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Corndog's avatar

I have been in meetings recently where an ice breaker is 'what did you want to be when you grew up?' I have struggled to answer, I look back on my white southern girlhood and I can find no yearning to be something. This essay helped clarify why. Me wanting to be something was vulgar and I couldn't survive being vulgar. So I waited and watched and then, when no one was looking, I ran.

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WebDilettante's avatar

OMG this was the best thing I've ever read about Dolly Parton. And I have a couple of things to say about blondeness and Southern White womanhood.

Just before we started our Zoom session with my mom on Christmas day, I said to my wife, “I think I’m going to wear a hat so she doesn’t give me grief about how dark my hair is.” And then Mom asked me why I was wearing a hat, and I said, “I did it so you wouldn’t give me grief about how dark my hair is.”

My mom I-nevered, at which my sister rolled her eyes because she has seen the aforementioned grief being given.

As girls, my sister and I were both blonde enough to be called towheads. My sister remains (naturally) blonde. But my hair has darkened every year of my life, and by the time I was 45 or so, I wasn’t really blonde anymore (now I’m 57).

My mom was always nudging me to get it highlighted, even when it was still what you might call dark blonde. I did it for a while. But it was a pain in the ass and I hated spending that much time sitting still at the hairdresser’s.

Once, I had it done when I was home in Tennessee, and afterwards my dad said, “Oh, yes, that’s much more like your natural color.” !!!! Obviously my natural color when I was 5, or 25, was no longer my natural color.

To be fair, I can’t remember if that was before or after he was diagnosed with dementia. But here’s the thing. A lot of people who were blonde as children are not adults. Or not, as in my case, as middle-aged adults.

So in this way, blondeness signifies youth, even to the point of childishness, which is why so many more women than men lighten their hair. Childish qualities are valued in women. The stereotype of the dumb blonde supports this -- dumbness is a kind of innocence.

And of course, this also comports with why blondeness maps on to extreme Whiteness: because in a culture that relentlessly associates Blackness with criminality, Whiteness, its opposite, must be innocent.

Of course, there’s lots of evidence that Black children, both boys and girls, are often read as older than they are by White people.

I wonder if the pitch of her voice also contributes to the perception of innocence that shields Dolly? And her small stature? IIRC, the “girl singer” she replaced on Porter Wagoner’s show was a deep alto.

Also, can I just say that she looks surprisingly butch in the childhood photo?

Thanks so much for this beautiful essay, which is as entertaining as it is insightful.

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