The mystique of the redhead is well documented throughout the ages , dating back to biblical times. The queen of Hell, Lilith, was thought to be a redhead, and the mythological women of Greek stories like Cassandra and Persephone have been depicted with this hair colour, indicating a pattern across centuries of troubled or troubling women sharing a common feature of red hair. Hair gives women agency, but only insofar as it is linked to appearance, whether judged as beautiful or ugly according to beauty standards throughout history. It is associated with the cisgendered female Other, and this strength and beauty has much to be admired but also feared. Red hair can be traced through beauty trends made visible by literature, historical records, and art. Cleopatra was presumed to have reddened her hair using henna, a cosmetic tool favoured by the Ancient Egyptians, whereas in Japanese culture an 1896 article suggested that red hair brought bad luck, and that ‘he or she must not wash her hair on the day of horse when hair would turn red, an evil turn of events (Volker 1975, 7). Examples of famous women such as Boudica, Elizabeth I, and Moira Shearer indicate no lack of redheaded women in popular history, but their shared feature of red hair is often felt to be a problem (Figure One).
Its sheer rarity, with less than 2% of the global population considered as natural redheads may justify such claims of uniqueness and fascination, but the deep-rooted and dangerous appeal of red in all its literary and historical forms implies an otherness which is historically feared in masculine perspectives of history. The problematic of red hair is its colour, and this perceived abnormality has been weaponised into a vilification of women.
It is difficult to define the archetype of the redhead in history as inherently positive or negative, as famous figures like Elizabeth I created a fashion of having red hair, whilst Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables perceives her red hair as ugly and is bullied for having ‘carrots’ for hair. The devilish allusions to fire and sin seem too straightforward in answer to the often -unfair stereotyping of scarlet haired women throughout history, but the fact of natural red hair as a rare quality fosters this nature of suspicion across the real and fiction women I am discussing (Montgomery 154). The colour red, ginger, or strawberry blond does ‘stand out’ in its vibrancy, and where women have historically been taught modesty, the dangerous power of hair was thought to beguile and disturb male onlookers. My study reflects on iconic women across literature, art and mythology, who can be grouped together as outsiders or unique characters partially due to their red hair and the patriarchal fears that are intrinsically linked with being a redhead.
Religious lore provides one source for the fear of red hair, as records from the European witch trials spanning from the 15th to 18th century reveal that it was widely believed that simply having red hair could invoke the devil. Wendy Cooper’s Social History of Hair identifies the duplicitous Judas as one origin of this idea, as the religious damnation of this man as disloyal and untrustworthy is tied to his red hair (Cooper 1971, p.75). The power of religious symbols is connected to persecution of redheads, and in relation to the Spanish inquisition, the immoral allusions of red hair and fear of heresy came hand in hand (Cooper). In A Vindication of the Redhead, Brenda Ayres affirms that ‘The association of red hair with Satan, devils, monsters, murderers, villains, seductive women, Jews, and other personages of presumed infamy continues to be propagated through literature and other media today’ (21 ). Red hair, then, is doubly embedded in the cultural myths of hair and western beauty standards as well as religious ideas of sin and seduction, especially due to the primal colour associated with temper, desire, and violence.
Ayres equally discusses the biblical idea of sexual temptation associated with hair, and how historically women have been punished for their perceived sexuality by having their hair cut off. The Grimm Brothers’ Rapunzel and Fantine from Les Misérables are two important cultural examples, when their hair is forcefully cut, they both lose power and become disposable (Figure Two). Joan of Arc is a counterpoint to these women; although suffering an equally tragic fate, the martyr chose to cut her hair as a form of disguise. All of these cultural references exemplify the equivocal truth that long hair can be a mark of beauty but also objectification.
Long flowing hair presents a threat to male power due to its distracting ‘allure’, and feminist history emphasises the important context behind the mythologization of hair. It can be used as a way to vilify women, as a tradeable product of femininity that someone like Fantine uses very literally to make money. Barbara G Walker notes the popular myth of ‘prophetic priestesses or witches, who operated with unbound hair on the theory that their tresses could control the spirit world’ (Walker 1996, p.368). Hair, in magical terms, was a source of power, so adding the dimension of red hair increased the strength of these women. There is a sense of both monetary value but also emasculation at play with red hair, so the mythology of red headed women as imbued with supernatural power is a means to explain the oxymoron of patriarchal beauty ideals and sinfulness that they embody. We can thus see a trend emerging from the fear of dissent surrounding red hair that then transposes to a visual figuration of red hair as ever seductive yet valuable.
