Why the fuck are some English people so nasty about ginger hair?

[QuentininQuarantino]

My beautiful DH is ginger. When we first got together, he was attacked from
behind and had his jaw broken, had a McDonald’s throws at him out of a car window, had a bloke push him into
a pond at university. My own “friends” asked me when I was pregnant what I would do if my baby came out ginger. He tells me heartbreaking stuff about being bullied at school.

We emigrated 10 years ago and people say nothing, or nice things.

We’ve been back in the UK for Xmas for 3 weeks and we’ve already had people (older people) shouting “Oi Ed Sheeran” across the street about four times, one young woman in a pub asking to see his pubes FFS.

Why is it still okay, and common(!) to bully strange men in front of their small children purely based on a psychical characteristic!!??

I love red colouring in men and women, finding it much more aesthetically attractive than blonde. My great-grandmother had thick, dark red hair well into her old age.

No, the phrase "taking the mick/mickey" comes from the phrase "taking the piss" which in turn has it's origins in the Cockney rhyming slang "taking the Mickey Bliss".....meaning, "taking the piss" aka poking fun at someone or something.

Here:

"The word 'piss' (or, in Scotland, 'pish') has its origins in Latin (pissare) and French (pisser), an onomatopoeic word to describe the sound of urination. One of the mildest swear-words, it nevertheless has a major influence on a number of common British phrases.

When men sleep, the build-up of urine in the bladder puts pressure on the man's prostate gland, resulting in an erection. In the 17th and 18th Centuries, a man who was thought to be unnecessarily arrogant would be described as 'piss-proud'. The New Canting Dictionary of 1725 contained an entry on 'vain-glorious or ostentatious me' which read:

One that boasts without reason, or, as the Canters say, 'pisses more than he drinks'.

If you were to ridicule someone for being too 'full of themself', you would 'take the piss' out of them. As the word 'piss' became categorised as vulgar, the phrase was modified - 'taking the micturations', later shortened to 'taking the mickey' (nothing to do with a person called Michael). With the invention of the urinal, gentlemen would aim towards a small illustration of a bee, intended as a 'pissing point', the Latin word for bee being 'apis', while a domestic commode would be referred to as a 'piss-pot'. In Britain, the link between alcohol and urine is clear: a night out might be described as 'going on the piss'; if a person appears to be spending his money excessively on alcohol he is said to be 'Pissing it against the wall' - presumably on the same principle that you don't buy bad beer, just rent it; a 'piss-up' is a drunken party or pub-crawl."

Another word for micturation is....urination. And micturations was shortened to "mick" as "piss" became a vulgar term.

So, no, the phrase "taking the mick" isn't racist nor does it refer to the Irish as a group. 🤦‍♂️

We moved out of Essex when I was a kid, so I probably have a different accent now anyway, but in the 1960's/early 1970's most people where we lived in an Esses new town didn't have the Estuary accent anway, as many were from London.

Ok Boomer.

Sorry, I fell asleep as you were twisting yourself in knots there. Plenty of online sources point to its anti-Irish sentiment. Maybe it started off as some cockney mumbo jumbo but most users of it today would think of the Irish connotation.

Anyway, can you help me out with a non anti-Irish origin for “having/throwing a paddy” which I often hear in the office and which Carol Kirkwood thought it was fine to say on BBC Breakfast during a weather report? To be fair, she’s as Orange as they come so would expect nothing less. Who doesn’t love a bit of sectarianism in the morning?!

Maybe it started off as some cockney mumbo jumbo but most users of it today would think of the Irish connotation

I'm not going to comment on 'throwing a paddy' but I suggest you look up the phrase 'mumbo jumbo'...

Im an Essex hirl with a dtrong Estuary accent abd red hair no hope for me then 😃

And cant spell apparently......sorry

Thanks Milkshake and Jollygoose x

Back of the net!

Back of the net 😅😅

You can start with the Ad Hominem nonsense all you like, but it only reflects badly on you and weakens whatever argument you thought you had. 🤷‍♂️

The bulk of your post is relying on a logical fallacy called argumentum ad populum aka "argument to the people". I'm sure I don't need to explain how faulty the logic of "if many people believe it is so, it is so" to grown adults.

Surely not?!

As for the last....ahhh, another logical fallacy - Shifting The Goalposts. Oh dear.

