Kathy Brown
Once I identified the problem of my essay as my inability to escape being a redhead and everything that comes along with it, the second half comes from the questions raised in class. Why do I feel the need to escape my red hair? What comes along with being a redhead? To being to answer these questions, I will start by explaining why being a redhead is more than just having bright hair. There are diseases we are more vulnerable to and higher risks of sunburn. Much like Didion, many of my problems come from assumptions and misunderstandings that come from people that don’t understand what it means to be a redhead. Though, in my case it is not at all considered to be imaginary. It is more about how people think I am a certain person or have certain personality traits because of my hair. As much as I would like to admit that I am an individual and I don’t let the stereotypes define me I do. The second part of my problem is that I set up guidelines for myself just as non-redheads do to me. I act a certain way because of my red hair which is the part that I hate others do to me. The second problem is how I can get past the limitations I set for myself. In some way, it might make sense for my to try to accept that I am a redhead and that there is little to nothing I can do about it, but I have already done this. It is impossible to live nineteen years without realizing that I am a redhead and it is going to stay that way. I have nothing to accept that I haven’t already come to terms with.
Instead, I plan to see what parts of my personality that have been affected by my red hair make me the person I am. Instead of cursing my red hair I will take pride in it. Not because I am flashy and want to stand out of the crowd (which I don’t) but because I make up a dying breed. Redheads are an endangered species in these days, and as one I plan to take a special amount of satisfaction in my heritage. In one of the newspaper articles that I quote, I found out that the first British people were redheads. It is possible to see if you are related to a previous redhead because of a blood variant that gets passed on1. I always knew that I am much more English than I was Irish, so I wasn’t sure where I got my red hair. My dad was the redhead in the family and he wasn’t even Irish. I got that from my mother’s side. So it now makes sense to me why I had the sometimes dubious luck of ending up with red hair.
So my problem will still exist. I will never be quite satisfied with the fact that I need to duck and cover whenever the sun decides to shine down on me. I will always envy the foreign concept of tanning and the fact that other people do not have to take pictures of the freckles on their arms every year to make sure none of them has begun to get larger. But on the other hand of this, I will not be caught off guard if I do end up with skin cancer. It will always be a possibility, so I know to look out for it. I have to find a way to see that I do have a short temper, and even if it is somehow related to my red hair (which there is still no proof of) at least I have an excuse. I can blame something that I cannot control, which actually makes me feel like I am in control. The same is true of my freckle examinations. It is a part of my life that I can monitor, a way that I know my body and myself better than anyone else out there.
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6 comments:
I thought it was interesting bringing the health problems that red heads can have, considering that is not something one normally thinks about in connection to hair color.
The part about being redheaded making you who you are left some questions in my head. What do you do in connection to being a redhead, what part of you is affected by being a redhead? To some degree, it almost seems like you are suggesting being a redhead, means fighting your hair color.
Like Tasha, I think the related health problems are really interesting, and a good addition to the paper. I suspect it's something people don't know much about, and it makes the "problem" both a physical and emotional one, which may give it more impact.
I also liked how you ended up relating your relationship with your hair color to control. Everyone has their own devices of asserting and maintaining control, and showing how this is yours will help your reader connect and empathize with you.
I think if you're going to talk about redheads as a "dying breed" you should expand on that a little more: is there any reason they are? how do you know they are? And maybe more on the emotional reaction that provokes for you.
I am really interested in the change that takes place when you decide (if it was even a conscious decision) to stop cursing your red hair and embrace it. I don't know if the essay does this already, but it would help the reader to see that transformation of thinking take place on the page. I want to know more about that change and whether it was located in one moment or was a realization that happened over time. Perhaps looking at that change could help answer the questions of why you feel the need to escape your red hair in the first place.
A question that I think might be interesting to explore: for what reasons do you think you let the stereotype be a guideline for you to follow? Do you enjoy following those guidelines? Or, do you think that it has just been conditioned for you to follow from birth? I’d also like to know why this stereotype is so important. Because, I have several friends with red hair who I wouldn’t categorize in the redhead stereotype and from what I know, I don’t think they would either. So, maybe more on a personal level, why is this so important to you and a question might be why have you fallen victim to this? And, maybe in the intro you could outline what exactly the stereotype is—is it just that redheads are thought to have a short temper?
Also, you mentioned “I am a redhead and it is going to stay that way.” I’m not telling you to do this because I think red hair is beautiful, but do you think you’d be any different if you just dyed your hair? I think that would be an interesting question to explore.
I’m a little confused about your family timeline of how you got your red hair. Maybe you could use a little more explanation there. Also, the part about the freckle examinations is really interesting—I didn’t know that people with red hair were more prone to skin cancer? Is that just because people with red hair tend to be really light skinned? Maybe you could go into detail about that and a very specific detail about the freckle examination to bring the reader there. Because, I think all of that is something that people outside of the situation would find interesting and not know a lot about.
The bionerd speakith again: I had a little issue of the wording in that there are particular problems because of red hair. While I don't deny that the traits can be (and are often) linked, in Medelian genetics the law of independent assortment states that just because one gene is inherited, it does not mean you will recieve another. And probably a higher susceptability rather than disease; if you give me some specifics, I can help. That's really a nitpicky detail. Moving on...
"It is possible to see if you are related to a previous redhead because of a blood variant that gets passed on1." <--this sentence confused me.
I did have a bit of a question on your opinion (additional health questions aside) on your opinion of those who dye his/her hair red and whether or not you believe they understand the full experience. And like Shoshana, I"m curious about the dying breed comment. Could you further expand on the personality traits and whether or not you believe that they may have formed because of social treatment in reaction to your hair color? That didn't come through for me. What other stereotypes have you come across in your life that could have added in to this particular strain?
Good luck.
Bit belated here, but I want to echo Larissa's question of dye jobs.
I think it maybe gets at one of the keys of this issue--the problem of essentialism, and biology, and determinsm. What's the relationship between biology and personality, biology and destiny? People tell you that you should be a certain way because of an outward manifestation of your genetics. but they'd say the same if your hair was dyed, because hair is a genetic marker that me can change.
There is a basic biological connection wrt red hair, because of the various health issues. But if the signifier of those traits, ie haircolor, can be manipulated and changed around, where does that leave the argument of determinism?
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