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 went to an antenatal class run by hospital mw in the north east of England a few years ago. Dm came with me as dp was working away and we were both horrified by the mw attempt at humour.

She said words to the effect of not to worry about the birth as it could be worse, you could have a ginger baby. Then smirked.

Lots of the women there didn’t have partners with them (so could have had red headed dps) and of course lots of redheaded women dye their hair. I remember thinking how awful this was and she could be really upsetting someone there who might well have a baby with red hair. Just so nasty and unnecessary

Not here. I’m expecting non-identical twins and my husband has already been told l hope at least one of them has red hair. Half my mums family has red hair so it’s not impossible

Agreed. I have a ginger child, it saddens me that this is what people notice about him first, and think it's ok to comment or ridicule.
He's bright, funny and kind......but already aware of the nasty comments on his hair and asks me why he is 'different'
Discrimination doesn't seem to matter when it's anti-ginger.

Sadly yet another English bashing thread it seems. I'm out.

@ditalini Well, it's very clear to see where you stand on the matter.

I think red hair looks stunning. As a child, I often wished my brown hair would turn red, especially as three of my friends were redheads and they used to pretend to be sisters. I dyed my hair red as a teenager, although unfortunately it didn’t really suit my skin tone.

I was baffled when I read, “Anne of Green Gables”. What on earth was supposed to be the issue with Anne’s hair? The only reason I could find in the book was that red hair was thought to be linked to having a bad temper. Clearly, this prejudice existed in Canada, at least back then.

@mathanxiety Setting that aside it is fact that The vast majority of Irish people don’t have red or ginger hair. Something cannot be anti Irish because some Irish people have red hair.
What about those that have no connection to Ireland? I have four very immediate members of family whom are blazing ginger. They’re fully black.

Laughing at all the 'celtic origin' stuff people keep saying.. umm guys, I had a class of 34 in primary school in the highlands of scotland, only onr was ginger. Well, another was strawberry blonde tbf, if we count tjat.

Tbf I read somewhere that there was something like 3% more ginger people here. But we're hardly all Meredith lol.

I've had several English folk ask me why I'm not ginger. Idiots of course and not representative of their general population - but its ignorance to keep linking being Scottish or Irish with being ginger.

(Not that it isn't a beautiful colour of course!)

Excuse me, I've lived in half a dozen countries and travelled all over the world. I've never heard ginger insults except in the UK. From this thread I've learned it's also a thing in Australia, which makes sense as it was a British settler colony.

What are these other 'lots of countries' then?

It’s not isolated to England, it’s bad in Scotland too, which is a shame! Boys definitely get it worse than girls I find.

It's not true that it's just English people, though. I have a very, very red headed friend who speaks multiple languages and you'd be surprised how many tourists from different countries like to point at my friend and say things like "look! a ginger!" assuming that the redhead in question won't know what they're saying. Sometimes it's more curiosity when it's from children or people from countries where they don't have much red hair. Sometimes it's just rude.

I genuinely don't understand the British hatred for redheads. Where I grew up (not UK) I was complimented constantly for my red hair. Same when I travelled (widely - Asia, South America, Europe) Personally I didn't receive any hatred for my hair in Britain, but I noticed the very common negative references to some. Bizarre, hateful and totally unacceptable.

Same!

Red hair, being rare, was associated with superstitions in many cultures. E.G. on the west coast of Ireland, it was considered bad luck for fishermen to see a red haired girl in the morning. A red head TV presenter described being kept at home by her mother until the boats went out. For some reason those negative associations have been taken to an extreme in the UK. I assumed it was because the kind of 70s 'banter' that knocked women, gays, non whites became unacceptable but knocking 'gingers' was fine. No idea if there's any credibility to that theory but I always despised the casual cruelty towards red heads in UK pop culture of the 90s ( magazines, TV shows, etc).

My son was slapped across the back of his head in Manchester city centre just because of his hair colour. Feckin cowards run away before I realised what had happened

Well ironically the US for one. The main point was the poster said it only happened in the UK, as are you

Nah, lived in North America ... never so much as heard a whisper of it. Definitely a British thing.

My son started getting nasty comments and sometimes physical abuse because of his hair once he started secondary school. He has just turned 15. In year seven, after he had been at school for about 3 weeks, an older kid came and kicked him because it was "kick a ginger day". He is spoken to in a derogatory manner most days and now believes he is less worthy than other kids because of his hair. He also shaves his body hair because he doesn't want people to see it. As he has gotten older it has reduced because there are fewer older kids about (or maybe he just doesn't tell me as much because he has accepted it).

It absolutely breaks my heart that his hair colour has had such a massive impact on his self esteem.

mathanxiety and all of those people you mentioned are American. Do you think having red hair automatically nakes you Irish?

I can't speak to the prevalence compared with here, nor to many other European countries, but to at least some degree it exists in France. www.20minutes.fr/societe/1994823-20170113-cheveux-degoutaient-tellement-fait-coloration

So... can't name those lots of other countries then?

Bullying gingers is not a thing in the US. If you're relying on South Park for evidence read this from Wikipedia:

Parker and Stone were inspired to create the episode by a billboard that they saw in England while promoting the show. The billboard read "Only you can prevent ginger" and had a picture of a redheaded girl. Parker and Stone did a lot of research to ensure that there was some truth to the whole story, rather than it being purely fictional.

It's awful. I was teased mercilessly for my hair colour when I was younger, even by my parents (they were both brunettes, apparently the red hair came from great-grandparents on both sides of the family. My dad regularly told people my brother and I aren't his, and mum used to joke she'd left us out in the rain and the hair and freckles were rust).

Bullied when I was younger then fetishised for it as I got older 😕 if I got upset about the teasing my 'friends' and family would say "it's just a bit of fun".

Yeah, when I was on a school trip and a lad shouted "who's got ginger hair here?" Then chased me with a lighter and aerosol van and singed my hair and I had to cut a load of it off. That was really fun.

And the sexual harassment from men who are "just curious whether the carpet matches the curtains" and "never had a redhead, heard they're great in bed". Hilarious.

@MummersMumming thats shit. It’s always baffled me how badly bullied ginger/red haired people are. It’s especially weird because it’s so beautiful. I’m sorry that’s your experience.