Okay To Be Redhead

In the largest genetic study of hair colour to date (350,000), a team at Edinburgh University has discovered eight previously-unknown genetic differences between redheads and non-redheads.

The only reason I  mention this is to add a phrase that really strikes me lately -- the redheaded stepchild.

I had been hearing it here and there, but within this past year, it was in the headline of a news article in a local newspaper, I believe it was like 'New Jersey being treated like a red-headed stepchild.'

The fact that such a phrase was being used in a (relatively) reputable news source seemed borderline outrageous to me. I am not necessarily a proponent of political correctness, unless of course you're simply referring to common courtesy. But in today's world I thought it was strange that anyone would use, in a derogatory way, a term that is derived from the way someone looks.

But then I realized two things: 1. The current President of the United States is a redhead (no?), and of the two political affiliations that would be most likely to have a problem with such derogatory phrases, the typically offended would also likely be unified in their dislike for the President, and therefore more willing to give this one a pass. And 2. This term seems to be more related to probability than anything else, because of the simple fact that redheads are rare.

Redheads are rare, and if neither you nor your husband, nor any of your other kids have red hair, well it sure looks like you've been shagging the mailman. Hence the two terms - redhead and stepchild - have a lot in common.

Lastly, it sure seems like this term, in its instantiation at turn-of-the-century America, would typically have been delivered with a curl of the lip (contemptuously), at least by the father of said stepchild, specifically because the Irish were heavily discriminated against AND they tended more to have red hair. AND they tended more to be mailmen.jk

Post Script:
The full phrase that puts this in perspective is "As welcome as a red-headed stepchild." It's not so much that the -child is unwelcome, just what they represent, which is adultery, and with someone of a lower class. And so really it's the mother of the child that is, or was, the target of disrepute. Nowadays, according to the way we typically hear it, the child is the target.

Notes:
Gene study unravels redheads mystery
Dec 2018, BBC