Your daughter is correct on the difference in treatment. When my red hair turned more white I put blonde rinse on so it wouldn’t be so blah. Even at 50 years old people began talking down to me. I put up with it for several years until one of my red-headed granddaughters convinced me to dye it back red before her high school graduation. I’ve kept it red since, as close as I could get to the original color. It’s surprising what a little difference something like that can make.
In the years I spent covering white with blonde it caused me to think more about racial things in the world. While I definitely don’t subscribe to any premise that we should treat any person differently due to skin tone, it made me aware that some people, with no ill intentions, exhibit (possibly subconscious) different treatment to those of other races.
I’ve brought this up with a few people and gotten mixed reactions. Some think it’s my imagination and others have seen my point. Our family mostly appears white but there are those who have married people with a different skin tone. The simple thing of hair dye has made me more sensitive toward some of the prejudices that are legitimate.
"The blonde thing" is a sub-section of my "revenge of the nerds" theory.
See, blondes have been seen as conquerors, pillagers, sassenachs, and the enemy ever since the Sais (Saxons) came to Briton and took it over and made it Angleland.
I think this attitude toward blonde people is a reaction founded in other tribe's DNA and historical record.
So, basically, it's part a jealousy thing and part a revenge thing.
But don't mind me, I have lots of weird theories. But no clocks, thankQ.
Bagster