# What's wrong with red hair?



## lightning

In Jacques Brel" Les Bonbons, a young man, trying to disparage a woman named Germaine says " c'est vrai que Germaine ( moins bien que vous) a des cheveux roux, "  What do the French think is wrong with red hair?  Many  people in other cultures find it attractive.
    Dans la chanson de Jacques Brel "Les Bonbons," un garcon dit à sa fille, "Germaine est moins bien que vous; elle a des cheveux roux."  Quel est le problème, en France, avec les cheveux roux?  Dans des autres pays, on trouve ca très jolis.
   ( Si vous voulez, corrigez mon français.  Ca m'aidera à apprendre)


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## CLEMENTINE

Hi there,

I do not know why people with red hair have such reputation, but I remember when I was at school, red hair kids were said not to smell good, especially when it was rainy . I do not know where it is coming from, it is a complete nonsense. Maybe because there are not too many people with red hair (color maybe more common in the UK or Ireland?) and that people usually laugh about those who are differents? 
Does anyone know where such belief is coming from ?
(FYI: Jacques Brel was from Belgium)

Cheerio


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## genstandley

Hi
I'm not sure it's just a French thing.I remember that even when I was in school (in South Africa), red hair was frowned upon (especially boys). I think it's because red hair is unusual outside of the UK, and therefore ridiculed.
Gen


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## Michel_bbbb

CLEMENTINE said:
			
		

> Hi there,
> 
> I do not know why people with red hair have such reputation, but I remember when I was at school, red hair kids were said not to smell good, especially when it was rainy . I do not know where it is coming from, it is a complete nonsense. Maybe because there are not too many people with red hair (color maybe more common in the UK or Ireland?) and that people usually laugh about those who are differents?
> Does anyone know where such belief is coming from ?
> (FYI: Jacques Brel was from Belgium)
> 
> Cheerio


Nothing to do with France or French people (Jacques Brel was born in Belgium indeed)... I think that this and a lot of superstitions and negative comments about red-haired people come from the fact that Judas was red-haired...


By the way, my 5 y.o. boy is red-haired and he is really cute and... he smells like a rose!


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## Ratona

Red hair maybe more common in the UK but here too it is the butt of jokes. Maybe it originates from past Irish-English relations?

The main things you will get picked on at school for are being fat, wearing glasses and having red hair (apparently).

Red hair is also known as ginger, which if you change the soft 'g's (as in gel)to harsh ones (as in get) 'ginger' rhymes with minger (an unattractive or disgusting person) so you have the expression 'ginger minger'. [aren´t the rules of English pronounciation great?!]

They are a dying breed apparently.


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## LV4-26

There's a famous novel by Jules Renard entitled _Poil de Carotte_. It tells the life of a red-haired young boy despised and humiliated by his mother.

_poil de carotte_ has since become one of the possible French equivalents for _ginger bonce, _together with _rouquin_ or _rouquemoute._


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## Isotta

I asked my roommate if he liked redheads, and he said, "Non, les roux puent."

He said it is something they say in France.

Am a bit nonplussed, as I've never heard this before. 

Z.

Post Scriptum. Disclaimer--I do not share above roommate view; redheads are great by me.


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## lightning

This is all very interesting to me and very bizarre.  In America many women use henna or dye to color their hair red because it is considered sexy and unusual.  Redheads are assumed to be fiery and passionate.   Red dye is often called "Roux" so I thought Brel may have meant dyed red hair, but now I understand in in France it's a different story.  Autre pays, autre moeurs.  Why people with red hair should stink is beyond me.


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## Benjy

heh, this question always makes me laugh. mostly because half my family has red hair (not me.. i have the boring brown hair from my fathers side). it's definitely not liked in england (unless its some weird dyed electric red, then its cool for some reason)/france. if fact once i remember on the way to la rochelle we were on a route nationale in really heavy traffic and there was a car in the lane next to us (c'etait une double voie), a renault espace, filled right up and EVERYONE in the car was jsut staring at my mum and my two brothers. it was really freaky. and it went on for like 15 minutes. in the end we got out towels out and hung them over the windows so they would stop looking at us.


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## Isotta

Hmm. And then there are people like my brother, who has dated almost exclusively redheads, with the exception of one Spanish knockout. 

Speaking of hair, I wonder if France has different coloring standards. In America, I would say my hair is light brown, maybe honey brown. Here it people say "chatins clairs," sometimes blond. No one in America, Britain or Canada would call me blond, whereas in Italy, people have even asked me if I dye my hair. I wonder if this is because dark hair is more common?

Z.


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## massie1

Si cela vous intéresse, le lien suivant est à lire: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roux_(couleur)


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## lightning

This just in from a very erudite red-haired librarian in Finland:
 The
negative connotations about red hair usually derive
from as far as middle-ages and the crazy monk who
wrote "The Witch-hammer". Red hair was supposed to be
one of the marks left by Devil himself. When a union
with Devil was made, he left his mark, for example a
mole or a scar or red hair. Red hair was very, very
rare and it is usually coupled with pale skin and
freckles and very low tolerance for sun and heat - as
it is in my case also. What kind of a person cannot
bear God's sunlight without getting burned and sick?
Must be from the Devil! 

But I didn't know redheads stink! On the contrary,
I've heard that redhaired women smell sweeter than
others, like vanilla. But maybe it also comes from the
medieval superstitions and people have forgotten the
reason why they hate redheads? Or maybe it is because
redheads don't stand heat and perhaps sweat earlier
than dark-haired Mediterranean people?


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## geve

What an erudite thread about hair !  

I don't think there's a paradox in red hair conveying both ideas of sexy and smelly/dirty... It's all a matter of jealousy ! 
"Yes, darling, you might think this red-haired woman is very attractive from where you're standing, but you'll soon find out that she smells like an old camembert"...  

The same goes for blond hair : would they be so joked about, if it was not to downgrade potentially dangerous competitor ?  

_This is my personal opinion, but don't take it too seriously : I'm blond_


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## Written_on_raindrops

Red hair a long time ago used to be a superstition of being a witch. It has carried on thru tradition, and even tho they no longer associate it with that, it has become a turn off to cultures around the world.


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## chick n style

I agree with raindropps when says it has to do with witches and superstitions. Specially when red hair is mostly related to dwarfs, pixies and another funny (and evil) characters we find in fairy tales. In middle ages people used to think of a person with red hair that was a son of the devil or  even his rencarnation. Personally, I like red hair so much that I actually dye my hair with different kinds of red, even though I know I could never get a natural one.


by the way...



			
				Michel_bbbb said:
			
		

> I think that this and a lot of superstitions and negative comments about red-haired people come from the fact that Judas was red-haired...



Where did you get that? I'm just curious...


me


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## chick n style

lightning said:
			
		

> But maybe it also comes from the
> medieval superstitions and people have forgotten the
> reason why they hate redheads? Or maybe it is because
> redheads don't stand heat and perhaps sweat earlier
> than dark-haired Mediterranean people?



I guess people has to rate everything they don't know by putting it the "devil, stinky or ugly" label....

by the way...who was that crazy monk???


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## Jessila

I remember as a child hearing stuff like "red hair stink" or red hair kids being called "poil de carotte"... but there were so few of them (red hair kids I mean), that those are just mere memories...

