Redheads have more fun?

Last week, in my rush to grab a T-shirt for an exercise class, I came upon one I had bought in Urban Outfitters in America a few years ago, with the slogan 'Redheads have more fun' on the front. Having had my hair dyed progressively blonder over the past few years it got me back to thinking about what it has been like to grow up as a 'ginger' in the UK, and how this has most certainly shaped my personality and character.

I was told that I was laughed at hysterically as a baby by people who lifted me out of the pram and saw my shock of bright hair, and my first memory of being called a hair-related name was when I was 4 and accompanying my mum to leave my sister off to school, and the patrolman used to greet me as 'Coppernob' every time I would go by. It was OK being a ginger child in the younger years, all the mocking was done with fondness, and I was the kind of annoying child who enjoyed standing out and being different, especially when I got picked to dress up as Fergie and re-enact her whole wedding ceremony in front of hundreds of other children, including dress, limo, handsome prince, the lot! That was one of the best days of my life! My sister did have some choice names for me as a ginger-haired sibling, including 'The Ginger Broomstick' but that was par for the course in wide ranging barrage of insults we regularly exchanged with each other on a whole variety of personal attributes!

I guess it started to get worse when I went to secondary school, and realise that ginger hair did not seem to be an attractive feature to boys in general, and in fact most seemed to tease me and indicate that they found it repulsive. I had people asking me out for a joke, and all the names under the sun. It didn't help when you read magazine polls that indicated massive percentages of guys preferred blondes and brunettes and something like 0.5% preferred redheads! Perhaps it is a case of 'which came first, the chicken or the egg?' when we look at the ginger role models in the UK, including Chris Evans, Anne Robinson, Jasper Carrott and more. It doesn't take much psychological analysis to realise that surviving the abuse and serious damage to a fragile self esteem growing up, requires you to either turn into a clown, a frosty ice maiden, or to develop the classic 'redhead's temper'.

I was astounded when I got to university and met American guys for the first time, and realised that they actually LIKED red hair, and it was truly amazing to hear complimentary things said to me, to friends, and even written in letters to me about my 'wonderful' red hair! Looking at their range of redheaded celebs on display, though, perhaps it is easy to see a striking change between the UK and the USA, with Juliette Moore, Jessica Rabbit and Daphne from Scooby Doo all being most desirable and glamourous females. OK just realised the last two in that list are fictional, but there are definitely many more- Julia Roberts, Debra Messing to name a couple more!

When I bought that T shirt in America I brought it home and wore it proudly, but my sister immediately went out to Primark and bought a tacky one saying 'Blondes have more fun' and wore it triumphantly and smugly. I tried to make the point that mine was clever and witty because it subverted the norm, but she made the point that hers was better because it was actually true. I guess she won.

The other day, after the exercise class, a friend asked me, with a teasing glint in his eye, whether or not it was true that redheads have more fun, and if so why I was doing my best to go blonder. I guess it depends how you define 'more fun'. If 'more fun' is being honked at more by passing vans, and whistled at a little more, and less worried about whether your hair will clash with the red or pink clothes you want to wear, well then, strike me down, I've been on a veritable merry-go-round since I gradually started introducing peroxide into my life. However I can't say that eligible men have started camping outside my front door, despite the fact that I am definitely more blonde than ginger now. Perhaps if while being slightly blonder, I can regain some scraps of the confidence that was more-or-less battered right out of me in my teenage years it will not be a bad thing, but everyone's goal is ultimately to be loved and accepted for who they are.

Even as an adult, and even amonsgt friends, I sometimes really can't stand the smug superiority of non-gingers when a ginger joke is made, as if they have somehow escaped a curse or an evil spell cast by the 'unattractive fairy', and even when it's all light hearted, I can still tell the people who really mean it and it just makes me want to scream, 'Just because you're not ginger it doesn't mean you're immune from being unattractive- what about your big nose/lack of hair/massive forehead/decaying teeth etc etc!!! ' -see what I mean about the enduring psychological damage!

I guess all of us are lucky if we get through school unscarred by some taunt or other , and it's up to us to somehow struggle through it, emerging a stronger person without too much bitterness. If we're not too tall or small, we're too fat or skinny, if we're not ginger, we have glasses, or a brace, or a stutter, or a strange name or a birth mark or a scar. Perhaps being ginger and going through teasing has made me more aware of the plight of the underdog in general, perhaps it has made me stronger and more feisty, more of a clown, even an ice maiden! If I could make as much money as Anne Robinson has by now I'd be laughing on the other side of my botox-ridden face at all my tormentors!