Is it really more low maintenance if you’re less than 50% gray? (They used Marissa Mayer in a file photo for the article and she’s 41.) For me right now, I’d have to bleach my entire head to dye it to any lighter color. I can’t do this on my own and it would also wreck my hair and destroy its shine (shiny hair is also a factor in “youthfulness”). That option is more onerous than trying to dye any strays on my own. (FFS, I went to my salon, and they said “we can’t say we’ll get all of your hair.” What am I paying you for? Also, they all looked at me blankly when I said I wanted a gloss for shine. “Your hair’s already shiny.” This is not a cheap salon; so I don’t know how they don’t understand these subtleties.)
I’m surprised nobody mentions status signaling. Carefully maintained and highlighted blonde hair signals “I have time and money”.
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There is a fine line here because when people go blonder than they need to, they end up looking like Trump’s new advisor. I’m sure she’s a very rich woman. So what’s with the cheap peroxide look? Is she trying to look like a woman of the people?
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There is a fine line here because when people go blonder than they need to, they end up looking like Trump’s new advisor. I’m sure she’s a very rich woman. So what’s with the cheap peroxide look? Is she trying to look like a woman of the people?
I ‘m sure she paid quite a bit of money for her hair coloring. No, she’s trying to look like Kayleigh McEnany (who I seriously thought was Trump’s campaign manager for a half a second.) We know that Trump has bad taste in hair and has no real use for women older than his current wife. They all have very impressive qualifications for the quality, quantity and volume of the inanities they spout on television.
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shiny hair is also a factor in “youthfulness”
Definitely. I am 43 and have no grays, but the hair is more matte than it used to be.
I agree about the signaling. An expensive hairdo with professionally done highlights signals higher status that a cheap-looking full-head bleach that Trump’s advisor has.
Not sure what the best course is when you have naturally dark hair and only a few grays. I’d say leave them be, they look cool.
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Couldn’t find the link encyclopedia on the front page.
On american corporations’ (in this case, Amazon) refusal to pay taxes. Pretty nice explanation.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-08-22/mirror-trades-and-tax-tricks
“A core basic trick of international tax is:
Build some intellectual property — patents, technology, whatever.
Put the IP in a subsidiary in a low-tax jurisdiction, say Luxembourg.
Have all your subsidiaries in higher-tax jurisdiction pay the Luxembourg subsidiary a licensing fee for the IP.
Make the licensing fee equal to your revenue.
And by magic, you have moved all your taxable income from the high-tax jurisdictions where it is actually earned, to the low-tax jurisdiction where your IP sits. (The classic example is pharmaceuticals: If it costs you $1 to manufacture a pill that sells in the U.S. for $1,000, you have $999 in taxable income in the U.S. But if it costs you $1 to manufacture it, and you pay $998 in licensing fees to your Irish subsidiary, then you have only $1 in taxable income in the U.S., and $998 in Ireland, where hopefully your taxes are lower.) ”
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“In Europe, the e-commerce giant tells authorities that the intellectual property behind its web shopping platform is immensely valuable, justifying the billions in tax-free revenue it has collected there since moving its technology assets to tax-friendly Luxembourg a decade ago. In the U.S., however, it plays down the value of those same assets to explain why it pays so little in taxes for licensing them.”
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Neither my mother nor her mother had any grey in their hair at all until they were in their 80’s. I am not sure how common this is, but it can happen.
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It’s definitely genetic.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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