Yet I would have say the same as some added to this thread... Red hair definitely has something to do (for some reason ^^) with being associated to witchcraft... even now !
I personnaly loooove red-hair and am so disappointed in it not being my natural color since my skin is so fair and my eyes green   I've died my hair in red several times, always trying the subtle colors that made it look the most natural as possible... And I remember this one time when I met a few people who all shared an interest in esoterism - I learned afterwards that one of the women had say that her first impression when she saw me was that I was a witch... I was then wearing long and untied red hair loool 
Well, I took it for a compliment... I wanted my hair to look natural, and apparently it did 

That being said, I never heard adults say bad comments about red-hair women... And I think it tends to be considered more and more sexy - probably because the colour reminds of flames and therefore of passion and warmth, and so on...


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## scandalously in love

"You'd find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair," said Anne reproachfully. "People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is. Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red ON PURPOSE, and I've never cared about Him since."

~Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery


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## Written_on_raindrops

I do remember at times when i had red hair (dyed of course!) people would ask if I was getting into mischeif..and they refered to the charecter on "Charlie brown"....and I have heard "red heads" are Feisty, and Funny?!..all that due to "red" hair......interesting, but you know what they say about Blondes too!


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## Valparaiso

It's true in the US red headed women are considered sexy but red-headed kids still catch hell.  I remember when I was little a girl told me I had orange hair.  It was very upsetting.  It is not easy growing up with red hair but it is ok to be a red headed adult.  When I was pregnant I prayed my children would not be born with red hair.  Silly huh.

Val


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## The Servant

If you are fluent in French read this : http://www.roussesland.com/etude.html
En résumé : Red hair = Judas, devil, witches, prostitution, etc.
Sorry


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## Jessila

Valparaiso said:
			
		

> It's true in the US red headed women are considered sexy but red-headed kids still catch hell. I remember when I was little a girl told me I had orange hair. It was very upsetting. It is not easy growing up with red hair but it is ok to be a red headed adult. When I was pregnant I prayed my children would not be born with red hair. Silly huh.
> 
> Val



Funny you mention that anecdote 'cause what you say goes along with what I was just about to ask...
I mean that if we refer to simple colors, then
- blond hair --> bright yellow
- brunette --> brown to black
- red hair --> orange to light brown

So how come that when it comes to name that hair color, English say "red hair" and not "orange hair" witch would be much more accurate... I mean obviously _red _hair are not of the _red _color...
Does anybody know 'cause I've been wondering this since the 1997 release of Luc Besson's movie "The Fifth Element"... in which I heard the expression "red hair" for the first time lool


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## Jessila

I would really appreciate someone answering my question about the "red" word to desribe that hair colour...
Anybody ?


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## Ratona

I think it's just one of those differences like goldfish and poisson rouge. One thinks it's a gold or orange colour, the other a red colour.
Red hair can encapsulate any shade of hair colour that contains a tint of red, afterall, that's the colour that stops them from being blonde or brunette, don't you think?


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## Jessila

Yes, I think I see what you mean... I just found it funny when Valparaiso said that a girl once said she had orange hair, and it upsetted her... I mean oviously to me  "red hair" look "orange" but that's what I like about it lol


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## Frenchlover

I understand exactly what Val went through. I have red hair and I never knew people in other countries frowned upon it. Here in the U.S. people are always praising me for it. I also think they call it red hair because it is a color that is sort of in the middle of orange and brown. People have red hair too, not just orange. Trust me my hair is not orange. Does this mean that if I go to france people will look down on me or something negative?


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## Jessila

Frenchlover said:
			
		

> I understand exactly what Val went through. I have red hair and I never knew people in other countries frowned upon it. Here in the U.S. people are always praising me for it. I also think they call it red hair because it is a color that is sort of in the middle of orange and brown. People have red hair too, not just orange. Trust me my hair is not orange. Does this mean that if I go to france people will look down on me or something negative?



If you were a child maybe... I don't know how kids react to "red hair" nowadays... but it' really un-common, so the reactions - good or bad - would probably be a bit extreme (not giving a fact here, just a wild guess)

If you're an adult... I'd be really surprised you get bad comments o reactions... So many women die their hair to achieve even a vague resemblance to what you naturally have 
I say you'd probably be praised... but envied too! lol


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## *Cowgirl*

Hey guys I have red hair and there is nothing wrong with it! I was never teased (because of my hair), and I don't think that I smell. My brother, sister, mother, and great grandmother also have red hair, and hey, we're all okay. 

Red heads are often associated with hot tempers as well. (Which can be true in some cases.)


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## Roi Marphille

well, my contribution is that I like red-haired girls!
also blondes, brown-haired, dark-haired...whatever, all of them!


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## Fernando

Roi and me are competitors in the same broad market.

The only thing about red woman is there are just a few. Red-haired gene is a recessive one. So you will ever get more blondes and darks than reds.

And strange people are associated with strange, sexy, ...

Blonde girls are considered in the South as beautiful, hot and so on. Meanwhile, when I see an American film the dark-haired is the evil hot horny girl who steals the love of the innocent boyfriend.


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## geve

what about bald women ??

So, dark-haired women are evil and red-haired women are devil. I guess this leaves us blondes as the reasonable choice for any (nice and good-looking) man in his right mind.


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## Laia

geve said:
			
		

> what about bald women ??
> 
> So, dark-haired women are evil and red-haired women are devil. I guess this leaves us blondes as the reasonable choice for any (nice and good-looking) man in his right mind.


 
yeah jajaja    

And what about men??


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## Rinias

Haha!

This thread is ridiculous! By which I mean it's great! I'm really impressed by these forums too, there is so much response!

As for red hair... I know that I like red hair a lot- on certain people- on others it looks kinda funny. But perhaps pointing back to the jealousy/hair-color-jokes note, is it not interesting that there seem to be no English wise-cracks for brunettes/black haired people? Or maybe help me refresh my memory...  I can't think of a single one... On the other hand, I am much more partial to a dark-brown haired person of the opposite sex than I am to a brown/blond/read-haired person... So maybe someone should start inventing some jokes about brunettes 

Rinias


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## geve

Laia said:
			
		

> yeah jajaja
> 
> And what about men??


 
Hmmm... that might have been a joke, but it's actually an interesting question : it seems to me that there are a lot less connotation on hair color when it comes to men... So, talking about red hair (which is, after all, the topic of this thread !), is there a difference between men and women ?
If I try to sum up the numerous possible connotations of red hair that were given here : _(these are only a-prioris people might have, and not actual facts of course !!)_
Apparently, in most countries (except in the USA ?) red-haired people (both men & women) are associated with 
- a certain smell / sweating more
- funny/strange
- witchcraft/devil
- betrayal / Judas
- hot temper
Meanwhile, red-haired women are thought to be sexy / have a specific sex-appeal.

It seems like it is still a better deal to have red hair when you're a woman... at least you have the quality of the inconvenient. That probably explains why there are more women dying their hair red, than men ! 
Voilà.  

oh, and another thing while I'm at it : it's the other way around for blond hair : blond-haired men do not suffer from any negative connotations, whereas we all know about dumb blondes...


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## fenixpollo

Valparaiso said:
			
		

> It is not easy growing up with red hair but it is ok to be a red headed adult. When I was pregnant I prayed my children would not be born with red hair.


 Every child gets teased for being "different" than the child who is teasing.  It's part of the power play of elementary school.... not necessarily related to red hair.  

As Val and lightning have said, in my cultural milieu in the western US, red hair is prized, sought after and coveted as an exotic, attractive trait.  I was SHOCKED to learn that it is not so in the rest of the world.


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## astronauta

I think red hair is beautiful.
Gustav Klimt was obsessed with women who had red hair and created the beautiful famous paintings depicting them; so was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the main character of Patrick Suskind's famous novel "Parfum", the latter, sought after them as he believed they had an exquisit scent.

