What is Red-headed Stepchild?
1.
Applied to one who does not fit in and is shunned for the differences and/or is bullied at a high degree
By marrying his daughter, Woody Allen was considered to be the red-headed stepchild of Hollywood.
2.
In business, this is a product, remote office, employee, etc., who doesn't get respect. The moniker stems from the popular slang phrase "beat you like a red-headed stepchild." Often times, the disrespect is undeserved.
If a product is an embarrassment to a company, it is the company's red-headed stepchild.
The satellite office was outperforming the head office statistically, but because it created work for people in the head office, it was treated like a red-headed stepchild.
Because the Edsel didn't sell well, it became Ford's red-headed stepchild.
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3.
Term from rural America describing person who is socially outcast and easily picked on. Usually meeting the business end of a fist, boot, broomstick, bat, broken bottle, and/or foreign objects of injurious force. Often at the end of the tag line, "I'll beat you like a..."
"Hey you boy, yeah you. We don't take kindly to new folk lookin' funny like that. You best be leavin' or I'll beat you like a red-headed stepchild"
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