Thus, if hair studies reveal a gendered perception of red hair, how can we account for the diverse depictions of women thought to have or often visualised with ginger hair? It can be attributed to changes in beauty standards, as the trend in depictions of ‘devilish’ female characters in religious cultures such as Eve and Lilith was replaced by an adoration of redheaded women in the Pre-Raphaelite muses Fanny Cornforth and Elizabeth Siddal and the mythological women they incarnated. Feared and revered , the unanimous agreement is that red hair attracts attention, why is why I have chosen to look at key examples of the male gaze at work in shaping perceptions of redhaired women and how these can be reconstructed. Historically, naturally occurring red hair has been found primarily in European countries, so the majority of artwork and accounts of red hair are associated with white Western women. This is not to say that red hair does not exist in all parts of the world, and indeed it is thought that Cleopatra may have had red hair. Negative criticism of red hair has been associated with antisemitism, and the very fact that it is a ‘minority attribute’ indicates historic fear and alienation in pictorial depictions of Jewish people (Mellinkoff 202). Vindictive histories of russet haired women focus on the colour itself as a rarity and a warning symbol, with the most common being devilish associations.
The great Iceni queen Boudica is exemplary of often prejudiced accounts of powerful redheaded women, and her physical appearance plays a deciding factor in male historian’s accounts (Figure Three). She was described by the monk Gildas in the sixth century as 'the treacherous lioness' and her followers 'crafty foxes,' when both animals are known for their red hair (Gildas 540, 21, in Gibson 92). Ancient Roman historian Cassius Dio elaborates that ‘in stature she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh; a great mass of the tawniest hair fell to her hips’. Her ‘tawny’ hair was thought to be red, and here her physically dominating appearance is measured by fear and awe. Whilst this pattern of redheads may be a coincidence, their history of literary and visual representations reflects beauty standards of idealism and male anxiety, as Dio’s account is yet another shaped by the male gaze. Red hair, from the earliest Greek myths and biblical tales, seek to emphasise a woman’s otherness or demonic qualities, whereby a powerful or powerless woman could be vilified by the fact of having distinctive red hair.
Early religious accounts associate red, and thus redheads, with Satan, and the Babylonian Talmud (a central text of study in Judaism) describes Lilith, the first wife of Adam, as a redhead (Ayres 28). The biblical image of Lilith as a demonic woman who disobeyed traditional ideas of motherhood and female sexuality indicates that her unruliness is equitable with her hair colour. The figuration of both Lilith and Judas as having fiery hair must then symbolise their dissidence and infallible branding as sinful in certain religious interpretations. In the Babylonian Talmud (c.500), Lilith is scarcely mentioned but is described with long hair and is thought to have been banished from the garden of Eden for not following Adam’s rule and then becoming the Mother of Hell (British Library). The 'Lady Lilith' painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1867) is perhaps the most famous incarnation of Lilith, and her distinctive long red hair adds to her femme fatale characterisation (Figure Four).
Rosetti’s choice to use his mistress Fanny Cornforth as the model is telling of the seductive power that is often emphasised by redheaded characters. The demonic idea of Lilith is translated into a more formal tradition in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, where Lilith is shown in an intimate setting, importantly combing her hair. Other details include a red bracelet and a poppy, which can symbolise death, drawing the viewer’s attention to red as a key motif in this painting. For Rossetti, and indeed Victorian viewers, it is unclear whether red hair can be judged as a beauty ideal, as Roach notes that this hair colour has ‘struck every emotion in our hearts, from vehement terror to unthrottled lust, since the hue first appeared in humankind’ (Roach 3).
Lilith is a prime example of how literature dictated by men can influence cultural myths of red hair, which goes on to include Princess Salome and Greek myths such as Cassandra and Persephone, who are also figured with red hair (Figures Five and Six).