I have dyed my hair red (too) many times!


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## BasedowLives

haha, this thread reminds me of a south park episode I saw a while ago.  

here's a link to a clip of it: (i hope i'm allowed to post it) http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/7467/South_Park_Ginger_Kids.html


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## Maria Juanita

astronauta said:
			
		

> I think red hair is beautiful.
> Gustav Klimt was obsessed with women who had red hair and created the beautiful famous paintings depicting them; so was Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the main character of Patrick Suskind's famous novel "Parfum", the latter, sought after them as he believed they had an exquisit scent.



And I thought I've read this book three times and still didn't know about this. Maybe is that I have a lousy translation????

Tnx 4 the tip; I didn't have that info...

And tnx for the link too, Basedow...

Saludillos


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## castellano

I have read that in the medieval Castile, in Spain, red-haired people were said to be "possessed by the devil, by Satan".

This kind of hair is very very strange in Spain; only one out of 10.000 born persons are ginger here.

Personally, I think this hair colour is very attractive if it´s bright red. Just my opinion 

Saludos


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## amiel_23

its weird ey.. my bf's a "red head"... ever noticed how they always come with freckles? maybe its some sorta genetic thingy.. but meh o wel.. i dont care bout that.. red hair is sexy 

i dont think its so much about the witchcraft thing any more... people just use it as a means of putting someone down cos they're different...


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## InmayHugo

Very interesting thread!!
In Spain we do not get many red hair people, but generally we like red hair and many women do dye their hair red.
When I was a child whenever we saw a red hair person we used to say *"pelirrojo mala suerte"* = red hair, bad luck and we had to touch a button in order to bad luck to go away.
Look, I have very dark black hair and we are always the mean ones in the movies or books, we seldom get to be sexy or desired for our hair colour.


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## I.C.

Generally, cliché has it that women with red hair are difficult and temperamental.


			
				castellano said:
			
		

> in Spain, red-haired people were said to be "possessed by the devil, by Satan".


 Think I remember hearing that back in the days of the witch-hunts red hair was said to be a possible sign of connection to the devil in Germany, too. But any remarkable deviance from the norm could have turned out to be dangerous in those times, I guess, and if someone didn't show any visible signs of affiliation with the devil - that could be highly suspicious, too, might be one of satan's specially cared for darlings.


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## judkinsc

For a bit of history on the Malleus Maleficarum (the original Latin title "The Hammer of Witches", which means "A Hammer to Crush Witches"), its authors, and its impact,
see below:

http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/

"Two Dominican inquisitors Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer compiled it and submitted the book to the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Theology for their approbation on the 9th of May, 1487"



> The lasting effect of the _Malleus_ upon the world can only be measured in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and even children, who suffered, and died, at the hands of the Inquisitors during the Inquisition. At the height of its popularity, _The Malleus Maleficarum_ was  surpassed in public notoriety only by _The Bible_. Its effects were even felt in the New World, where the last gasp of the Inquisition was felt in the English settlements in America (most notably in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials).





> It is beyond the scope of this article to adequately examine the role of  the _Malleus_ in world history, or its lasting effects. At the very  least, _The Malleus Maleficarum_ (_The Witch Hammer_) offers to us an intriguing glimpse into the Medieval mind, and perhaps gives us a taste of what it might have been like to have lived in those times.


Here's another site:
http://www.controverscial.com/Malleus%20Maleficarium.htm

If you had red-hair, you were a target for the Inquisition and everything that that entailed.


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## fenixpollo

Frightening bit about the inquisition.

After my initial shock wore off, I suddenly remembered an expression in American English that shows that there is at least some negativity towards redheads:

When someone gets beat very badly in a fight, or if someone hits or beats an object violently and completely, they beat the person/thing *"like a red-headed stepchild."*


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## foxfirebrand

I can't believe there's been only one scant reference to the connection between red hair and the Celts. Hair and skin combine to give each tribal/ethnic/racial group its own peculiar chemistry-- the attributes of skin that go with Celtic chemistry are its unusually paleness and difficulty in holding a tan, and the mottling of freckles.

In reacting to people, particularly women, I am much more smell-oriented than most people I've ever known-- from my point of view there is a pheramone thing going on that is much more vivid than "looks." There's a definite pressure in our upbringing and socialization to suppress or ignore olfactory considerations-- if a small child mentions the way someone smells, s/he is swiftly corrected, often harshly. It amazes me how little *conscious* emphasis other people seem to put on such an important part of human interaction. On the other hand, people's reasons for attraction or repulsion to/from each other is often described as a matter of instinct, or an outright mystery.

Redheaded women do smell _very different_ from others, and I happen to respond very favorably to the difference-- though in looking back over my life I find it always leads to trouble, bad bad trouble, and I take note that the women I've married have been blondes.

Celtic culture also antecedes that of Teutonic and other people who supplanted Europe's Celts, swarming in from the Central Asian steppes from as long ago as the bronze age. These blondish people adapted Christianity more unreservedly than the Celts because they were nomadic, uprooted by climate change (global warming!) as their home territories became more arid. Celts were "in place," and so had holy or magical sites in their environment, and were more prone to layer the Christianity over their Pagan or Druidic religion, as a sort of veneer. Hence the association with Satanism, from a Church that "demonized" pagan practices, especially those that'd fall into the category of "Dionysian."

Well. Redheads tend to be Celts, they have different pheramones-- people who are overdomesticated and alienated from their instinctive selves might not pick up on this, or might take unconscious note of it and impose a negative interpretation.

I guess I'm saying redheads are often sexier than other tribes. Fenixpollo mentioned the hostility between a father and his "redheaded stepchild"-- well, he's* obviously inflicting his repressed envy of the child's natural father on the poor fellow.

By the way, when blondes get pregnant their chemistry changes, and to my nose anyway, they smell very like a redhead. Just an observation for the olfactory-challenged, I know there's a lot of you out there-- I wouldn't begin to venture a hypothesis about what it all means.

edit:
* "he's" here refers to "a father"-- not Fenixpollo.
.


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## Outsider

Why were redheads taunted? For the same reason that lefthandeds were taunted: they were a minority.


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## mamboney

Bravo foxfirebrand!

Red hair = Celts
Celts = Barbarians (to the Romans)
Barbarians = Bad (they are uppity)

Could we have inherited these ideas from the Romans?  Perhaps we have a classicist out there who could comment on this....  

Interesting sidenote--in Hungary, red hair (on women) is very popular.  
If a woman is not naturally red, she may very well dye her hair to be red!
The first time that I travelled there 3 or 4 years ago, I was amazed at all of the red hair that I saw!  Mind you, this applies almost exclusively to the women!


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## judkinsc

I cannot say, without more research, what the Romans thought of red hair, but I believe they found "blond" to be highly fascinating. (Venus is often blond.)

See here:



> "Kypris [Aphrodite] of crafty counsels unfolded her snood and undid the fragrant clasp of her hair and wreathed with gold her locks, with gold her flowing tresses." _-Colluthus 82 _


_

http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html#Description

(There are some photos of Grecian urns on this site, in which you can readily see the pale color of her hair.)

_ Well well, perhaps a small amount of research comes after all...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair
(Look, Wikipedia has citations for once.)



> Boudica, the famous British queen of the Iceni, was said by the Greek historian Dio Cassius to: _"be tall and terrifying in appearance ... a great mass of red hair fell over her shoulders"_. The Roman Tacitus commented on the: _"red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia (Scotland)"_ (_The Life of Agricola_, Ch.11), which he linked with some red haired German/Belgic Gaulish tribes.


