Reddit mentions of Red: A History of the Redhead

I also had a surprise redhead with my first! If he didn’t look exactly like me we’d have wondered if there was a mixup - but it’s pretty cool, and it’s a neat club to be in. Prepare yourself for lots of comments and questions all the time... at one point when he was 8 months someone asked me if we dyed it. Yeaaaaaah. If you’re curious as the the history and science of redheads, there’s a cool book called Red: A History Of The Redhead that you will definitely enjoy! It helped us figure out that even though my husband’s family has never had a redhead, the Tourette’s Syndrome that runs in his family is also an expression of the gene that causes redheadedness, as is the difficulty with anesthesia that I have.

Anyway, congrats on your gorgeous girl and thanks for sharing your story!

They're just jealous of us! But seriously, I have been getting strangers randomly coming up to me making comments my whole life. Compliments, yes, but some were very . . . over enthusiastic or even occasionally subtly condescending. People sometimes seem to be half-charmed, half-frightened by red hair. And some just plain fetishize it.

The history goes way back. For example, mythology and Western iconography portray Mary Magdalene as having red-gold hair, which was a visual shortcut associated with “fallen women” and sexuality. And there’s the whole DaVinci Code thing about Jesus and Mary Magdalene having descendants and a rose being the symbolic representation of the ongoing bloodline, possibly literally expressed genetically through red hair. (That would be something the fine folks over Conspiracy might be interested in, if they weren’t mostly garbage people.)

I have come across a couple pretty cool books about the history of redheads -

Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning, and Sexual Power of Red Hair

And

Red: A History of the Redhead

That one has a pretty good blurb summarizing how rich and interesting the genetic and cultural history or red hair is:
>With an obsessive fascination that is as contagious as it is compelling, author Jacky Colliss Harvey (herself a redhead) begins her exploration of red hair in prehistory and traces the redhead gene as it made its way out of Africa with the early human diaspora to its emergence under Northern skies. She goes on to explore red hair in the ancient world; the prejudice manifested against red hair across medieval Europe; red hair during the Renaissance as both an indicator of Jewishness during the Inquisition and the height of fashion in Protestant England, under the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I; the modern age of art and literature, and the first positive symbols of red hair in children's characters; modern medicine and science and the genetic and chemical decoding of red hair; and finally, red hair in contemporary culture, from advertising and exploitation to "gingerism"and the new movement against bullying.

For a cheaper read there’s An Esoteric History of Red Hair

Honestly, what I find most annoying is people asking me if my hair color is natural. It’s not super prying, exactly, but I just don’t like it.