My entire life, I have felt defined by my red hair. From hearing, “you have such pretty hair,” and “you better never dye your hair” in the hair salon, to hurtful nicknames like “carrot head,” “leprechaun,” and even “Ed Sheeran’s little sister.”

My childhood was spent being teased for something I couldn’t control. While these nicknames have disappeared, people still tend to say to me, “well, at least I’m not a ginger.”

My question is, why does having red hair have to be an insult, and why are redheads an easy target?

Natural hair color is not something that one can choose, and as a redhead, it is hard for me to change my hair color. To be criticized for something that is practically out of my control can be harmful to my own body image and how I view myself. My hair is a very important part of my identity, and to be ridiculed for that has affected me throughout my entire life.

Shame for hair color should not be a normal experience for someone in 4th grade. I was constantly worried if people were staring at my hair as soon as I walked into a room, or if they were instantly judging me for it. I was stressed about whether my hair made me seem different from others.

As a dancer, we have to find bobby pins or hair ties that match our hair color in order to properly slick back our hair. For me, this has been hard to accomplish because there are little to no redheaded hair ties or bobby pins.

Redheads do not deserve to feel singled out just based on their hair color. We are no different from blondes or brunettes, so why should our hair be seen as different from others?

Since I have been a redhead my entire life, I have been exposed to this criticism that blondes or brunettes wouldn’t typically face. As a result, I can confidently say that being a redhead has never been easy, and I know many others who can agree with me. From the backhanded compliments or the name-calling, I have learned that my hair is a part of me and I should not let others influence me to think differently.

I have realized that my hair makes me stand out in a good way, for it is something so unique that only 4% of the United States has.

People will stop me in the grocery store or at work just to admire how beautiful my hair is. Instead of seeing this as them trying to make fun of me, as my younger self would, I now understand that red hair is such a blessing because it truly makes us redheads so unique from others.

Redheads receive much hate based on their hair, which should not be a normalized thing. Red hair makes us unique, and we should express gratitude for our hair by not letting others make fun of it. Our hair is a blessing, for it makes us unique from others, and this is not something that we should allow people to ridicule us for.