Popular Culture Review Vol. 8, No. 2, August 1997 | Page 99

AU American Red Heads

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their demise in 1986. Ironically, equal opportunity for women in
sports would make them defunct.
Women's Liberation Leads to Demise of Red Heads
The Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960’s led to
changing definitions of women's roles and to new laws to protect
women's rights. The passage by Congress of Title IX in 1972 opened
the door for women to participate on an equal basis with men in any
educational program or activity receiving federal funds. In 1974 the
male bastion of Little League baseball succumbed to a Supreme Court
ruling stating that girls had to be permitted to play.
Title IX was also a catalyst for traditional men's Ivy
Colleges such as Yale and Harvard to become co-cducational and for
colleges and universities nationwide to grant athletic scholarships to
women. All over America a ttitudes about women in sports were
changing.
It was only a matter of time before the public's interest in th e'
Red Heads would vanish. The "battle of the sexes" would no longer
sell tickets and comedy sexist routines would become anathema. In
1986 the Red Heads disbanded after fifty years on the road.
Cultural constraints on definitions of femininity and sport
had forced the Red Heads to appear feminine and to play comedy
basketball against men in order to gain public acceptance. If they
had played serious basketball in a women's league, no one would
have taken them seriously or paid to see them play. Times have
changed. The success or failure of the two new women's professional
basketball leagues, the ABL and the WNBA, will determine if
women's basketball has finally come of age. In any event, the times
of the Red Heads has past.
Iona College
Notes

Gai Ingham Berlage

1. Material in this paper is derived from Red Heads Programs, memorabilia,
andquestionnaires/interviews with former Red Heads players.
2. don Sabo, Jr. and Ross Runfola, fock: Sports & Male Identity. Englewood
Cliffs, N .J.: Prentice-Hall, A Spectrum Book, 1980; x-xi.
3. Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against
Women. N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1992; 10,18.
4. Paul Galileo, Farewell to Sport. N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938; 239.
5. Galileo, 236.