Cassandra (left) and Persephone (right) suffered alienation and tragedy all whilst having red hair in artistic depictions, and the flaming locks of Cassandra echo the ruined city behind her. Their fates are not comparable to their hair colour, of course, but there is a shared sense of foreboding in the artists’ choice to depict these tragic heroines with red hair. Botticelli’s iconic ‘The Birth of Venus’ painting also leans into the femme fatale trope of Greek mythology, as the love goddess Venus’s long wavy tresses emphasise her ideal femininity, and a noticeable tawny strawberry blonde colour (Figure Seven). It seems then that the common stereotyping of redheads as fiery and passionate are found in these Greek goddesses, who have been viewed in artistic renderings as passionate yet idealised redheads.
It is difficult to define the archetype of the redhead in history as inherently positive or negative, as famous figures like Elizabeth I created a fashion of having red hair, whilst Anne perceives her red hair as ugly and is bullied for having ‘carrots’ for hair. The devilish allusions to fire and sin seem too straightforward in answer to the often -unfair stereotyping of scarlet haired women throughout history , but the fact of natural red hair as a rare quality fosters this nature of suspicion across the real and fiction women I am discussing (Montgomery 154). The colour red, ginger, or strawberry blond does ‘stand out’ in its vibrancy, and where women have historically been taught modesty, the dangerous power of hair was thought to beguile and disturb male onlookers. My study reflects on iconic women across literature, art and mythology, who can be grouped together as outsiders or unique characters partially due to their red hair and the patriarchal fears that are intrinsically linked with being a redhead.
Continuing in history, a distinctive shift in the correlation between redheads and beauty standards is visible in Queen Elizabeth I. Her portraiture created a cult of royal authority and established her strength and regal power as a queen, making her red hair famous. As an influencer of national fashions and beauty, many women aspired to Queen Elizabeth’s look, including her red hair. Her most vibrant ‘Rainbow Portrait’ shows her late in her reign but still figured as an eternal young woman, her hair perfectly curled and bejewelled (Figure Eight).
She controlled the circulation of her image, and so this portrait is indicative of her desire to publicly maintain her features to show the constancy of her power. Elizabeth I’s patronage of artists created a cult of imagery around the queen which maintained her regal status of the Virgin Queen, and her distinctive red hair remained a key feature of her portraiture. Her red hair remained the same hue and thickness throughout her life, causing one to question the truthfulness of the artist’s brush. What is clear is that the image of the young, omnipotent queen was paramount and the power of beauty standards reigned over the Queen herself to maintain the Gloriana image.
During that time, Ayres notes that ‘Titian was famous for painting redheads. In fact, the hair color—a “golden red-brown”—had become so popular in Venice that women dyed their hair that color.’ (Roach 68, in Ayres 11). The term ‘Titian red’ has become widespread due to his common use of the colour, which was distinctive to his style, and suggests an increase in appreciation for redheads, certainly aided by its visibility in portraiture and presentation as both beautiful and powerful in the case of Queen Elizabeth I.
These visual signifiers of auburn hair as ethereal and the highest pinnacle of beauty denote an appreciation that is interlinked with concepts of female power and royalty. The regal power of Elizabeth I exponentially increased the popularity of red hair and may have elevated it from negative cultural prejudices. Titian’s fixation on red hair and his own shade of red indicates this widespread visual culture of redheads which confronted women of the epoque, casting beauty and a regal aura on the female models (Figure Nine). The popularity of trends and the rise and fall of perceived beauty of redheads can then be traced in literary depictions, but a common feature is that often these women are powerful, mystically so, and their beauty is often replaced by patriarchal fear, or in Queen Elizabeth I’s case, a cult of power.
Paintings of redheads put Western beauty on a pedestal and share myths of red hair across fictional and historical women that they depict. Elizabeth I created a popular image of herself which brought her flaming locks into prominence, associating her hair with both her femininity and strength, perhaps trading into the fiery stereotype as her forte as a speech maker and long ruling monarch relied on public support. When imagining paintings of redheads, the Pre-Raphaelites are central to visual culture, as the Brotherhood (and Sisterhood), founded in 1848, is recognizable in art movements for the prominence of red-haired female subjects in various classical and Victorian settings. The redheaded model is common among their depictions of so called dangerous and tragic women such as Ophelia and the Lady of Shalott, who are often to be feared and safely contained in the canvas of a painting. Elizabeth Siddal is a key example of how red hair situated women as the muse and model for the male artist rather than artists in their own right. Often figured as dangerous and beautiful women, Siddal’s’ history is often rendered synonymous with her sitting as Ophelia in the infamous 1851-2 painting by John Everett Millais (Figure Ten).
