POV: Is Gingerism a thing?

I don’t know how many of you have questioned the name of this blog. It is in fact not named after the leaves of a ginger plant, lovely as I’m sure they are, but represent the 3 strands of this blog. Leaf represents the environment and nature, Living represents the change to a sustainable lifestyle and Ginger represents the social and personal views offered, as I myself am indeed a ginger/redhead/auburn/orange/red/copper…… And while this may not be relevant to sustainability, with this platform I wanted to share something that has been on my mind for a long time – is Gingerism a thing?

Red hair only makes up 1-2% of the global human population, making it a rare and beautiful phenomenon. With minorities, there always comes differences felt between people, and this is particularly true for redheads in regards to hair. The following are just some of the ways I have experienced ‘Gingerism’ in my life which may be true for others as well….

• Changing of conversation when you walk in the room – usually something along the lines of “That reminds me, X has had a nightmare with his hair dye this week, it practically looks ginger” or ” I don’t really like my new hair colour, but at least it’s not ginger” – often implying that having ginger hair is the height of hair related disasters and to avoided at all costs.
• Being confused with other redheads/grouping together redheads – I’ve had this happen with teachers mixing up my name with other red headed students (“Sorry, I mixed up my gingers!”) and next door neighbours confusing redheads walking near our houses with me. While genuine mistakes do happen, this can sometimes lead to a feeling of loss of individuality and ignorance of individual identities for redheads.
• Bullying – probably the most obvious, and most common for anyone who is slightly ‘different’. Included name calling, nicknames, teasing etc…….. people shouting “Her head is on fire!” when you get up in assembly to collect an award, that sort of thing.
• Misunderstanding – having red hair is a natural trait caused by the recessive MC1R, but from the amount of times I’ve been asked by hair dressers and others “Wow, is it natural?”, “How long has it been like this?”, ” Why are your eyebrows a different colour?” I get the feeling that red hair is largely misunderstood.
• Representation – a few examples include the ginger hair emoji being launched after other hair colours were already available and at first only on certain devices, before they were finally released further 👩‍🦰👨‍🦰 and beauty products not including shade ranges for redheads such as matching hair colours, eyebrow products or products for very fair skin tones.
• ‘Harmless’ jokes – jokes about redheads are a basic part of banter in the UK, it is easy to make ginger jokes because its not really discrimination is it? One teacher I actually did like at school made an unfortunate comment about embryo screening, that it could be used to wipe out undesirable traits “like gingers”. While he did apologise after, he still seemed shocked when I said I’d be happy to have a child with red hair. At the time I just laughed along with everyone else, but in the years that have followed, it struck me that this comment probably wouldn’t have been so accepted if it had been about race or gender, but because he mentioned gingers, nobody minded.

This post aimed to show that there is discrimination faced by redheads, and that as a society we need to show more kindness and compassion and accept rather than fight against our differences. The most important point I must make though, is that while I believe Gingerism is a thing and should be better tackled, it does not compare to the injustice faced by other minority groups. As a redhead, I am still likely to be given a fair job interview without bias, I am unlikely to be stopped by police regularly, I am less likely to be killed in hate crimes, I am likely to find the products I need in a shop. All things that are a part of our institutionally racist society. So while we must question how we treat people with red hair and do better, the big institutional actions must focus on tackling racism and sexism in our society.

I have been wanting to share these stories and views for a long time, so if you read this far I really appreciate it. If are are not red headed, maybe just take a moment today to consider how you could make redheads feel more included in the future and if you need to change any of your actions. If you have red hair, I’d like to take this moment to remind you that no matter what you have experienced, your hair is beyond beautiful and is a gift to have. What makes us different, makes us beautiful 👩‍🦰♥