Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

To get stroppy with work colleagues being vile about ginger children.

99 replies

ledkr · 04/10/2012 12:18

I feel uncomfortable now but they were being really horrible about ginger babies and I have a lovely one who is gorgeous and im missing her loads today.
They tried to make light of it but I said that its attitudes like that that mean that red headed children are still bullied at school.
There is an atmosphere now in the office so I thought i'd tell you and you can all come and wait for them outside with banners and eggs

OP posts:

snowmummy · 04/10/2012 21:30

YANBU they are idiots. I love red hair so much that I dye mine.

Quadrangle · 04/10/2012 21:33

YANBU and I do think that adults who speak like that help cause bullying. I have a little girl with red hair and one of the school mums told me twice in the playground that one of the other mums who had had a baby was worried as she thought her baby's hair was ginger. She thought it was funny and there was a mum with a red haired baby standing right near by. I also overheard some mums at the park laughing about how someone might have a red headed baby and then when one of them noticed that my dd had red hair and i looked over at them she started to say. "The baby might be a girl with red hair and that will be beautiful."
When I looked around a high school i asked the head about bullying and he said that the worst incident they had the year before was of a boy with red hair. It's a real problem. I've heard it said that now people know they can't get away with being openly racist they have moved on to picking on kids with red hair instead. Nice!

GeekLove · 04/10/2012 21:45

I don't get the anti-ginger prejudice when the most popular hair dyes are for shades of red.

However, another put down against those anti-ginger people is you could remark on the fact you do have hair like theirs, just not on your head...

gindrinker · 04/10/2012 21:56

Yes! Lily Cole. :)

Cherriesarelovely · 04/10/2012 22:03

YADNBU I think these comments are so, so horrible and so senseless. Why do people have this nasty thing about ginger hair when it is so beautiful?! Where does this stupid prejudice come from? Anyway, I hope they feel really ashamed of themselves.

bubalou · 04/10/2012 22:13

I have brown hair so this wasn't an issue for me at school.

Lucky for me instead I suffered from acne. I know this sounds awfully snobbish but trust me I don't mean it to but I wasn't even in a group of friends where I could just put my head down & try to blend into the background. All my friends were very popular, pretty and slim.
I was I think was a slim and pretty girl but no matter what I did - pills, potions & hundreds of pounds my mum spent, my skin was awful. My hair was also wavy and not in a good way and lank - straighteners were only just coming around & not the good kind.

However When I was 14 I got put on the pill - just for my periods & my skin not as a contraceptive! Things got better. My skin cleared up, I was old enough & wise enough to carefully wear make up & ceramic hair straighteners arrived!

I will never forget how shit people made me feel calling me pizza face etc for something that wasn't my fault & I swear I have never ever been mean about anyone's physical attributes since.

Bastards!

Incidentally - one lad i went to school with that was REALLY awful to me in front of a crowd of lads and called me spotty, pizza etc - was ginger. Looking back now I think he was getting a lot of stick himself & chose to try & make me feel bad to make himself feel better. Sad hey.

secretlyahippy · 04/10/2012 23:38

What a bunch of idiots. I unfortunately do not have red hair although I do have very nice long blonde hair. However, my dh has red hair and he is absolutely gorgeous. He's very tall, athletic, brown-eyed and fabulously red.

Dd1 will have auburn hair as its getting darker, dd2 is blonde and ds1 is what only can be described as gold.

I would happily pelt a few eggs.

mertin · 04/10/2012 23:42

It just seems utterly ridiculous that people would discriminate against people according to hair colour in this day and age.

secretlyahippy · 04/10/2012 23:48

Also here's a nice little redhead to admire

secretlyahippy · 04/10/2012 23:52

Here's another whom I am sure was a pretty baby but extreemely nice grown up

Madmum24 · 05/10/2012 10:12

Both my brother and i are gingers auburn and I got bullied as a child to no end. I remember when i was giving birth to dc1 and the midwife saying she could see a head full of black hair and the relief poured over me! I moved to my husbands home country (middle east) and became a celeb for the colour of my hair! I absolutely love it now, now I am greying I regularly henna it and by the time i had dc4 both my hub and I were dying for a ginga baby! Didn't get one though :-(

sosos · 05/10/2012 13:18

I would actually love to have ginger hair. i think its beautiful. i have never understood where this whole thing against ginger hair has come from. im guessing another media depiction. people like that are just sad really and need to get a life x

SuzysZoo · 05/10/2012 13:32

I'm a ginger and I sometimes wonder if the ginger prejudice thing is ancient and comes from native islanders not liking invading gingers or something. Everyone was nice about my hair when I was small and it was not until I was about 20 that I realised anything about the ginger prejudice (but a lot does go over my head!)
Now i'm mid forties, I am not grey and I particularly like that! I have never had to dye my hair - saved myself a fortune!

Loie159 · 05/10/2012 13:42

SuzysZoo - I ahve very long bright red hair and was bullied most of my primary school life for it. I absolutly believe the reason it seems to be endemic in the UK is left over "traditional" Celtic repression!!! I honestly believe that 100%.

I love my hair and at least once a week a strnager comes up to me to tell me how much they like it as well, so Im very glad I have it!

FamiliesShareGerms · 05/10/2012 13:42

OP, YANBU. It's ridiculous and childish to make jokes about red hair, especially as it is my very favourite hair colour!

SuzysZoo, prejudice against redheads is indeed ancient including medieval depictions of Judas

FergusSingsTheBlues · 05/10/2012 13:43

My son has red hair and he is a beautiful handsome child.
It kills me that i know he will get stick one day so i tell him all the time how beautiful his hair is. It is. Hoping as we are in scotland that he wont get much hassle.

Beamur · 05/10/2012 13:45

YANBU
My DD is a glorious red head too and I wouldn't hesitate to pull someone up who thought it was funny to make comments.

Ponyofdoom · 05/10/2012 13:53

See, I don't get why this isn't actual racism? Because the red haired gene is only in the Celtic race, right? I think Suzyszoo is onto something..

Pixieonthemoor · 05/10/2012 14:00

A little while ago, I was walking down a street with the sun setting behind me. Walking in front of me was a girl with long curly red hair down to the small of her back. In the setting sun light it looked so amazing, like it was on fire, literally breath taking. I had to stop her and tell her how stunning her hair was - she did look at me as if I was a loon but I just HAD to say something. Utterly gorgeous!

Some of the hottest guys I know are red heads (inc dh ) and I was hoping that my red headed newborns would keep their colour but alas they are now blond (also lovely but I do love red hair).

Sorry - I am rambling. In short, your colleagues are tossers and YAdefNBU to have a go at them.

Quadrangle · 05/10/2012 14:00

Yes i have heard that the reason there is red hair prejudice here and not elsewhere is because it has evolved from racism against irish people

mashedpotatohead · 05/10/2012 14:06

ledkr well done you. Bloody bafoons! I've had it my whole life, even at 40! I've got two gorge boys with red hair & feel fiercly protective of them. I've heard it all myself & now sadly its starting over with my boys. Gingerism should be abolished!

LonelyCloud · 05/10/2012 18:57

Yes, I don't see how this doesn't count as racism either. Given that red hair's a genetic trait only people of a certain racial heritage have.

LindyHemming · 05/10/2012 19:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MadBusLady · 05/10/2012 19:39

YANBU. I seriously don't understand this prejudice, it is deeply odd. Why not very blonde hair, or very dark hair? Ginger just does not register with me as unusual at all, or no more unusual than any number of other random physical traits.

Flip

1 2 3 4