In the end, all you've done is post nothing more than unsubstantiated rhetoric you attempted to pass off as established fact to end in a mini rant about sectarianism. 🤦‍♂️

Eh Eh 😂

Disgraceful sectarianism from you for all to see, unfortunately. No place for it and pretty ironic considering the thread is about prejudice.

I'm also a Northern Irish Catholic and, therefore, not Protestant. But it doesn't justify or excuse your disgraceful sectarianism there.

Once again, you resort to personal attacks towards others which ONLY reflects badly on yourself and shows everyone else you've lost the argument you attempted to push on another poster.

Disgraceful behaviour. You'll notice I don't make personal remarks of any kind towards others here....

And OK Boomer isn't a prejudicial comment at all.

For what it's worth I am ginger/red/titian whatever. (As a kid, really, ginger was the only appropriate word. It was bright orange). I was teased but never really bullied about it - got much more grief for my protruding teeth. I'm practically white haired now and use dye to maintain a bit of red. I feel so old when it fades too much

I also have 4 brothers with varying shades of red hair, including my younger brother who had a head of bright ginger curls as a kid in the 60s. All of them have, I'm sure, been on the receiving end of bullying but not violently so. All of them have been successful in life. Not really sure why. We are all in our 60s/70s now.

On the other hand, it was only in the 70s (I think) that adoptive parents were asked on the form they completed if they would accept a 'child with ginger hair' and I have known friends say 'He/She is going back if they're ginger' when pregnant, so there is no doubt there is an issue.

My DB has red hair. He is now 58 so it has changed colour now, but as a child it was an amazing pale copper colour.

I don't think he has ever had anything other than compliments and positive reactions, especially as a child. In fact it used to make me furious when we were kids with everyone saying how fantastic his hair was .

One time we went to Greece on holiday and so many people just wanted to touch and stroke his bonce wherever we went, it became a bit of a liability.

I am talking 60s/70s. It does seem to be much worse these days than back then but other people may have different experiences.

I heard a radio discussion about 10 years ago with an official from one of the big teaching unions. They were discussing a case when a 7 years old boy had been in trouble for calling his friend the P word during a spat at school.

The teacher said during this discussion that teasing kids about red hair was not a real problem and was nowhere near as bad as racism - so maybe that's why it has got worse.

She wasn't twisting herself in knots at all. You know that which is why you had to resort to an ageist boomer insult. And an insult against cockneys.

Is this a serious question?

@DownNative

"Dumb blonde" is a sex based insult, not an example of 'appearance based' bias. It's an example of misogyny. There is no such thing peruse as an 'appearance based' bias. There is always something else behind it.

Or are you going to quote some jokes you've heard where a blond man, a brunette man and a bald man walk into a bar but only the tall, godlike Swede ended up with a massive bruise on his face?

I didn’t grow up knowing stereotypes about people with ginger hair so I don’t associate ginger hair with anything now. To be honest, I don’t recall any ginger haired people from my childhood. I still don’t really “get” what the issue is and I’m English. I’m guessing it’s a classist thing or a religious thing perhaps?

I, when thinking of ginger hair in a bad way, only think of unnatural ginger haired people. Think home DIY bleaching fails on dark hair that ends up looking like hay, bright orange, patchy, uneven etc. but that’s not commentary on natural red heads

*peruse = per se

This makes me so sad. I have lots of family, including DC with red hair and it really is something lots of people can be very discriminatory about.

Even this morning, a poster in a thread about Prince Harry referred to him as 'old ginger bollocks'. I mean, I'm not a fan of his AT ALL but that isn't just insulting him, it's an insult to everyone with the hair colour. I reported it but Mumsnet decided to leave it up. Which shows exactly how tolerated it is. It may not count as racism but it IS a form of discrimination, even if not enshrined in law.

I didn’t grow up knowing stereotypes about people with ginger hair so I don’t associate ginger hair with anything now

I’m similar. In my sixties and only recall being aware of the ginger hate thing from the last ten years or so. I do remember ginger people from my childhood and they were inevitably nicknamed Ginge but that is as far as it went. They weren’t the subject of cruel teasing like they seem to be now.

I disagree, it was worse in the past. As someone with red hair I would find being called "ginger people " a bit insulting. As you don't have red hair you can't comment on other people's experiences.