Forums > Social Discussion > More on British Culture... Gingers
Login/Join to Participate4,308 posts
Location: York, England
I hadn't even actually heard the term ginger haired used before I went there- in the US we are boring and say red. But what I missed was the apparently deragatory nature of it, and what a problem it can actually be. Talking to people, I've since learned that as a red-head in britain you expect to be abused about it all through school and in general even when you are out walking... this mystifies me, but after I started looking for it I found a lot of stories. So...
Brits, is it really that bad? Does it depend where you are?
Have any non brits seen it? Particuarly orange people might be called carrot top here, and are stereotyped to not like their hair, but... its certainly not much!
I know its essentially just another form of racism, and this one even has a gene seperating them from others, but.... how very strange! Any thoughts or explanations welcome...
Kyri
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
643 posts
Location: Check behind you.
Definately, and there are differing degrees of how awful it is depending on the intent.
Chucks nuns
Property of mynci and blu_valley, and proud of it.
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
I believe it's other peoples perceptions of the degree of insult.
I agree if the "insulted" group has had terrible publicised suffering like black people and jews, people believe if you make a joke about them it is in terrible taste, but pick on another minority group with a less victimised past and people believe it's funny...
The old englishman, irishman and scotsman jokes perpetuated the belief the irish were stupid/backward when thats not true... they are no more stupid than any other nationality.
Laughter is important to everyone and imagine this joke:
This normal individual walked into an average pub and ordered a pint of non-generic lager. The barperson says hello that will be £2.50....and nobody bl00dy laughs!
The ability to use minor character foibles as jokes is not predujiced or awful if there is no evil intent. if a listener takes offense then sorry I'll smoke my cigarette away from their children and won't use their frying pan to cook my steak...offense is more often than not taken rather than given.
phew with that off my chest i can go home and beat the wife
(no not really..crikey)we need to be able to laugh at ourselves (and others) it makes life a bit more varied. If i offend people I apologise but trying not to offend people in some way is REALLY hard depending on who is about...nearly everything you do has the ability to offend someone. and if your ginger..well just smile when people are rude and remember your great in the sack
Everyone's great!!!
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
Lol... right mynci... i kinda like that.. get back at them because your a better lover...
And, erm, seb... its ok not to like someone for their haircolour, at least in a romantic sense. (Why else the obsession with blonds and swedes?) I mean, its shallow, but if gingers don't turn them on, they don't, and if you arn't attracted to someone than you won't be good to them....
Its important to think that your love is hot! So some people don't like gingers. more for me, (us) right?
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
Carpal \'Tunnel
2,617 posts
Location: Berlin, Ireland
My ex is a ginger and she is a fox! Now I can't walk past a ginger without turning my head....
Generally like all people it's down to other things besides their hair, but a foxy ginger cannot be beaten....in the rating scale of foxiness of course!
It's like something you contract and then you can never look at them the same again.... yum!
I even had to click on that picture that's currently at the top of the page with that girl called little space bug at the top of the page as soon as I hit HOP today! Hey baby!
By the way. I'm currently reading a book by Tom Robbins called Still life with mockingbird which is brilliant and the plot is thick with redheads....
Anyone read it?
Written by:
hate red-headed patients.
Oh, they're nice enough...but they metabolize drugs more slowly than other people, and they don't scar well.
Something about red hair and poor healing and poor drug metabolism. I don't know what the connection is.
They're foxy aliens man... https://www.burlingtonnews.net/redhairedrace.html
EDITED_BY: DeepSoulSheep (1124329962)
I live in a world of infinite possibilities.
950 posts
Location: Nottingham UK
I have a book of British superstitions and in the bad luck section it has:
'seeing a red head'
'having a red headed baby'
and 'people with red hair'
Are we nearly there yet?
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
thats probably coz many vikings had red hair and it meant
"seeing a red head - charging at you with an axe"
"having a red headed baby - coz it's probably not yours"
"people with red hair - have taken you prisoner"
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom
ha ha nice one mynci An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind
Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife
"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
wow, nice mynci
I especially like the..."having a red haired baby- coz its prolly not yours
"On a slightly related note *chuckles* People have heard about that stidy in britain where 30% of children who were supposedly fathered by their fathers actually, well, wern't... and their mums had it all justified out and everything, even sayingt they'd never had an "affair"....
Maybe thats how we keep 10% of the population ginger there. Everyone gets all mad at their spouse and then runs out and has some of that superior ginger procreative practice activety... rowr.
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
1,643 posts
Location: ffidrac
wow!! i didn't know about the superstition thing, that puts gingers in the same category as black cats! how cool is that??... or does no-one else think that's cool...? i think i'd like to be bad luck, i feel special
but i am a mere "strawberry blonde" go i guess i'm not so much a curse on your home and family, but a minor annoyance - the reason the double glazing salesman popped round during dinner...... Aurinko freedom agreement reached 10th Sept 2006
if it makes no sense that's because it's NOn-sense.
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
Written by: NOn
NOn I feel your pain but come out as a true ginger we've already disscussed "strawberry blondes" are just gingers in denial...
