Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:28 am Post subject: Other People's Baggage
Other people's prejudices are sometimes the oddest (and funniest) things!
I was blown away to read this article in the Guardian today -- about the rampant abuse that redheads apparently have to put up with in the UK. I wasn't sure exactly how tongue and cheek he might have been being, since you can't always tell with the Guardian, but if any of this is even remotely true, it's one of the silliest things i've ever heard:
I mean, we have the saying "I will beat you like a red-headed stepchild!" here in the US, but I have never really heard of any kind of blanket prejudice against red-haired people here in real day-to-day life. In fact, red is a very common choice when women are dyeing their hair (especially here -- i'll go into the evils of the color known as Juarez Red and what possess middle-aged Mexican women to think that orange or burgundy even remotely flatters their complections later). Nor do we have the term "ginger" -- in America you will just be a redhead. Possibly a carrot-top if anyone is trying to be cute. But red hair has always been the color of alluring, mysterious, and dangerous femme fatales and is usually considered a thing of beauty, not derision. Of course, red hair is quite uncommon, and the UK has a high percentage of this rare coloration, so maybe to them it makes more sense.... _________________ An apple a day....
Posted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:18 pm Post subject: Re: Other People's Baggage
Uriel wrote:
Other people's prejudices are sometimes the oddest (and funniest) things!
I was blown away to read this article in the Guardian today -- about the rampant abuse that redheads apparently have to put up with in the UK. I wasn't sure exactly how tongue and cheek he might have been being, since you can't always tell with the Guardian, but if any of this is even remotely true, it's one of the silliest things i've ever heard:
I mean, we have the saying "I will beat you like a red-headed stepchild!" here in the US, but I have never really heard of any kind of blanket prejudice against red-haired people here in real day-to-day life. In fact, red is a very common choice when women are dyeing their hair (especially here -- i'll go into the evils of the color known as Juarez Red and what possess middle-aged Mexican women to think that orange or burgundy even remotely flatters their complections later). Nor do we have the term "ginger" -- in America you will just be a redhead. Possibly a carrot-top if anyone is trying to be cute. But red hair has always been the color of alluring, mysterious, and dangerous femme fatales and is usually considered a thing of beauty, not derision. Of course, red hair is quite uncommon, and the UK has a high percentage of this rare coloration, so maybe to them it makes more sense....
I seem to remember that, when I was a child, redhead children would occasionaly be teased - but not in a nasty way. Today certainly red is a fashionable colour for women (not men) here, and a popular choice when women dye their hair. This kind of prejudice certainly seems weird. Must be a British thing!
_________________ Toe ek jonk was, het ek al die antwoorde geken. Nou verstaan ek nie eens die vrae nie.
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