"Ginger boys are just ugly"

I hadn't come across this attitude towards redheads before living in the UK. I adore red hair. Other half is a redhead. I am encouraging a full red beard for movember. 24 carat gold.

Under the effect of a person being mocked.

Thanks for this, when I initially posted it was to say that flowers n happyfeet were racist with lots of !!!!!!!!!!

'Would people stand for it if it were blondes being mocked?'

Ummm, this happens quite a lot. Ever heard the phrase 'dumb blonde'?

I think red hair was also associated with witch craft in medieval Europe. It's a long standing prejudice!

People who mock someone purely because of hair colour are twats. Would people stand for it if it were blondes being mocked?

I have two gorgeous red haired boys. One is auburn and used to get inundated with old ladies complementing his hair colour, the other is orange as he calls himself, or carrot as some have said upthread. I am lucky that neither have been bullied through school, and at home we have always used the term 'ginge' in a positive way so if they had heard it being used negatively, they'd not associate it as such.

My third child has brown hair and longs to match his two older brothers.

Jasper, that all sounds very familiar.

Panda, I think that's true, but that in fact the anti-red hair prejudice is older still. There was a vicious English Renaissance stereotype of the red-haired, hook-nosed Jew - and Shylock and Marlowe's Barabas were often played in bright red wigs - and Judas was often depicted as red-haired, and in Tudor England red hair was sometimes called 'judas-coloured'. I think it coded as 'ethnic outsider', whether Irish/Scottish/Jewish.

The horror on this thread is truly disturbing-freckles !!!!! White skin!!!! Pale eye lashes!!! Eyebrows!! My god why
Didn't the nazis sort this out while they had the chance??
It must be so wonderful up there in the land of the beautiful.
Where are you all on a day to day basis?
I work I shop I travel on the tube most people look pretty similar. How
do you keep yourselves apart from the joe average mouse brown, ginger, glasses wearing overweight masses?
I truly admire you all,your relentless hard work to keep you apart from the overweight the people with acne the people with physical disability the people with ginger hair.
Most of all though I hope you and your poisonous attitudes do not infect and influence my wonderful ginger glasses wearing boy in any way to feel that he is worth less than any one of your children

Yes I agree, Mmmmcake. I suppose I think ginger hair is not a race - but I understand the prejudice could have started along those lines, as pandorific suggested.

But it isn't a race - and let's be clear, racism (predominantly about skin colour) is along the lines of "you don't belong here - go back to where you belong. Maybe that was the roots of 'gingerism'? I don't know.

What I would suggest, is that this is irrelevant - the affect on the person being mocked - for something they are born with - must be essentially the same.

Racism is completely far deeper rooted in retrospect, but I think it starts with difference and difference being made acceptable to the majority

pandarific that's one theory I had also!

I wouldn't go so far as to use the word racism, but I think that the anti Irish-Irish/redhead prejudice probably goes qualify as the last remains of a very strong and damaging prejudice which is dying out. These days being Irish is no big deal, and I face less prejudice than I would if I were Polish, but this is a comparatively recent phenomenon - within my adulthood I've been subject to profiling as a potential terrorist, faced non-dangerous but annoying regular slights which were the equivalent of the sexism I experience as a woman, faced actual physical danger, and had my GP assume that my genetic condition (one common in people of Irish descent) was the result of alcoholism because Irish people are heavy drinkers. The GP thing is the only one in recent years. The real prejudice seems to has faded. But it has only faded very recently.

sorry cactus I just found it more prevalent in Scotland and a little google search indicates highest numbers to be found in Scotland Ireland and European countries in general.

But seeing as you mentioned your ethnicity you are right other ethnicities also show this trait.

I can think of seeing Arabs with ginger hair which I found strange, because whilst I associate anything from blonde, caramel or black hair on them, I would never have thought of red, its not common but does exist.

Also in Asia you get it, both south asia, and even china. It must be down to mutations in chromosomes, not just ethnic backgrounds.

Am I incorrect in thinking that the mocking of 'ginger' hair is a very old thing in England that relates right back to anti-Irish and anti-Scot sentiment? From after Henry VIII's reformation propaganda? (I may have this garbled though, historians feel free to correct me!)

Whether it's racism/xenophobia or not (it's not really - racism is far deeper rooted) I imagine it has the same affect on the child being mocked.

Hello cactus, I suppose I am just trying to say that the level of acceptance in terms of mocking redheads has actually become completely unacceptable. Imagine the TV on around 6pm, a quiz show on in the corner, then one of the hosts makes a flippant joke re gingers. Happens every few days.
Should I switch my television off?
My DD is with me and I don't want her to grow up with a complex. Her aunty thinks ginger hair is abhorrent but has been warned by me to stfu.
Now the BBC think it is acceptable viewing at tea time. Watching the wright stuff during half term a few years ago, again, hilarious guffaws at my DDS natural hair colour. She was 13. Not funny. Not xenophobia. Beginnings of hilarious banter for the future?? Oh well that's OK then

Strictly, there's a load of credible research - just google something like 'Irish uk mental health' and you'll find a lot of medical/sociology/Irish studies journal articles, though the picture is a bit distorted because Irish people were only added to the census as a separate category in 2001, and then it wasn't clear whether the respondent who ticked 'White Irish' were themselves immigrants or 2nd/3rd generation.

Just one randomly chosen example.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1562353/

I can't find a link to it, but there's a study by Bronwen Walter called 'Mapping Irish Health' which found that 'White Irish' mental health (and physical health, too, I should say) since 2001 mapped far closely onto non-White ethnic minority groups than onto 'White British'.

I come from a family of reddish-blonde/copper types.

Not strictly "ginger" but close enough to be mightily offended by the inane drivel being spouted by the likes of Happyfeet and FlowersandSHIT

How sad that they are so ignorant and uneducated.

I'd hate to be perceived the way they must be perceived.

Ginger/red hair is my absolute favourite and I always assume that other people find it as lovely as I do!!

I have very dark brown hair, and I"m happy enough with it, but would change to ginger given half a chance! My best friends OH has ginger hair - he's rightly proud of it.

OP, there's plenty of people out there who think ginger is beautiful, whether on a man or woman.

two red heads, not separated at birth, just, very alike!

There are only two negative comments on this thread though (unless I missed a couple).

One saying "Auburn is one thing, white skin and carrot is not good, sorry!"

And another saying "I think auburn hair is beautiful but carrot ginger is awful, sorry."

I'm not sure that 'demonstrates the sheer hatred' particularly.

However, in real life I have heard countless anti ginger comments and 'jokes' from people over the years.

So I don't think Mumsnet is particularly representative when it comes to general feelings about ginger hair (sadly).

bloomsberry that may well be it with my DM too, people used to assume she was a traveller when we were younger and she really hates it even now if people ask her where she's from. It some irony however that there's a lot of dark haired, ginger bearded men in DF's family. I'm the closest we have to a redhead in the family, and my ginger mates tell me I don't count!

Sllight tangent, but they both have red hair, did anybody see that story about the two dopplegangers on the plane to galway!?

I love the doppleganger stories! I love the Irish girl and the English girl who met in Bremen as well. I want a doppleganger!!

is it just a ginger thing or do you think its discrimination based on your background i.e Celts? Irish/Scottish, and the ginger haired trait is an easy scapegoat. plus a lot of kids learn the hatred off their elders be it grandparents or parents, aunts, then they pass it on to further generations not knowing even why theyre doing it?