Have you ever given something away and wanted it back?

Or maybe it wasn't yours to begin with but it should have been?

Right here, right now, women of the world, we are taking back Dumb Blonde.

They can't have it anymore. Is there any female stereotype so icky as Dumb

Blonde? So come walk with me, talk with me, as we reclaim Dumb Blonde and

every other stereotype that is limiting to women.

As a woman, and a life-long blonde, from baby to bottle, I've had to put up with a

lot of stereotypes.

My consciousness was raised when I was eighteen, between my first and second

year at the University of Pennsylvania. I took a summer class - a graduate

seminar - in American Studies, and I was the only female in our small group. I

was also the only one who enjoyed Jonathan Edward's sermons and Puritanism

discussions.

The stories of the sermons were fascinating - I loved how they were used to get

the point across. “The point” didn't rub off on me because within three months I

was pregnant, but that's a horse of another color (he was brunette). Lesson - it's

possible to have a hot sex life with a recent law school grad and still enjoy the

theater of the mind, - oh yeah, and have a baby in the middle of college. Back to

the seminar - I got all A's on the papers, class discussions and exams. So I was

shocked when I got a B in the course.

Fast-forward a few months to a conversation with my father, a doctor, who told

me that a patient of his was surprised to learn I was his daughter. If he had

known this, "I would have given her the 'A' she deserved. She was the best and

brightest there. I didn't, because every other student needed an A - they needed

them for grad schools and well, they were men."

I just got angry again revisiting that bit of chauvinistic crap that really is a part of

American culture. So, University of Pennsylvania, if you want to go back and

change my grade, I'll take it.

I'm taking it back from the dumb blonde jokes page, the stereotypes, the

misogyny, and bringing it up front and in your face with all its built in cognitive

dissonance. I'm taking it back for all of us who have been stereotyped for any

reason of hair color, skin color, accent, or anything else. The paradox of any

group singled out as the target of a joke is that some of the jokes really are

funny. But good jokes aren't funny because the target is blonde or Jewish or

Muslim or drunk; the joke is funny because we see the juxtaposition of a person

and event in an unusual and unexpected way. Though some of the jokes may be

funny in that interchangeable way (substitute Jewish for drunk or Catholic for

blonde) some are funny at the expense of the group in a mean-spirited and

sometimes vicious manner. Being called a dumb blonde has been used too long

by men who objectify ("Look at that ass!") and try and control women, and also

by women who want to feel superior to other women. Well, they've owned the

term too long. It's in my hands now and soon it will be in yours.