But I would like to think the current popularity of red hair for women has something to do with women's evolving status in society, and that red hair, standing for confidence and standing out, for being at ease with your sexuality and sensuality, has become more acceptable as a female attribute as a result.

Even in the C18th, when everybody wore powdered grey or white wigs, there was a moment when it was fashionable for that powder to be red. So the trope of the fiery temperament might well have a some scientific basis, too.Īs to the first part of the your question, obvs!Īs to the second, this is simply how fashion works - what was out of vogue at one point comes into vogue at another, precisely because it is unusual and rare. It is however one of the peculiarities of redheads that they make adrenalin more quickly than people of other hair colours, and that their cells can take up this adrenalin much more quickly too. That may be one reason any it is presented more frequently in connection with women - that a woman's fieriness is more acceptable than a man's. If a fiery-tempered redheaded man, it's a characteristic that seems to be associated with barbarity, and much less desirable. When we talk of fiery redheaded women it's usually presented as being a rather arousing characteristic, allied to them as passionate beings (hence all the interest in the possibility of Cleopatra being redhead, for example). I'm not sure this is always related to women, however, in Scandinavian mythology Thor was a redhead, rather than one of the Scandinavian goddesses. One of the first visual connections must have been between red hair and fire. Instructions and advice on how to best do an AMA.

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