I’m part of the 2% of people in the world with red hair.
I will never forget the time that I was in a store with my mom and I hear two adults behind me say, “look it’s a ginger!” and then laugh. I wasn’t older than 12. That was about 15 years ago, and it’s one of the many memories I have of being the punchline of jokes. After all, it’s easy to make fun of anything that’s different from the average.
The harmful stereotypes surrounding redheads is undeniable, and their impact can cause lasting effects on young children who are still shaping their identity and self-esteem. Redheads are often belittled and talked down to, all because of something we are born with and have no control over (for most of our lives, until we are old enough to dye our hair). As a redheaded woman, you basically go from being tormented by peers as a child and told you’re a gross freak, to being hyper-sexualized as an adult because your hair draws attention.
Redheads are stereotyped as evil witches, soulless, quick to anger, the “ugly redheaded stepchild” (i.e., unwanted), or for women, they are the hyper-sexual vixens in media. All of which have proven to be harmful. Let’s dive in.
I was in middle school when I first heard about “kick a ginger day”, which originated from an episode of the animated show South Park that made fun of redheads and introduced the “gingers have no soul” phenomenon. Despite the episode claiming to be satire, this portrayal of people with red hair being “disgusting” had real effects on many redheaded children. A quick Google search and you’ll find multiple articles about assaults on red-haired students internationally, some ending in arrests. This goes to show just how powerful the media can be when it comes to prejudice and creating stereotypes.
On the other side of the spectrum of stereotyping redheads, historically, redheaded women are portrayed as witches or vixens in the media. In media, we see this in characters like Jessica Rabbit or Olive from Easy A. If you haven’t watched the movie Easy A, redheaded actress Emma Stone stars in the comedy where she plays a high school student who hears a rumor that she lost her virginity. Though it wasn’t true, she decides to embrace the provocative rumor and create a new persona by wearing the a scarlet letter “A” on her chest, which represents “adultery” based on the novel The Scarlet Letter (1850). By using a redheaded actress for a hyper-sexualized character like Olive, this continues the stereotype of the redheaded vixen.
I believe a lot of the sexualization and stereotypes of redheaded women stems from studies that have been done on women with red hair being more sexually active than other women which, according to this recent 2022 study, it’s likely the societal stereotypes of redheaded women being sexually provocative that causes men to try and have sex them.
Lastly, it should be said: not all redheads are Irish and not all redheads are white.
- Emma Stone in Easy A (2010), IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/mediaviewer/rm1617280768/?ref_=tt_ov_i ↩︎
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