The Real Reason Blonde Seems To Be The Default For Female Fox News Anchors

There are a few aspects about Fox News that seem universally known and understood: the hosts are staunchly conservative, the male anchors often have at least one public scandal in their pasts, and the female anchors almost exclusively have blonde hair. While these generalizations aren't entirely true, it does seem that white, thin, and especially blonde is a prevailing look for female Fox News anchors — including some of the biggest stars, such as Ainsley Earhardt and Laura Ingraham. As it turns out, it might not just be a coincidence.

There are countless theories about the reason for the disproportionate number of blonde anchors, as well as blonde conservative women in general. After all, there are many preconceptions about blondes in American culture. When it comes to Fox News, however, the trend seems to have started with Roger Ailes, the long-time chairman and CEO of the network. Ailes allegedly made his aesthetic preferences known, and he wanted his female hosts to be ogled by middle-aged conservative male viewers.

Ailes — who was forced to resign from Fox News in 2016 following allegations made by several female anchors of sexual harassment and misconduct — tried to define what a conservative woman and news anchor looked like. As New York Magazine columnist Jonathan Chait wrote in 2015, "The quintessential Fox News image is going to include a blonde anchor for the same reason the quintessential fraternity image will have beer and the quintessential French image will have a guy wearing a beret."

Fox News' conservative viewership may explain why the network become so associated with blonde anchors. Some theories suggest is a reactionary response to the stereotypical image many conservatives have about how liberal women look — ideas based on distorted, misunderstood concepts of radical feminism. As Hadley Freeman wrote in a 2017 op-ed for The Guardian, Fox News opting for blonde anchors is political stance: "Theirs is a look that defiantly embraces the most conservative notions of femininity and firmly rejects any idea of modernity, let alone feminism."

The theory suggests that blonde hair represents the kind of safety longed for by those who feel the world is leaving them behind. "Panicked reports about dangerous immigrants ... were presented by white women wearing snug dresses, with pert noses, bronze skin, blonde hair," Amy LaRocca wrote for The Cut in 2017. "The Fox blonde is ... less blonde as sexy and more blonde as safe: This blonde is a matronly blonde, a suburban soccer mom who makes sure everyone buckles up in the backseat of the minivan."

There is also a trend in both politics and business that blonde women get farther than other women. While only an estimated 5% of women in North America are blonde, Professor Jennifer Berdahl of the University of British Columbia found in 2016 that 48% of female S&P 500 CEOs were blonde, as were one third of female US senators.