Should Redheads Be Protected By Law?

OKAY - I'm not trying to to play victim here, but I might have a case....

Let me give you the facts first:

• Red hair is a beautiful genetic mutation

  Both parents must be carriers of the mutated MC1R gene to be able to produce redhead offspring, of which there is a 25% chance if they don't have red hair themselves.

• Less than 2% of the world's population have red hair

  That's approximately 140 million people. Scotland boasts the highest percentage of natural redheads, with 13% (40% might carry the gene there) while Ireland comes in second with 10%.

• Red hair can occur in any ethnicity

  It occurs more frequently (2-6%) in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations.

•  Lucky redhead women have more sex

  That's according to a study by a German sex researcher who found that women with red hair had sex more often. 

• Climate change is threatening the gene

  Given that red hair doesn't adapt to warm climes, the gene could - at some point - become extinct. A scientist told ScotlandNow: "I think the regressive gene is slowly dying out… Climate change could see a decline in the number of people with red hair in Scotland." Noooooo!

• Redheads are more likely to develop skin cancer

  Because of their commonly fair skin and sensitivity to ultraviolet light, redheads are more likely to develop skin cancer. The International Journal of Cancer reported in 2010 that natural redheads are approximately two and a half times as likely to develop the dangerous cancer as people with other hair hues.

• Red hair is thicker than other colors

  Each strand of red hair is generally thicker than other shades which compensates for the fact that redheads have less hair. Apparently they have – on average – 90,000 strands while blondes have 110,000, and brunettes have 140,000.

Now that those are out of the way, growing up a freckled redhead was tough, constant bullying and abuse. Here is were I beg the question, should redheads be protected by law?

(courtesy of Emma Lawson)

Bad stigmas have been placed to people with red hair, countless uncalled for names and even some artists calling for a 'ginger genocide'. People on a daily basis call me a 'ginger' and plenty of other names that kinda piss me off. What if you called a brown person or a marginalized person a slur? Not good. All I'm trying to say is, either -- None of it's wrong or all of it's wrong - no in-between.

In 2013, after having read a piece by Dorothy Dalton entitled “Do redheads need to be a protected minority?” I did a number of posts on “gingerism” – having red hair. She wrote that she herself has red hair, and noted that even she was “surprised to learn that there is a growing move for redheads to become a ‘protected minority’ as a result of the increased incidence of bullying and discrimination. This is not only in schools … [but also] workplace bullying, ranging from corporate settings to the NYPD. I also found a plethora of web sites set up exclusively to report such incidents and to offer support to this minority.”

Ms. Dalton said that “throughout history reactions have varied from admiration, suspicion to ridicule. Redheads were burnt at the stake in medieval England as witches. Aristotle was said to have called them ‘emotionally un-house broken’ although that has never been substantiated.   Across the globe, proverbs and warnings are centred around the negative aspects of unfortunate encounters with persons of red hair colouring.”

She concluded that such prejudice today may be explained in “a social historian contact” – “that with all other sorts of blatant discrimination now outlawed or considered politically incorrect, (color, gender, physiology, sexual, nationality) the bullies amongst us have been left with few targets for their vicious invective. Are redheads therefore becoming one of the last unprotected minorities. …  It is almost impossible to believe that the U.S. has a “Kick a Ginger Day” a follow-up from the T.V. show South Park.”

Marginalize: to put or keep (someone) in a powerless or unimportant position within a society or group.

Roll Tide.