"Ginger boys are just ugly"

[CrumpetHead]

Just wanted to rant

Had 32wk consultant appointment today, sat in tiny waiting room with about 15 other people all crammed in and there's two women sat opposite DP and I chatting to each other, conversation goes something like "have you ever thought that your baby could be ginger" "oh god no don't say that, I wouldn't mind so much if it was a girl but ginger boys are just ugly, yuk"

DP was sat next to me and could hear the whole thing, he is ginger and so is our 14 month old DS. How rude can you get?!
DP wears a cap constantly when he's out because he got teased in school about it.

What difference does it make what colour hair you have? It's just a colour the same as brown, blonde, black are colours! Thinking about it now it's really making my blood boil and if I could turn back time I wish I'd have said something to them instead of staying quiet because I didn't want to cause an argument.
Idiots

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

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.

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!)

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.

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.

pandarific that's one theory I had also!

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 !!!!!!!!!!

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.

Sounbelievablydull Errm...have you actually read the thread?

I'm not sure who you mean when you say you all?

Anti-ginger stuff is real is and is horrible. I sincerely hope things have moved on from my childhood (and tbf I think they have).

I inherited my hair from my DF, who had the most awesome ginger curls. When I was young, older women used to stroke his hair on the bus

Where I come from, anti-ginger sentiment was real and wrapped up in all the sectarian shite endemic in the area. I think that's an anomaly, although sadly my experience is that 'ginger girls okay / ginger boys not' is common.

Sounbelievablydull, I think we've had about 2 posters slagging off gingers and 150 robustly defending their charms...

Need to shut up and go to bed but I do wonder what future races are. I live in a multicultural society very happily, myself and children celebrate every festivity going on. We have good friends locally. Tbh nobody around us at home has any ginger issues, i'm more annoyed about tv. Without it and social media hit a ginger day would never have happened.
Op apologies for ranting too much on your post, enjoy your boy

'Mind you, I don't know why some people get so 'gushy' over it either because again...it's just a bloody hair colour.'

Yes. It is a bit of a MN cliché that people go into raptures over red hair.

People are so stupid about red hair. Its beautiful. And Celtic.
My granddad and the men in his family had black hair but red beards. My late dm had, and me and my dd have some red in our hair. I love to see red hair.
I do sometimes think that the UK general public are easily led into despising each other for no good reason at all.

Mmmmcake123 I read that in 1000 years time humans might have red eyes. I'll have to take their word for it though!

But again you see I truly don't believe that the general opinion on MN (that ginger hair is beautiful) is representative of the general opinion in RL.

One reason could possibly be that the only 2 people to state a negative opinion about it, were sworn at and jumped on here.

So perhaps that's why these threads never really get to the bottom of why so many people don't like it?

Perhaps it is 'racism', xenophobia, something they learned from home growing up, or maybe it's something else.

But I don't think we'll ever know if people are going to get a hard time for expressing how they feel.

Or if people like Sounbelievablydull, make posts like that ^^ without even reading the thread.

Mitzy bring it on I say! Just hope the human race as a whole adapts to it during the transitional phase xxx

Worra depends where you live really when considering if mn represents rl