A Reddit post was made in the community r/TwoXChromosomes, which describes itself as “a subreddit for both serious and silly content, and intended for women’s perspectives”. The post title reads “I am so sick of men who sexualize me because I have red hair”.
It caused us to pause and think: should us redheads be sick of it? Are we used to it? We continued to read.
The redhead posing the question writes about a man working on her fence and how he made a suggestive comment to her in relation to her red hair. He said, “I bet you have a lot of fun. I know what you redheads are like!” She turned to the Reddit community to ask if others experienced this same thing saying, “I’m 58. I like to eat out, play with my animals and read. When does it stop?” She continued, “Maybe our reputation for having a fiery temper comes from being annoyed and sexualized from the age of 12. I definitely learned how to deflect unwanted male attention at a young age.”
Other redheads in the comments sounded off about their experiences, most of which seemed to start as children.
Our thoughts
Being accused of having a fiery tempers, being overly promiscuous and constantly being asked inappropriate questions by strangers is unfortunately the daily norm for most redheads. Our rare hair color has made us a target for these comments and somehow people think it’s okay.
Even on social media sites like TikTok that have strict content guidelines, the search term “redhead” populates no additional search suggestions, while both “blonde” and “brunette” will give suggestions like “blonde hair inspo”, “blonde wig” and “brunette hair color” and “brunette to blonde” all of which are related to the actual hair color. This suggests that the additional searches for “redhead” violate the community guidelines. It’s easy to realize this if you actually search just the term “redhead” and see how much suggestive content falls under that search.
Our conclusion
Redheads aren’t the only ones who get stereotyped for our hair, blondes have been getting the “dumb” blonde jokes and the “blondes have more fun” comments for decades. Yes, our hair color is part of our personality and part of our identity, but we’re sick of being sexualized for our hair and there’s got to be a line drawn somewhere.
What do you think about this?
Rock it like a Redhead!
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READ: Reddit Thread: Redheads Speak On Being Bullied (Or Not). Were You?
READ: Why Is Red Hair So Popular In Anime?
Main Image: © Rido via Canva.com