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
member
110 posts
Location: my own little planet of gingerness, United Kingdom
strwberry blonde i hate this phrase
its a conspiricy to get non gingers to by hair dye
it sounds more apealing to the consumer than ginger
to products sitting on a shelf one marked ginger the other strwberry blonde which one you guna by itll be the strawberry blonde ..............
but the long and short of it is no matter what name you give,red strawberry blond burgandy NO NO NO YOUR STILL GINGER
EDITED_BY: el ginger 1 (1124721188)
i dont get paid to belive i get paid to destroy things
member
110 posts
Location: my own little planet of gingerness, United Kingdom
as we now have a thread dedicatied to the world that is ginger
i was wondering how many gingers there are hiding on hop
im just wondering if theres a link between fire and red heads ooops i mean gingers
-------------------------------
the futures bright the futures ginger
i dont get paid to belive i get paid to destroy things
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
I'm half ginger. And feel ginger regularly
but affraid i'm probably a brunette if pushed...more a mongrel tabby. A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
member
110 posts
Location: my own little planet of gingerness, United Kingdom
bloody half breeds tainting the ginger gene
i dont get paid to belive i get paid to destroy things
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
I'm sure there's a few gingers from manchester, or somewhere northern....
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
1,643 posts
Location: ffidrac
yeah i know that, but if i call it ginger, other people say "no, it's strawberry blond".... if i say it's strawberry blond, everyone goes " no but it's ginger really..." so apparently i don't really know what colour my hair is, it shall be known as NOn-colour henceforth.... but i'd still like to know what percentage of bad luck that makes me.... Aurinko freedom agreement reached 10th Sept 2006
if it makes no sense that's because it's NOn-sense.
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom
autumn bracken
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind
Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife
"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian
Carpal \'Tunnel
2,617 posts
Location: Berlin, Ireland
Every Irish person has a bit of ginger in them somewhere. My bad has a ginger mustache and I have red flecks in my stubble...
I live in a world of infinite possibilities.
1,643 posts
Location: ffidrac
Written by: PyroWill
autumn bracken
ooohh.... getting a bit fancy now aren't we?
original though, i like it. Aurinko freedom agreement reached 10th Sept 2006
if it makes no sense that's because it's NOn-sense.
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
Not tainting.... "carrying" if not for people like me you gingers would have to search out your own kind to prevent extinction.
And i practice very hard at propogating the ginger gene,
Anyway el ginger 1... you know you love me.
and know i support gingers everywhere..... especially after a few 
's A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
Yeah, and this way you can force a slightly unwilling ginger (or even two nons!) to have more beautiful ginger babies....
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
13 posts
Location: Newcastle, UK
my ex boyfriend and current boyfriend are ginger as is my brother... they have all been bullied all the way through school...they all live in north uk...i think its hidious the way your hair coulour can be deemed a bullyable subject. My little brother was refered to for years as gwar and ginger minger...he hated it and Im sure it has effected him in later life with confidence ect.
Horrible people...this is no more right than picking on someone for their eye colour, skin colour ...infact there is never a reason to pick o anyone but certainly being ginger is not one of them! but it is true that the uk ginger has a stigma attached
A wise man said to me one day listen up child dont turn away you cant afford to miss what I have to say
Do what you can to open your eyes to a world that relies on us all being blind any way
But dont be afraid...;o)
4,308 posts
Location: York, England
I've noticed :/
It pains me so much how much my (friend/ love intrest) hates that about himself... again today I saw it, he just thinks so badly of it, he thinks himself unnatractive because of it... Its absolutly crushing, because first of all it just sucks to feel that way about something so unchangeable, but secondly I think it makes him so attractive... his gingerness, that is.
Keep your dream alive
Dreamin is still how the strong survive
Shalom VeAhavah
New Hampshire has a point....
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
PyroWill,... I swear that baby picture gets more ginger every day. are you playing in photo-shop?
I have to say at my school there was a ginger kid who also got bullied, but in fairness it was more because he was different in other ways, but kids did use the ginger taunt occasioanlly. I have never really had a bad issue with gingers... in fact my first crush and best friend were ginger so found it really hard when they got crap and sometimes got me in trouble standing up for them.
(I was 6ft at 13 years old so people tended to back away when I got a bit angry)
I dislike prejudices based on appearance... if someones a tosser then they're a tosser it doesn't matter what they look like so there is no need to bring appearance into taunts.
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom
I think gingerness looks better on girls than on guys though
And no mynci im not playing with it in photoshop
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind
Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife
"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
I seriously only just noticed the hair in the pic Will. sorry.
but I do agree it does look better on women, I have never fancied a ginger man...
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
member
110 posts
Location: my own little planet of gingerness, United Kingdom
common mynci you now you like me really
EDITED_BY: el ginger 1 (1124893745)
i dont get paid to belive i get paid to destroy things
Macaque of all trades
8,738 posts
Location: wombling free..., United Kingdom
NEVER sit on my lap again unless you want a bigger shock than you got last time (your timing was....awful)
bad ginge
A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.
member
110 posts
Location: my own little planet of gingerness, United Kingdom
sorry mate but i did'nt feel a thing mayby my gingerness deflated it the situstion some what i dont get paid to belive i get paid to destroy things
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind
Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife
"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian
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