Avani Gupta

Sophomore Hannah Sevening, looks at herself through the mirror in the bathroom on Nov. 17. Sevening says that she feels that her red hair is a big part of her personality and who she really is however, it shouldn’t be the only thing that people think of her.

According to BBC News, there are 1-2% of people out of the 8 billion around the world who have red hair. Sophomore Hannah Sevening is one of them. 

“People have called me Ed Sheeren, Carrot Top, Leprechaun and Spud, and I feel like it’s funny for a minute, but once it gets overdone, it’s not it,” Sevening said.“I remember in eighth grade, I counted up the number of times people have come up to me and just called me Ed Sheeran, and they will pull up pictures and do side-by-side comparisons; it got to the point where I lost count after 80 in two weeks.”

However, Sevening is not the only one who faces this type of treatment because of her red hair, Media specialist Hannah Barbato, said she also relates to being called names because of her hair color such as “fire bucket” or “minger ginger.”

Barbato, who was born in Scotland, describes times when growing up she faced a few daily challenges or moments that were affected because of her hair color. 

“There were little silly things, I wanted to wear a shirt that was red or hot pink, but my dad would say, ‘You can’t wear that with that hair,’ because it would clash,” Barbato said. “There was one time when I was in primary school, they had an activity play, and I wanted to be an angel and (teachers) said I couldn’t be an angel cause I didn’t have blonde hair.”

Similarly, Sevening talked about her own experiences with her hair when it came to the performing arts.

“There are teachers that when there are multiple red heads in (choir), they will mirror them so that it looks the same on both sides. There are also challenges in theater with having red hair, but there are wigs, so I don’t think (cast directors) pay attention to that a lot, although I do sometimes get cast on specific parts because of my hair,” Sevening said. “I’m in a class called Applied Music, and they assigned a song called ‘Can’t Get a Man With a Gun,’, and I played Annie Oakley, because she is a red-head western gal. I was also casted Paulette in ‘Legally Blonde’ because of her Irish heritage.”

  Sevening said whenever she wanted to dye her hair, her family would be against it. 

“My family always supports me; they tell me to never dye my hair and that it’s beautiful, although when I was younger, there were times when I thought about if I wasn’t a redhead what I would even be,” she said.

Barbato said whenever she felt insecure, her grandma and dad would remind her of how her red hair was special, although she did dye it one time. 

“I tried to dye it when I was in college, but I was wimpy about it so I did a six to eight week lasting dye, and it just made it more shiny than brown,” she said. I definitely did not want to have red hair or pale skin, because I would burn all the time, and I didn’t want to have freckles as people would make fun of it the same amount they would do for my hair. However, my grandma told me they were sun kisses.” 

Junior Makenna Moon said hairstylists never wanted to dye her hair because of its rare color. 

 “I don’t really care what people do with their hair as long as they are hypocritical about it. Like I would think it was strange if they gave me hate for my hair and then decided to dye it the same color, that’s fan behavior if you ask me,” Moon said.

“It also depends on who you are around. Generally people say, ‘Oh my gosh, your hair is so pretty,’ but there are those specific people that will carp in on you and use all these terrible things just to pick on you,” Sevening said. “(My hair is) something that I love about myself, and to me it defines me and it’s a part of me; it’s a way to set me apart from others. However, to other people I don’t think it should define me. Sometimes they see me as a redhead and I have to remind people that I am more than my hair.”

Barbato said she saw representation of red hair not as much when growing up but when she was older.

“When I got older, it coincided with when I saw Julia Roberts in the movie ‘Pretty Woman,’ where she had red hair and it’s the first time I remember seeing on film beautifying someone with red hair,” Barbato said. “It occurred to me that red-haired women can be gorgeous too.”

“My kids like to shop online on Old Navy, ” she added,“and there is this one model who has red hair with a lot of freckles on her face and I was taken back a little bit when I first saw her; it struck me that it wasn’t the norm. Because when I was growing up there was nobody that I actually looked up to.”

Sevening said, “I think that it is definitely a great thing, because I love seeing representation. I would be on social media and I will be scrolling and then I will be like, ‘Oh my gosh, they are a redhead like me and it’s nice to see that person who might have experienced the same stuff I have experienced.’”