"Ginger boys are just ugly"

"for a child at school, to be teased for the colour of their skin or the colour of their hair doesn't feel very different."

I don't know, steppemum. I've only experienced being bullied for being ginger. I wonder if it is different though. It's shitty, in that both lower your self esteem. However, as a red head, there was just me being bullied for being ginger. My mum is also ginger but she went to a grammar school in the 1950s and just didn't get the same kind of treatment that I got at a bog-standard and rather nasty comp. So what I went through was isolating and I didn't feel people really understood it.

But racism is different in that what's being questioned is your racial identity. Whilst both are horrific things to go through, I'm not sure that the effects on a child are the same. I've experienced anti-English sentiment whilst in Scotland and it was quite a shock to the system and felt different from being bullied for my hair colour.

Wrong and hurtful.

My mum is still not over the disappointment of not getting a ginger child ( my youngest brother is 33!)

My mum, maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather were all red heads so she thought she had pretty good odds. It's not surfaced in the next generation either.

Sorry 'his than' should be 'historian'!

This book by his than Jacky Colliss Harvey is an interesting read on red hair, history, geography, fetishism and discrimination.

I agree with you gabilan on a societal level.

But for a child at school, to be teased for the colour of their skin or the colour of their hair doesn't feel very different.

For ds , things have got a lot better at secondary. He has a close friend who is just as gingery as he is.
But, sadly, I think it is to do with the intake of the school. His primary is in a very mixed area, with a lot of kids from a rough area. There is a lot of racism there too.
His secondary is selective with mostly middle class liberal parents. He doesn't get teased there.
I hate to put it that way, but it is our experience.

"I would like to thank this thread for introducing me to Max Martini."

And for giving me an excuse to google Michael Fassbender because it must have been at least a week since I last did that

Some years ago on HIGNIFY Reginald D Hunter was mocking the English for their inept attempts to mimic Americans. He pointed out we can't even do racism properly, we just don't like gingers.

IMO he has it about right. You can't group gingers into one race. They're too diverse and turn up in too many different populations. There's no history of enslavement, or trying to prove they're less evolved or that they're a slightly different species. There are no scientific attempts to prove gingers are less intelligent. I'm pretty sure we don't get stopped by the police more frequently let alone shot by them with impunity.

I've been spat on, kicked, punched, had things thrown at me, been heckled endlessly but not, as far as I know, been turned down for a job for being ginger. And I think likening gingerism to racism obscures one important issue. People of colour can be seen as the enemy without and asked to "go back to where you came from". Redheads are the enemy within. You can both have brown hair but produce a ginger child. I think part of the fear comes from this. Partly it probably has its origin in anti-Celtic feeling. But IMO and IME it's about people being small-minded, prejudiced and thick. It has similar roots to racism but it isn't the same.

Ginger hair is beautiful. On males and females. It just seems to be in Britain that people take the piss - I work with lots of students from the Middle East and they think ginger hair (we're in Scotland) is the most gorgeous thing they've ever seen. One Saudi lady who was pregnant at the time said she was praying for her baby to have beautiful Scottish red hair.

Michael Fassbender is a sexy ass ginger. Prince Harry, though I'm a staunch republican, I still definitely would.

Fwiw around half my family has red/ginger hair and no one has ever been teased about it. I don't think it is 'a thing' for kids these days like it used to be.

sorry, not true, ds is 12, he has white skin and bright orange hair. He was teased a lot at primary school, to the extent that he really thought he was ugly and hated his hair.

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

that is a bloody offensive comment Happfeet and you should be ashamed.

ds is a very good looking young man, with white skin and bright orange hair. But you know what? Even if he wasn't since when was it ok to say Oh yeah sorry, your child is ugly??

I think it is probably worse for boys than for girls, but honestly ginger abuse is rife and people think it is funny.
If you hear it and laugh, look at yourself, ignorance is never attractive.

My DGS has ginger curly hair. He's 6. He is lovely.

Didn't read the whole thread just wanted to say I saw a little boy today on his scooter with the brightest red hair I have ever seen. It, and he were breathtakingly beautiful.

oh, posted too soon. When he was a baby an older lady did peer in the pram and announce what a beautiful baby he was but what a shame he was going to grow up ginger - people are twunts, ignore because they aren't worth it

My Ds has got red hair - his nickname is 'ginger ninja', apparently it's cool in his 6yr old peer group

I fancy ginger men. I nearly tripped over at waterloo station on Thursday as I was distracted by a hot ginger man in Uniform. I properly blushed!

Sorry not helpful but anyone who comments negatively about Ginger men are dicks.

I am a brunette btw

My sister's a ginger, its an absolutely beautiful, unusual bronzey shade and is loosely curly. It turns heads in the street and gets much admiration. I'm very envious of it.
She did get a bit of mild teasing at school because of it.
My own hair is chestnut-ish, I love red hair and wish it was redder.

I've always thought ginger hair was incredibly beautiful and special.

I'm still gutted that neither of my boys have red hair. The youngest was born with it but it's a dark blond now, alas.

Having said that though, I HATED having almost luminescent red hair when I was growing up (in Scotland!) and have been dying it pink/blue/green/black/platinum blonde ever since my teens to hide it. I was relatively lucky because I don't otherwise have stereotypically redheaded colouring in that I am not pale and have dark eyebrows and eyelashes and green eyes but people were still really always really shitty and weird about it - the final straw for me was having to constantly run a gauntlet of creepy middle aged men asking if 'collars and cuffs' matched or having fetishists stroking it and trying to cut it off on buses etc. So disgusting.

I can admire it on other people though and think redheaded men are hot as fuck. I am so envious of one of my friends who has a troupe of redheaded children - they look beautiful.

I am a redhead (with slightly uncontrollable curls) and proud of it but I was endlessly teased as a kid. I get annoyed when I look back now and see how little I defended myself.

Like for instance, at college, listening to some boys sitting on our table talking about how hot Lindsay Lohan was (Mean Girls era LL) and a girl saying 'Yeah, she might be pretty, but she's still ginger.' (with a pointed look at me)

Or being with friends and discussing Harry vs William and a friend piping up 'Yeah, he's hot, but he's still ginger' and then looking at me saying 'Sorry.'

I'm more argumentative now than I used to be but back then I just tried to laugh it off.

It makes me how someone can be so mean. Over HAIR COLOUR. Gah! It's so uninspired. And not at all funny.

When I had DD and she turned out to be blonde I had people say to me 'Bet you're relieved that she's not ginger.'

However I also have to deal with her grandparents desperation for more redheads in the family they keep staring at her hair trying to see ginger in it!

Girlfriend Thanks for that, I haven't seen it before. I adore Tim Minchin, the man is a total genius. DH is Irish and is the only one in his family (one of eight children) who doesn't have red hair. I love it on either sex. There are identical twin boys at DS2's school who have a mop of bright red hair and loads of freckles. They are about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

I wonder where the OP went?

He is stunning, Mitzy. Thank you for introducing us.

James Norton is gorgeous - he was very creepy and scary in Happy Valley though, but his hair wasn't ginger in that.

I clicked on this thread purely in the hope that people would have posted pics of hot ginger men like Damian Lewis.

I wasn't disappointed. There's a lot of ginger hotness out there.

OP those people were twats. and probably had ugly children themselves

whatlifestylechoice that's James Norton! Isn't he gorgeous?

That was a Gaulish red head by the way.