The general view of the Romans toward the Celts was that the further North you went, the meaner they became. Caesar comments on this on the first page of his _De Bello Gallico, book I, chapter I.

_Thus, I do believe they would have found it a symbol of a barbarian, and a fearsome one.


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## Outsider

judkinsc said:
			
		

> I cannot say, without more research, what the Romans thought of red hair, but I believe they found "blond" to be highly fascinating. (Venus is often blond.)
> 
> See here:
> 
> http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Aphrodite.html#Description
> 
> (There are some photos of Grecian urns on this site, in which you can readily see the pale color of her hair.)


I see no picture where her hair is unequivocally blond. She seems to have brown hair in most of Roman pictures. The Greek pictures are sort of black-and-white... 



> Kypris [Aphrodite] of crafty counsels unfolded her snood and undid the fragrant clasp of her hair and wreathed with gold her locks, with gold her flowing tresses." -Colluthus 82


"Wreathed with gold her locks." It doesn't seem to say that her locks were the colour of gold. A quote further down in the page suggests that the gold was from a crown:



> "The Horai clothed her [Aphrodite] with heavenly garments: on her head they put a fine, well-wrought crown of gold, and in her pierced ears they hung ornaments of orichalc and precious gold, and adorned her with golden necklaces over her soft neck and snow-white breasts, jewels which the gold-filleted Horai wear themselves." -Homeric Hymns 6 to Aphrodite


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## I.C.

judkinsc said:
			
		

> I believe they found "blond" to be highly fascinating.


Blonde slaves were fashionable, I think. One potential example that comes to my mind right now is the story of Pope Gregory I, I think, exclaiming  “non angli sed angli” (not Anglos, but Angels) at the sight of children with blonde hair and blue eyes for sale in a Roman slave market.


> Thus, I do believe they would have found it a symbol of a barbarian, and a fearsome one.


But I doubt a bit this would have been enough to create a deep-rooted sentiment. 

There is a phrase in German to express dislike for someone: “I can’t smell him (or her)”.
I would think different people are attracted to different kinds of smell as part of the package that makes them be attracted to different types in general. Whether and to what extent that’s learnt or inherited, either way the smell of a person with genetics uncommon in a particular population might in tendency be regarded as alien or unpleasant by the majority. 

Red hair is also recessive I think, so if two parents, both not having red hair, have a red-haired child in a predominantly non-red society...bent on finding signs of malign supernatural power everywhere...
But any deviance could be dangerous.


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## judkinsc

Outsider said:
			
		

> I see no picture where her hair is unequivocally blond. She seems to have brown hair in most of Roman pictures. The Greek pictures are sort of black-and-white...
> 
> "Wreathed with gold her locks." It doesn't seem to say that her locks were the colour of gold. A quote further down in the page suggests that the gold was from a crown:


Ahh, the problems with interpreting the Classics. Look, for instance, at the first urn painting. You can see the color of her hair is pale (Yes, I know it looks a bit brown, really). There is an enormous field of interpretation and work with urn paintings, and I am hardly a master of it. You must note here, however, that "pure, alabaster white" skin was the ideal they were working with. Thus, the shading difference between blond and her pale skin is still apparent. By way of comparison, there are later paintings where her hair is definately black. They are all various interpretations of the goddess, much as if I were to ask "What did Christ/Buddha/Mohommad look like?", and people paint them any way they please.

Also, the translations from (here) Greek are not easily fit into English. It could very easily mean "Her locks wreathed her head in a golden crown."
If I could find the Greek or Latin for it, I could diagram how it breaks down, but basically, if the "her locks" is in the nominative, and "wreathed with gold" is the verb, it can mean as I said. There are also "accusatives of reference", which are translated (i.e. her locks) "with reference to her hair" or (i.e. her golden crown) "with reference to her locks."


----------



## Outsider

judkinsc said:
			
		

> Ahh, the problems with interpreting the Classics. Look, for instance, at the first urn painting.


Do you mean this one or this one? In the former, her hair is not visibly blond (it's a dichromatic picture, anyway). In the latter, I would say she's wearing some kind of head scarf over her hair--a line of dark hair is visible behind her forehead.



			
				judkinsc said:
			
		

> You can see the color of her hair is pale (Yes, I know it looks a bit brown, really).


It looks completely brown in all those pictures, or even black in many of the Greek ones.



			
				judkinsc said:
			
		

> Also, the translations from (here) Greek are not easily fit into English. It could very easily mean "Her locks wreathed her head in a golden crown."
> If I could find the Greek or Latin for it, I could diagram how it breaks down, but basically, if the "her locks" is in the nominative, and "wreathed with gold" is the verb, it can mean as I said. There are also "accusatives of reference", which are translated (i.e. her locks) "with reference to her hair" or (i.e. her golden crown) "with reference to her locks."


So, in other words, the passage you presented as evidence is actually ambiguous...?


----------



## judkinsc

Outsider said:
			
		

> So, in other words, the passage you presented as evidence is actually ambiguous...?



It would not be ambiguous if I could see the original...however, Latin and Greek both, especially Latin, are well-known for their ambiguity.

I presented evidence to support my suggestion, however, you may use the same evidence, if you wish, to argue a different point.  That's academia.


----------



## Outsider

The evidence you presented does not support your contention. Sorry.


----------



## judkinsc

Your opinion is noted.  And we are very off-topic now.


----------



## Outsider

I'm sure my opinion will be shared by all people who stop to look at the pictures or read the texts without any predispositions towards particular interpretations. 
We are indeed veering off-topic--perhaps you shouldn't have started talking about blond hair in a thread about red hair.


----------



## zebedee

*Outsider & Judkinsc:*

If you want to continue discussing the merits of photographic reproductions of classical urns please open a new thread to do so or communicate by PM.

This thread is flowing along quite nicely in its topic of the cultural stigma attached to red hair. Please let it continue to do so.

Thank you for your cooperation,
zeb


----------



## I.C.

> When someone gets beat very badly in a fight, or if someone hits or beats an object violently and completely, they beat the person/thing *"like a red-headed stepchild."*


 Wondering whether this could be a reference to the idea that such a kid may not be a natural son, but the child of an incubus or a changeling. 
A red-haired child born to parents both not having red hair, in a population were such occurrences would have been rare as the necessary genes were, well before the time of Mendelian genetics - how would that not have been considered as remarkable at least? Beating the hell out of a changeling was said to sometimes make the real kid take its place again, I think.


			
				fenixpollo said:
			
		

> Frightening bit about the inquisition.


 It wasn’t always the inquisition, a lot of the witch hunting was organised on a local level. At times local authorities were pressed by parts of the population to act, but it wasn’t just their idea, the churches sanctioned witch-hunts as such. 
There were cases where parents turned in their children and insisted they should be executed or took matters into their own hands and poisoned them (in Switzerland for example, the inquisition even tried to intervene there in some cases). People would denunciate their neighbours, maybe their business competitors, those on the fringe of communities.

Questioning under torture was part of the regular judicial process, as witch activity was a most serious offence. Torture was used even beyond of what was considered acceptable for other serious offences, different to the normal process there often was no limit to the amount of torture sessions, I think. Confessions were a likely outcome. To my knowledge the witch may not only have forfeited her or his life, but also property, which was split between those involved, including the secular and religious authorities, the informer receiving his share, too. 

Crop failures were life-threatening affairs. Supposedly the devil was everywhere. People had been told so. Had his agents been at work? 
Need to find the source of evil that’s threatening the survival of the whole community. 

