The best thing about St. Patrick’s Day – aside from that whole drinking thing – is that it’s a day to be especially proud about redheadedness.
A long time ago, the Seattle alternative weekly Tablet had a feature called something like: “what it’s like to be…” and had someone write a short paragraph about what it was like to be, for example, a garbage man, or a transplant to Seattle. They also had someone write a paragraph about what it’s like to be a redhead that was the most accurate thing I’ve ever read. It more or less said: “if you’re a redheaded woman, you’ll be forever harassed by older and/or creepy men obsessed with redheads and your looks won’t be more widely appreciated until you’re older. If you’re a redheaded man, your life will be harder than the women, and you’ll likely be mocked except by the very rare redhead obsessed woman.”
Redheads have it rough. As a non-redhead, you might scoff at this, but just look back at history. Redheads were thought to be children of Satan, morally denigrated and hostile. In movies, bullies, enemies, and other sorts of “bad” people are often portrayed by redheads. And let’s not forget the whole “ginger kid” prejudice thing, as pointed out by “South Park.” (Although, luckily for American Redheads, the real thing is far more prevalent in the U.K.)
Bruce Springsteen, “Red Headed Woman” (download)
That’s not to say that being a redhead doesn’t have its positives, it surely does. One of them is this song. I was a Springsteen fan long before I heard this song, but you’d better believe it made me like him even more. The redhead praise aside, it’s fun to hear him be so blatantly sexy and raunchy for an entire song.
This is the perfect day to follow suit after the Boss. After you’ve had your Irish car bombs, your Irish coffees, your Bailey’s, your Jameson, your Guinness… do something nice for a redhead. We could use it!
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