Her tragically short life mirrors the heroine Ophelia, but this is an injustice to her own writing and artwork she produced . Perhaps the memory of Siddal as a muse known for the visual marker of her long red hair emphasises the beauty standards of the Pre-Raphaelites and suggests auburn hair is in fact an ideal, albeit a tragic one.
The male gaze is inextricable within the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, so their contribution to Victorian beauty standards in painting such as ‘The Beloved’, ‘Lilith’ and ‘Lucrezia Borgia’. Their artwork combines myths of redheads with male desire and female power. They perpetuated the stereotype of red hair as beautiful but also laced with scandal, the sitters themselves were often depicted as adulterous, magical or tragic women but were artists themselves in their own right. Their red hair harks back to the religious ideas of sinfulness, where stories of powerful and mythical women were often reinvented with red hair.
The male artist, whether it is Rossetti or Titian, had great sway over cultural perceptions of female beauty, and their choice of redheaded female subject is thus telling of a male gaze which has ownership over the vivid red-haired model. Siddal is still remembered primarily as a muse, and the memorialisation of her face and hair in Rossetti’s art displays the gender powerplay at work in constraining the female model within a patriarchal canvas.
Red hair, as a visual signifier of beauty or ‘abnormality’, has also been well documented in literature. Traits that we have encountered in the historical redheaded women lend themselves to fiction too, where the most outspoken female characters are often redheads . Some are alienated, such as the plucky orphan Anne of Green Gables who dislikes her red hair so intensely that it is a ‘lifelong sorrow’ (Figure Eleven).
She believes in the popular myth that ginger hair is a curse and wishes for it to be raven black instead. This informs us more about beauty standards of the time, so her fixation on her hair is not a vanity but rather ostracization of a young girl in 1880s society. L.M. Montgomery’s novel reflects a misogynistic attitude towards hair colour which can be compared to other similar historical depictions of redheaded women. The character of Anne is made to feel worthless, and her distinctive hair is a visual sign for her that she does not belong. She tells Marilla that ‘red-headed people can’t wear pink, not even in imagination’ (Montgomery 52). Rejected from society as an orphan, her red hair seems to escalate the sense that beauty and belonging is out of reach. She internalises beauty standards that deem her red hair ‘ugly’, which derives from bullying and unfair treatment, and can only become empowering as she grows up and accepts herself (101). Anne’s temper and boldness is fitting with the fiery stereotype, although it is arguable that her outsider status and thirst for justice is the real reasoning behind her personality. Other orphans like Annie and Pippi Longstockings share the same outspoken characteristics, and all triumph in their resilience in the face of alienation. Pippi in particular is an unconventional little girl, she lives alone and has an unexpected superpower of incredible strength. Here, her so called ‘oddity’ is a superpower, as is her red hair: she may stand out but is celebrated for this and overcomes adversity.
In fiction, hair holds a history of oppression and power in equal parts, which plucky Anne and powerful Pippi exemplify. If we take Rapunzel as an example, her hair has magical qualities which then aid her escape from evil forces which would keep her and her rebelliously long hair hidden . Connie Koppelman notes that ‘because hair continually replenishes itself, it has been imbued with magical, symbolic power and defined by myth and tradition’, adding to the concept that hair is a powerful symbol of something uncontrollable (87). There is certainly then a myth around hair and superstition which form a part of literary tradition.