Then there were those remnants of the old pre-Christian ways, which the superstitious and careful contry folks still gave some credibility to as far as effectiveness went. Those parts of it which had not been integrated into Christian beliefs, they were evil it was said, wasn’t it? Or just useful? Some useful, some evil? Times were tough. 

The notion that witch-hunts were _only_ some kind of mass hysteria, as sometimes is suggested, may be a bit too comfortable and convenient.  
A strong feeling of moral righteousness and a low tolerance of social deviance were necessary prerequisites (or even formed a breeding ground). Both of these were constituting elements of the faith-based societies in question. Under such circumstances scapegoats are a solution for social and spiritual problems.


----------



## tonch

I used to have red hair, but then I dyed it bright blonde. Since i'm tall, already pale and not freckly.. everyone thinks i'm Swedish now 

I love it hahaha. I get random people just coming up to me and saying "You look so Nordic!" "You're so Scandinavian looking!"


----------



## Sean Wheelock

I'll say this...I personally feel there is nothing more exquisite than a beautiful natural redhead!


----------



## maxiogee

In Ireland sailors believed that it is bad luck to have a woman on board.
They also believed that it is really, reallt bad lick to have a red-heaqded woman on board.


----------



## quiet1

Hello,
What is wrong with red hair? Being a red head, I would say it depends on the color of red you have. My hair is more brown in color. What some people call auburn. My red headed classmates in school had nicknames like carrottop.
quiet1


----------



## Sebastiana

I think red hair, even dyed, a long as it look natural, not the bright artifical type looks beautiful.
Someone made a comment before about their hair being considered really light in Italy/Spain(?) even though its brown.
It is true in countries where the population is largely brunette and olive skinned, light brown hair is considered almost blond. In Canada, USA and UK, it is pretty common. Not so in the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. Even light skinned, people tend to be dark haired. One reason you aren't likely to hear redhead bashing there, especially on females (males tend to be considered effeminate looking with bright red hair, I've noticed).


----------



## klbyrd

I am a redhead (natural) and love it!!! All my life I have been told my hair is my crowning glory. I have what many people tell me is a typical "irish look" and would do anything to have it. I am definately a fiery vivacious person, but would have it no other way. I enjoy the uniqueness it brings me and have no plans on ever changing it.

Blondes do not have more fun - redheads do!!


----------



## KittyCatty

> Red hair is also recessive I think, so if two parents, both not having red hair, have a red-haired child in a predominantly non-red society...bent on finding signs of malign supernatural power everywhere...
> But any deviance could be dangerous.[/


 
Hi! I love this thread! Both my parents are dark, have properly dark brown hair, yet me and my twin have strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes. 
Maybe, as indicated by what I've quoted, I'm a product of the devil! My brother was born blonde with blue eyes while my little sister is the only one with dark hair and brown eyes! What a different bunch of children we are.
I have had such trouble telling people strawberry-blonde is my hair colour, with all the times I've had people at school adding 'ginger' onto a sentence such as 'shut up, you ginger' (pronounced like minger) in a tone that can only be described as insulting. I wouldn't mind being ginger or called ginger, if I actually was, but my hair is a mix between blonde and ginger - hence the obscure adjective 'strawberry-blonde'. Usually people go 'Yeah, right' when I correct them after being insulted. 'Keep telling yourself that' - as if I'm ashamed of being "ginger"' Hmmmm but I realise I am now ranting, so I'll get back on topic. I would describe myself as a redhead, without having orange hair as somebody questioned before. Orange is more like the proper carrot-top people's hair colour, while mine is just plain unusual - sometimes I flatter myself by calling it golden, other times it's... well, just a weird mix to be honest. I certainly can't call myself a brunette, and I'm not a blonde, so redhead will have to do. I hope I have contributed in a decent way to this thread. What's certain is, in the UK gingers are relentlessly insulted and name-called, even when they're not ginger! I agree that it's because it's different, and has historical roots as previously suggested. But, I have just read the Da Vinci Code and read that Mary Magdalene was supposedly a redhead, which I love as a fact and idea - could this be the start of the trouble... as well as the obvoius Celt/Barbarian thing.
Anyway, I'm proud of my hair colour and would never dye it! (mostly because I'd be scared of losing it to a chemistry failure - I don't know what'll happen to my weird hair!)


----------



## geve

KittyCatty said:
			
		

> I have had such trouble telling people strawberry-blonde is my hair colour, with all the times I've had people at school adding 'ginger' onto a sentence such as 'shut up, you ginger' (pronounced like minger) in a tone that can only be described as insulting. I wouldn't mind being ginger or called ginger, if I actually was, but my hair is a mix between blonde and ginger - hence the obscure adjective 'strawberry-blonde'. Usually people go 'Yeah, right' when I correct them after being insulted. 'Keep telling yourself that' - as if I'm ashamed of being "ginger"'


Keep trying! I have eventually trained my friends. Now when they tell a blonde joke, they'll add "But of course, it doesn't apply to you, because you're a _blonde vénitienne_"


----------



## ChiMike

lightning said:
			
		

> This is all very interesting to me and very bizarre. In America many women use henna or dye to color their hair red because it is considered sexy and unusual. Redheads are assumed to be fiery and passionate. Red dye is often called "Roux" so I thought Brel may have meant dyed red hair, but now I understand in in France it's a different story. Autre pays, autre moeurs. Why people with red hair should stink is beyond me.


 
In Balzac, the characters with red hair are always passionate and fiery, but I don't remember any negative comments about their smell!

I suspect that, in France, this has something to do with putting down the Bretons. I know several red-haired Bretons and they deeply resent it. The French also find freckles ugly, whereas here in the U.S. most people find the cute... Oh well. 

Do they still make left-handed children write right-handed?


----------



## geve

ChiMike said:
			
		

> In Balzac, the characters with red hair are always passionate and fiery, but I don't remember any negative comments about their smell!
> 
> I suspect that, in France, this has something to do with putting down the Bretons. I know several red-haired Bretons and they deeply resent it. The French also find freckles ugly, whereas here in the U.S. most people find the cute... Oh well.


I can tell you that not every French people finds freckles ugly; quite the opposite really.  


			
				ChiMike said:
			
		

> Do they still make left-handed children write right-handed?


By "they" do you mean the French? No, they don't.


----------



## ChiMike

Isotta said:
			
		

> Hmm. And then there are people like my brother, who has dated almost exclusively redheads, with the exception of one Spanish knockout.
> 
> Speaking of hair, I wonder if France has different coloring standards. In America, I would say my hair is light brown, maybe honey brown. Here it people say "chatins clairs," sometimes blond. No one in America, Britain or Canada would call me blond, whereas in Italy, people have even asked me if I dye my hair. I wonder if this is because dark hair is more common?
> 
> Z.


 
Try Germany!! I have what everyone in the U.S. would call brown hair, or maybe, deep chestnut. In Germany, whenever I had to write my hair color on official documents, if I wrote brown, whoever was taking the form would correct it and write: DUNKELBLOND (dark blond!!). I finally just started writing it myself. Apparently for them, "white" people still cannot have brown hair. Yours, without doubt, would be HELLBLOND - light blond! (sorry, HELL is light or bright in German...)

Amazing!


----------



## ChiMike

chick n style said:
			
		

> I guess people has to rate everything they don't know by putting it the "devil, stinky or ugly" label....
> 
> by the way...who was that crazy monk???


 
Actually, they were TWO Dominican inquisitors.

