Ginger

Natural Red Heads always seem to have such wonderful thick hair and I am extreamly jealous,both of my boys had their fathers ginger cast to their hair which in the summer went very blonde now they are both 30+ and they only have the colouring when they grow a beard,such a shame.I have never had any untoward comments when they where little but would very much take offence if anything had been said about their hair colour be it red/black/brown etc.

I think red hair is stunning! As a child I wished for flame coloured hair instead of my 'mousy' locks. I am always shocked to hear this kind of abuse, it may not be racism, but it is definitely discrimination. I remember Oprah Winfrey doing an experiment on her audience where all blue eyed people were treated badly and discriminated against by her staff. They were furious! It just demonstrated what some members of the human race have to put up with every day.

My mother and her 2 sisters were ginger haired.. dead straight orange hair and often got teased. My husband has (had!) ginger hair too..thick curly ginger hair and was the butt of jokes. Our elder DD has thick curly red hair.. my DGDs immediately thought she looked like the heroine, Merrida, from the recent film Brave, but has not suffered from teasing or jokes. I like to think that more of the younger generation now look beyond appearance! Maybe to do with all that equalities and personal /social education that is /was on the school curriculum.

I am/was a redhead.My dad had real carroty red hair and my mum had more auburn hair.
Now my dgd 3 has copper hair and looks as though she has been adopted as her mum, dad and brother all have very dark hair!

When I was at school I don't remember anyone picking on me, although it was normal for people in general to call redheads "Ginger" or "Carrot top".
Never any nastiness though.

I love Rebecca Brooke's pre-raphelite hair!

I used to spend a fortune colouring my hair red!! (Natural mouse underneath, but shades of chestnut - auburn since the age of about 18!! )I have never understood this English prejudice against red hair - in Scotland there are so many redheads, it is just another colour. "Ginger" was not a pejorative term at all.And I am so proud of littlest grandson's TRULY RED hair - I think it comes from DH's side of the family, but it is stunning!

We have been surprised that the DGC have not been more redheaded with two lots of red genes on maternal grandparents side!

My dad was very dark haired as was my natural colour & I have tinted it with red hues including henna since I was a teen. However when dad once decided to grow a beard it was red!

My DH family are all dark haired except for him.

DGC dads are both fair haired as are all the DGC. DGD1 has some reddish tinges in her hair but is not a red head or ginger as her grandfather or great grandmother!

Genes are funny things!

Of my three children, one is dark brown, one blonde, and the other ginger. The ginger one (a boy) hated his hair because of the stick he used to get. He still wears it really short. He used to have lovely curls (sigh!)

I think on a girl it would have been different. I don't think girls get the mickey taking.

No. Not racist though absent.

I don't remember any hair colour being ridiculed when I was young. I also don't know why the word ginger, when applied to hair colour rather than the spice, seems to be pronounced with two hard gs by some young people. The first time I heard it was on The Weakest Link when one of the contestants being bullied by Anne Robinson replied, "At least I'm not a ginger [hard gs]". I didn't know what she meant until another young person explained.

All the Royal Tudors had red hair and when my colleague and I were doing our Tudor Day in schools we always mentioned this as it gave red headed children a boost to think they might be descended from the Tudor kings and queens.

I don't remember redheads being pilloried when I was at school. Yes they were called carrots or ginger-nuts but only the same way as the very tall would get "tiny"- accepting the difference without malice. Everyone had nicknames. My cousin was very blond and was always "snowball" but he did not feel got-at.

Dear friend experienced prejudice about her ginger hair when a mutual friend fixed her up with a date. He rang her beforehand to work out how they would recognise one another and when she told him it would be fairly easy as she had ginger hair, he said ' can I stop you right there'. Turned out the hair colouring was a total no-no for him. His loss!

I do remember someone in the family marrying an extremely beautiful young woman with a pre-Raphaelite cloud of red curls. She was head-hunted by a model agency but they insisted that she should dye her hair. Bizarre. Head-hunted was not the right choice of word.

I think I wrote somewhere else on Gransnet that my ginger son has a joke:

- What's the difference between a ginger and a brick?

- A brick gets laid more often.

Mr getme is a red-head and I secretly hoped our first child would be one too. He was. He looks amazing in photographs - almost translucent.

Lots of redheads where I live. I think it's all the Norse and Irish mixed blood. Lovely.

absent, I think the only response to having that said to one (as in the OP) should be: You do know you are being incredibly rude, don't you?
That's certainly what I'd want to have said anyway.

getmehrt - do I dare tell that one to my son?

(he's between girlfriends at the moment)

My DS, now 40, has red hair and has always hated it. When he was 15 or so, he dyed it black, and did his eyebrows as well - an alarming look for someone with such fair skin. He was sent home from school until we managed to approximate his natural colour. In his adulthood he has always shaved his head, which I think is most unattractive, although I keep this view to myself. I suppose I have no chance of seeing his hair again until he goes grey!

Sad isn't it vegasmags!

I keep telling mine he'd look lovely with his ginger curls back. No luck though.

Two of my nephews and my son-in-law have red hair. It doesn't seem to bother them at all. I suspect they'd just mentally write off people who made rude remarks about the colour of their hair as f-ckwits. Have to say, I agree with that view.

Both brothers in law are red heads; American ancesters mostly called Rufus!! Eldest DD auburn, so a surprise when DD2 was not! Her second DS is a red head; not sure if at 5 he has been teased though. DD1 is proud to be distinctive!

DH had lovely red hair, worn in a crew cut, when I first met him. he says he was not teased at school, it seems to be a recent thing. When people started commenting I went over the top and had my hair dyed red, as did my daughter. Why are people so rude ?

Following on from my earlier post, (babysitting meanwhile) when I was little, people would stop my mum and say what beautiful hair I had, and now they stop my ds and dil and say the same about my favourite baby!

Just read a Kindle book (99p) Nobody Loves a Ginger Baby-Louise Dawnay I think is the author. I had never heard the expression before but lots of red hair in my mothers family. Prostitutes used to have to wear red wigs I think and the French don't seem to like red hair(DGD was a bit auburn and there were a lot of veiled questions) I'm told redheads have yellow fat and are funny to operate on!

There used to be folklore that if you did "it" on a Sunday afternoon your sin would be revealed by you producing ginger twins. As that was often the only time that couples could pack the kids off to Sunday School and have the house to themselves, I am surprised the country was not over-run with red-headed look-alikes.