Elsewhere, Sylvia Plath’ s ‘Lady Lazarus’ dramatically announces that ‘Out of the ash/ I rise with my red hair/ And I eat men like air’ . The reclamation of biblical ideas of sin and hell are reworked in the image of resurrection and female power, the female Lazarus is invincible and vengeful. Here, her ‘red hair’ is part of Plath’s feminist message of reinvention and dangerous natural power, and ideas of fieriness and fire are linked directly to her red hair. Plath plays on religious ideals of good and evil by subverting the parable of Lazarus rising from the dead to present us with a violent feminine rebirth ‘out of ash’ where ‘red hair’ is a form of armour that Lady Lazarus can use to take on patriarchal forces. Red hair can be a cause for celebration and feminism as an act of reclamation, and even in current literature the eponymous Daisy Jones, the rebellious 70s musician , has ‘copper red hair that is thick and wavy and… takes up so much space’ (Reid 3). Jenkins Reid puts scarlet haired women as her heroines, and Daisy Jones and Celia St James, a Hollywood It Girl from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, both have charisma and inspire beauty and fear. They are vilified for it but also capitalise on their beauty and art. Emily Dickinson was confirmed to have had red hair, underlining this trend of red hair and uplifting, even riotous feminist role models in literature (Figure Twelve).
She described her hair as ‘bold, like the Chestnut Bur’, linking Dickinson’s perception of her hair as a naturally imbued powerful feature with Plath’s later sentiment about fiery Lady Lazarus (Letter 268, Dickinson/Higginson Correspondence: July 1862). These female writers and their characters view red hair as part of their individualism, it is a reason for celebration, not sorrow like the young Anne. A shift in popular opinion in modern day society to celebrate difference which can include ‘fieriness’ as a woman has its origins in historical and fictional women, whose stories must be retold and rethought through the lens of beauty standards. By separating problematic beauty myths from the array of powerful and often misunderstood characters in literature, one can see the literary appreciation for redheads, particularly in feminist narratives, that works against historical prejudice.
Is red hair then the age-old scarlet letter, particularly for women? Countless male artists would seem to say this in their paintings, and stereotypes of beauty throughout mythology, history and literature single out red-haired women as extraordinarily fiery and often dangerous. These female figures are often framed from the perspective of the male historian or artist, so bringing them all together suggests that freeing the redhead from archaic stereotypes is much more liberating, instead sharing a wealth of powerful and inspirational women who happen to also have red hair. Like Anne who grows to love her auburn locks as she grows up and discards harmful stereotypes, it is important to understand that these beauty standards are reflected in cultural productions like art and literature often prescribed by men. There is in fact no rarity of flame-haired women in stories to inspire a much more positive and complex understanding of the myth of the redhead, who has been misunderstood under misogynistic ideals and is instead a force to be reckoned with.
Further Reading
Primary Sources
Montgomery, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. Penguin Random House, 2015.
Dio. Roman History (LXII.1-2)
Plath, Sylvia. ‘Lady Lazarus’, Ariel, 1965. Poetry Foundation, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49000/lady-lazarus.
Reid, Taylor Jenkins. Daisy Jones and the Six. Arrow Books, 2019.
Dickinson, Emily. ‘Letter 268’, Dickinson/Higginson Correspondence: July 1862. emilydickinson.org
Secondary Sources
Ayres, Brenda and Maier, Sarah E. A Vindication of the Redhead: The Typology of Red Hair Throughout the Literary and Visual Art. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
Gibson, Rachael. ‘Why are artists infatuated with red hair?’, Art UK, 26th Apr. 2018. https://artuk.org/discover/stories/why-are-artists-infatuated-with-red-hair.
Cooper, Wendy. Hair: Society, Sex and Symbolism. New York City: Stein and Day, 1971.
Walker, Barbara. The Women’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets. Castle Books, 1996.
Koppelman, Caroline. ‘The politics of hair’, Frontiers, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 87-88, 1996.
Mellinkoff, Ruth. Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late
Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993.
British Library. ‘Babylonian Talmud.’ British Library website, https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/babylonian-talmund.
Roach, Marion. The Roots of Desire: The Myth, the Meaning, and Sexual Power or Red Hair. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005.
Gildas. De Excidio Britanniae: The Ruin of Britain. vol. 1. Translated and edited by Hugh Williams. London: David Nutt, 1899. https://books.google.com/books?id=FfsmAAAAMAAJ.
Volker, T. The Animal in Far Eastern Art: And Especially in the Art of the Japanese Netsuke with References to Chinese Origins, Traditions, Legends, and Art. Ledien: Brill, 1975.