See: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum

(Just hit English on the right side panel - the article in English is a bit different - it starts by pointing out that the witch-hunt was a product of the early Renaissance - not the Middle Ages....and it's true - and it's going on the in U.S. by the reactionary religious right as we speak...)Apparently, it takes a VERY long time for science to win out!!

Oh, and btw, the Pope endorsed their book with a special BULL (so well named!! with just a short addition to the word):
http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/mm00e.html


----------



## houstonreadhead

Well, I have red hair, and I wouldn't want it any other way. I love the stand out factor: everyone knows who I am and remembers me easily!  I never felt teased or ridiculed for having red hair when I was growing up.

Scott


----------



## lizzeymac

My grade school teacher told me (a red head) that red headed children have a reputation as being more mischevious  because they are easier to pick out in a crowd of children - they can't get away with anything.  No red head is anonymous in a crowd.

A Japanes friend told me that red heads used to be considered very unlucky & ugly.  He showed me a book of artwork from the 1500s through to the late 1800s, in it most "barbarians" (Westerners) were portrayed with reddish hair & beards & they looked very primitive & dirty - imagine huge ugly stupid shifty-eyed drooling Vikings (no offense, I love Vikings). There is also a type of boogie man or monster character in folktales that is covered in red fur - it sounds like a red yeti or gorilla when he describes it to me.

As to having a different natural scent than other people, perhaps we do. Many red heads have a skin chemistry that can change a perfume's smell for the worse or break down the scent entirely, especially if it is made of synthetics scents rather than natural oils. 

I visited the Salem Historic Village, site of the witch trials.  One of the reasons red heads were judged to be witches more frequently than blonds or brunettes was their sun-sensitive skin & tendency to have allergies.  One of the tests of a suspected witch was to annoint her with witch-finding potions & herbs - certain herbs were believed to be a litmus test of "evil."  Often the witch was then put in the stocks or staked out on the Common for all to witness the test.  These potions were supposed to raise welts on the skin of a witch but not on an innocent.  The were often applied in a cross shape or on the forehead like a baptism, you can imagine the effect.  Like holy water in an exorcism in a cheesy movie.  A red head would be much more likely to have an allergic reaction, "proving" she was a witch.  The museum had a dermatolgist analyse the most common ingredients & the most of them were classic triggers for strong allergic reactions and these reactions would have been made stronger by the sun.


----------



## KittyCatty

Wow, geve you are a fellow strawberry-blonde. I like that  and I love the french version "blonde venetienne"! What annoyed me (well slightly, anyway) was once was there was a list a newspaper did of "strawberry-blonde stars" to show that it was an "in" colour with people like Nicole Kidman, to which, I thought fair enough, she is in some photos. But they also included some blatant blondes and "ginger" people (e.g. Lindsay Lohan, Rene Zwellweger, Geri Halliwell? Do you know her? At one point she was Ginger spice, then she went bottle blonde) . There is just so much confusion about this colour, the inbetweeny one, we need recognition!! I'm on the picket line anyway


----------



## maxiogee

As a man with very few hairs on much of his head, and with what there is being of dubious colour, just be happy with whay you got! 

My son was born with a fine head of red hair, but it has turned browner as he has gotten older. There's still a touch of red there, but not a lot.


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## gato2

No creo que en España se piense mal de la gente pelirroja entre otras cosas porque hay muy pocos, pero una vez estuve en casa de una familia inglesa y recuerdo una conversacion en que se reian (sin maldad) de los pelirrojos. Recuerdo que lo consideraban humoristicamente como una especie de tragedia y se preguntaban porque todos los pelirrojos eran fisicamente tan parecidos.


----------



## ElaineG

> I have often heard people making sarcastic or tasteless comments about pubic hair colour, the moment anyone mentions a redhead.


 
The dreaded "ginger pubes"?  I have to admit to having heard a lot of humor about that here as well (carrot top, carrot bottom, etc.).  I'm not sure why that's such a subject of fascination, but it is.


----------



## GenJen54

ElaineG said:
			
		

> I'm not sure why that's such a subject of fascination, but it is.


I hear more of it being a subject to ponder regarding blondes (i.e. Does the carpet match the drapes?)  

I, too, have been shocked to read about the cultural differences in attitudes towards redheads. Although a natural "brunette," I have at many times in my life chosen to color my hair in shades of auburn, dark red, and at one time in the late-eighties, even a shade nearing "eggplant."

My one disaster with Henna turned me off of that product for ages (can you say "day-glo" orange?), although I still opt for reddish tints to help bring out the natural "Irish" in my locks!


----------



## moirag

My parents are both Scottish and I have red hair, though I was born in England.  However, I lived many years in Germany, where they called me "the small dark-haired one", and now I live in Spain, where I´m "the tall blonde one ". Identity crisis? The myth of it being attractive is more than superceded by  the myth of it being ugly/indesirable.


----------



## justin

Well, this is just a theory, but the derision of red hair may go back to Nordic/Mediterranean racial animosities when the Nordic Indo-Europeans first moved into Europe from their Black Sea homeland. The inevitable mixing of the two races would have produced many more redheads than was present in the Nords and much less the Meds, proclaiming to one and all that the poor unfortunate flame-haired, freckled child, was a half-breed. Since the Nords were presumably in the catbird's seat, they would have favored the blond and even the brown-haired offspring over the hybrid, whom, as half-member of the conquered race would have faced an uphill climb in the pecking-order of society. Of course, as time went on, the conquered and their masters became one, and the unpleasant history of, say, 200 years before, no longer present in living memory, save that the lingering prejudice against red-headed freckled kids remained, even though the reason for it was long forgotten.


----------



## emma42

That is an interesting theory.  But how can the mixing of blonde/light brown with darker brown produce the red hair/freckles gene?


----------



## lizzeymac

justin said:
			
		

> Well, this is just a theory, but the derision of red hair may go back to Nordic/Mediterranean racial animosities when the Nordic Indo-Europeans first moved into Europe from their Black Sea homeland. The inevitable mixing of the two races would have produced many more redheads than was present in the Nords and much less the Meds, proclaiming to one and all that the poor unfortunate flame-haired, freckled child, was a half-breed. Since the Nords were presumably in the catbird's seat, they would have favored the blond and even the brown-haired offspring over the hybrid, whom, as half-member of the conquered race would have faced an uphill climb in the pecking-order of society. Of course, as time went on, the conquered and their masters became one, and the unpleasant history of, say, 200 years before, no longer present in living memory, save that the lingering prejudice against red-headed freckled kids remained, even though the reason for it was long forgotten.




This is an interesting theory & it seems very likely that the predjudice against red heads may have roots in a tribal memory of invasion but your conclusions about the rate of incidence of red hair are not correct.

A brown haired gene & a blond gene do not combine to form a red hair gene.  Genes do not "mix" - they are not paint. 

In general terms, the gene for red hair is a recessive, brown hair is dominant; as blue eyes are recessive & brown eyes are dominant.  
Simply - in order for a recessive trait to create a red-headed or blue-eyed child, for example, the recessive gene must be present in both parents.  
The parents may not have red hair or blue eyes but they both must carry at least one copy of the gene.

Assume:  the incidence of red hair among the Med. population is very low, statistically zero.
Among Nordics settling in the Med., in the Nordic/Nordic marriages the incidence of red heads would remain the same.  
In Nordic/Mediteranean marriages red haired children would appear rarely  and at a lower rate of incidence than in Nordic/Nordic.  Yes, these would the the "first" red heads in the Med. population  & highly visible within the  Med. population - your "half-breeds."

A single Nordic recessive red hair (Parent A) combined with possible single Mediterranean recessive red hair gene (Parent B) - if it existed - would create the likelihood of a red headed child within the family - 1 in 4 children
-
A single Nordic recessive red headed gene (Parent C) combined with a single Nordic recessive redheaded gene (Parent D) would create the same liklihood of a red headed child - 1 in 4 children.

Nordic peoples would likely have a higher incidence of double occurence of the red head gene in one or both parents which would increase the likelihood of red headed children within the average 4 children.

 -


----------



## justin

When Thor Heyerdahl visited Easter Island for the first time in the late forties he was struck that some of the natives had red hair. This was odd because it was and is thought that the Polynesians are a mixture of Med, Mongol, and some Negroid genes. He came to the conclusion that some Nordic European explorers must have interbred with the natives of the island. Are we then to believe that this even more melanic population with its relatively small numbers could produce  russet-haired individuals that the paler Meds could not. Again, there are sub-Saharan Blacks that exhibit red hair, possibly from mixing with these very Meds whose red-shifted genes you think are too negligible to produce such a result. My belief is that any Med or Nord population that interbreeds with one darker or yellower than itself will give birth to redheads. Here is another example: The descendants of the Nordic Tarim mummies, the Tocharians, are pictured in cave paintings, and a preponderance of them have red hair combined with modified Mongol physiognomies; obviously they were on their way to being absorbed. There is far too much reliance on genes than on one's eyesight nowadays. The problem with them is that they are climate-variable, that is, they are altered by the climate in which different and identical populations migrate to after a certain period of time, which is why Nords from Scandinavia and their mummified bretheren in the Tarim basin show variability in their genes. The same goes for Meds in divers locations.


----------



## medeterian

lightning said:
			
		

> But I didn't know redheads stink! On the contrary,
> I've heard that redhaired women smell sweeter than
> others, like vanilla. But maybe it also comes from the
> medieval superstitions and people have forgotten the
> reason why they hate redheads? Or maybe it is because
> redheads don't stand heat and perhaps sweat earlier
> than dark-haired Mediterranean people?


dark-haired mediterranean is talking:  First, I dont hate red haired ones. There are so few red haired here to find and hate one. Second, in my opinion, women who dye their hair red are not trying to be as the ones who are redhaired born. The former is much like being wild or passionat. The latter seems to me much like innocence or being fregile which is more attractive to me. Third, I am strongly curious now about how the red haired women smell


----------



## GingerRachel

Hy, 
My name is Rachel, I'm french and my hair are red. I'm 18, and I'm sorry, my english is very bad...
When I was young, the children insulted me because I was red-headed. They said that the russet-red ones feel bad. In the street, people whom I did not know to shout "You who been able salts russet-red!" 
 I cried a long time because of that. And then while growing, I realized that it was an asset. The men are intrigued by this color. 
For one year, I have been model for photographer and painter thanks to my hair. 

I am proud of my hair, and I would not change their color for nothing in the world! Imbeciles there is alas everywhere. A fifty year old man, approximately said in front of me that Ca felt "Julienne la rousse", because Ca felt fish in the restaurant. The tears are assembled to my eyes. 
I thought that there were only the children for saying silly things like Ca!


----------



## maxiogee

Welcome GingerRachel.

I remember from my youth an advertisement in a magazine my mother was reading. Spread across two pages were a series of maybe about 100 small photographs of women, of all ages and, dare I say it, degrees of prettiness. They all had red hair - from the carrot-coloured to the deep, rich, rust. 
The headline was something along the lines of "Every woman should be a redhead once in her life" and it advertised some hair colouring product. It had a powerful impact, and was very attention getting. The fact that I recall it after over 35/40 years says something about it.

Revel in your difference.

(P.S. It should be "and my hair *is* red." We talk of hair in the singular.)


----------



## GingerRachel

Thank you for your correction.


----------



## Alxmrphi

I knew a few ginger people, they're always teased in a friendly way, for instance last night, one of my friends brought his friend out, who had red hair, and then someone would bring up a "ginger" joke and we'd all laugh, in good humour.


----------



## GingerRachel

Yes, all depends on the way in which it is said, and on which comes the joke. My best friend calls me "carrot Hair", and it is to tease me, I know that it is not malicious. Coming somebody in the street, I would be upset.


----------



## curly

I'd like to point out that most celtic people, at least those in Ireland, almost always dyed their hair blond using lime. 

I always associated redhair with german people, but was surprrsed by how many red-heads saw in france.

I have noticed that every person i know that has red hair likes to wear green. What's up with that?


----------



## GingerRachel

The green emphasizes redness. "the color fetish of russet-red is the green" it is a very widespread generally accepted idea. 
Maybe it's refert to Ireland?
Me I adore to also carry black, blue, beige.


----------



## jess oh seven

here in Scotland red (or "ginger") hair is a fairly common trait but people still get made fun of for being "ginger"... not sure why!


----------



## PedroAznar

I don't why red haired people get dissed. It's probably because they're different to everyone else. Like everything it suits some and not others.



GingerRachel said:


> The green emphasizes redness. "the color fetish of russet-red is the green" it is a very widespread generally accepted idea.
> Maybe it's refert to Ireland?
> Me I adore to also carry black, blue, beige.



Hehe ton anglais est mignon. J'essaye d'apprendre le français en ce moment donc je ferai probablement une erreur mais de toute façon  Tu peux pas traduire un phrase exactement du français à l'anglais comme ça.

Tu dois essayer de penser en anglais, pas en français.

Porter =  Carry, you don't carry clothes in English you _wear_ them ;-)


----------



## FILMCZY

I'm a 43 year old male with red hair who lives in California. I, too, was teased about the color of my hair growing up. I was usually referred to as Ronald McDonald, Howdy-Doody, Bozo the Clown, Rusty, Carrot-Top, Richie Cunningham (from the television show "Happy Days") Jody (from the television show "Family Affair") and Opie (from the television show "The Andy Griffith Show") to name a few. Although I had a happy childhood, the constant reminder of my hair color and name calling eventually led to a lack of personal identity: I always thought people could not see past the color of my hair. It seemed no one cared who I was as a person. Men with red hair are culturally scrutinized more than woman because people think we are clowns. Men with red hair are never the "leading man" types: we're simply the funny guys who are suppose to make people laugh. Hence I never really learned how to date because I felt I was undesirable. Who would want to date a clown when they could find someone who looked like Brad Pitt? I have gone through most of my adult life with this lack of social confidence and spent many years in school to achieve some type of positve self-identity to counter all the silly negative comments. I find it interesting that posts from Europe refer to red hair as "ginger" because that term is not used much here in the United States. It is estimated that less then 2% of the population has red hair. I will always be treated like a minority although people will tell you this is not true. However, like racial minorities, people expect you to date, marry and reproduce with your own "kind". Culturally, I'm suppose to marry a red-headed woman and have red-headed kids so people can point and smile and say "Where did you get all that red hair!"  I also just read an article in which scientists believe red hair now comes from a defect on chromosome #20. Great, not only am I a clown, but I've got defective genes as well!!! No wonder I've never had a girlfriend. Anyway, I hope I haven't appeared to be all doom and gloom but I just wanted to share my personal perspective of living with red hair and the way it has affected my life.


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## Forero

Jessila said:


> I would really appreciate someone answering my question about the "red" word to desribe that hair colour...
> Anybody ?



"Red" is a very old word, or rather its mother word (also the source of "rust", "roux", and "rouge") is prehistoric.  Apparently, "red" is a very basic color name, used for lots of things (hair, foxes, cows, ripe berries, grapes, wine, "colored" rocks) before more exact color names were coined (scarlet, crimson, burgundy, orange) and continues to be used in its more primitive sense even though the meaning of "red" as a specific hue has changed.

The word "orange" came into English in historical times as the name of a particular fruit from Asia and the name of the color of that fruit when ripe.

"Red" as we know it does go back to at least the 1600's, when Isaac Newton observed that white light can be split into a spectrum, and he used the Latin word "rubeus" and the English word "red" for the "purest" color he saw at one end.  I think it was also Newton that discovered that three of the colors were enough to put together for a pure white, and one of those was that same color.


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## Sepia

There could be a very simple reason for the reputation that people are trying to give redheads.

As a kid I "learned" that witches have red hair - at that time I did not know anything about genes or about the various cultures in European History. Later it became obvious to me that in the early middle ages that someone who had much knowledge about almost anything that is not described in the bible - be it astronomy, healing herbs or whatever, was likely to be executed as a witch. 
No ask yourselves, did any European culture have a more profound knowledge about such things than the leading Christian culture? 

Of course, the Celtics had. Those that were left - because all over Western Europe they had fallen victim of one of the maybe two worst genocides in European history. Many Celtics were brought as slaves to Scandinavia and Northern Germany (geographically speaking), much of their knowledge may have been passed on to later generations for a long time, and many of us still have their genes in us - every generation of my ancestry have a couple of guys who look like Gordon Jackson (= Mr. Cowley from "The Professionals" - or the female equivalent of that look) although most of us look differently. I believe that back then is when they began thinking that witches are often red-heads.

Any comments on this theory - could this be the reason?


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## Kajjo

Yes, Sepia, your theory sounds not too far-fetched. 

Another comment:

In Europe "red hair" is very blonde, reddish hair and those people have usually very light, white skin, often freckles and are sun-sensitive.

I noticed, that in US women called "red-head" are sometimes brownisch-red chestnut-colored and not very light skinned. This hair-color has nothing to do with what we talk about when mentioning red-heads in Europe. What do you think?

Kajjo


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## Forero

Kajjo said:


> Yes, Sepia, your theory sounds not too far-fetched.
> 
> Another comment:
> 
> In Europe "red hair" is very blonde, reddish hair and those people have usually very light, white skin, often freckles and are sun-sensitive.
> 
> I noticed, that in US women called "red-head" are sometimes brownisch-red chestnut-colored and not very light skinned. This hair-color has nothing to do with what we talk about when mentioning red-heads in Europe. What do you think?
> 
> Kajjo



The darker "red" hair we also call "auburn".  The very light "red" hair we call "strawberry blond".

I read somewhere that both genes for darker hair and genes for "less red" hair override those for lighter hair and redder hair.  This means that if parents are both strawberry blond, all their natural children will be, but a strawberry blond child may have natural parents with any hair color(s).


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## HUMBERT0

When I was studying secondary school (grades 7 thru 9). There was one girl with red hair and freckles, I remember every tease her, her nickname was “la zanahoria” the carrot.


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## Sepia

Kajjo said:


> Yes, Sepia, your theory sounds not too far-fetched.
> 
> Another comment:
> 
> In Europe "red hair" is very blonde, reddish hair and those people have usually very light, white skin, often freckles and are sun-sensitive.
> 
> I noticed, that in US women called "red-head" are sometimes brownisch-red chestnut-colored and not very light skinned. This hair-color has nothing to do with what we talk about when mentioning red-heads in Europe. What do you think?
> 
> Kajjo



I did not know that was their natural color, when they looked like that!

Most red-heads and blondes I see around where I live probably die their hair too - I'd say more of the blondes are natural, although far from all of them.


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## Jessila

Forero said:


> "Red" is a very old word, or rather its mother word (also the source of "rust", "roux", and "rouge") is prehistoric.  Apparently, "red" is a very basic color name, used for lots of things (hair, foxes, cows, ripe berries, grapes, wine, "colored" rocks) before more exact color names were coined (scarlet, crimson, burgundy, orange) and continues to be used in its more primitive sense even though the meaning of "red" as a specific hue has changed.
> 
> The word "orange" came into English in historical times as the name of a particular fruit from Asia and the name of the color of that fruit when ripe.
> 
> "Red" as we know it does go back to at least the 1600's, when Isaac Newton observed that white light can be split into a spectrum, and he used the Latin word "rubeus" and the English word "red" for the "purest" color he saw at one end.  I think it was also Newton that discovered that three of the colors were enough to put together for a pure white, and one of those was that same color.




Thank you for your answer and your culture !  
I understand it better now


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## clairanne

hi

I think it is the usual child thing of picking on anything different. Red hair is the least common so is a butt of childhood jokes.  Presumably the same reasoning was used in accusing Red heads of being witches.  I have a "strawberry blonde" grand child and I am afraid I have heard myself saying he was lucky not to be ginger.  My siter in law's daughter showed early signs of red hair as a baby and she said - if her hair is going to be that colour she will be wearing a bonnet until she is 10!

Much as I hate myself for saying it -yes I am glad not to be red headed.


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## argentina84

I personally love red hair, although I am a brunette. Red-haired people may suffer mockery when they are young, but who hasn't been the laughing stuff at adolescence! I think teenagers have a special talent to laught at others, no matter their physical appearance or personality. There is not prejuice against red-haired people. as far as I know.


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## jio

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure if everyone here is talking about the same kind of red-haired person. If you are a strawberry blond or have a kind of reddy-auburn coloured hair (which I've noticed is quite common among Mediterrenean women) then you are not an authentic "ginger"!

A true ginge (the ones who get teased at school and also into their adult lives) have the same hair colour and complexion as the girl in this photo I found in Google Images: fotosearch.com/comp/corbis/DGT072/CB027590.jpg. The very freckly face is part of the reason why they stand out so much. As far as I know, this type of complexion is most common in the British Isles, especially in Scotland and Ireland.

The only non-Northern European true red head who I know (not personally) is the Spanish golfer Miguel Ángel Jiménez (images.sportsnetwork.com/golf/getty/men/2004/jimenez_miguel_angel.jpg). Obviously a man very proud of his gingerness as he also has a big ginger moustache.


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## badgrammar

Jessila said:


> If you were a child maybe... I don't know how kids react to "red hair" nowadays... but it' really un-common, so the reactions - good or bad - would probably be a bit extreme (not giving a fact here, just a wild guess)
> 
> If you're an adult... I'd be really surprised you get bad comments o reactions... So many women die their hair to achieve even a vague resemblance to what you naturally have
> I say you'd probably be praised... but envied too! lol



No, of course not...  Nowadays anyway, these are just old "carrot-top" name-calling stories that some kids participate in.  If you find an adult who actually ascribes to any of these beliefs, I'd be really surprised.

One of my neighbors is such a beautiful 5 year old redheaded girl.  And not orange indeed, but thick dark red hair.  EVeryone is absolutely gaga about it, and I'm sure the outpouring of compliments from adults, who cannot stop themselves from telling her how amazingly gorgeous her hair is, far outweighs any teasing from other kids.  

It may be a difficult haircolor for a kid to deal with because it is different, and kids will always look for something they can make fun of (be it big ears or little ears, being very tall or very small, being a great student, being a lousy student..).  It's just an easy target!!!  

And as far as I know, the little redheaded neighbor doesn't seem to get much teasing about it at all.


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## kinia22

I think there's nothing wrong with red hair. It is unique. People will always have some prejudices to the differences...


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## Chaska Ñawi

As this thread and meaningful cultural insights have parted ways some time ago, the time has come to close it.

Thank you for your understanding.


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