With redheaded Ms Gillard, as well as the likes of screen sirens Nicole Kidman and Isla Fisher at the top of their game, I asked some of our city’s carrot tops if things have changed.

Tom Gleeson, comedian and proud redhead

Gleeson has no doubts that redheads are still treated like lesser citizens.

While he grew up with a robust self-esteem at a small school in Gunnedah, the jokes and barbs soon started in year 7 at his boarding school.

“It never meant anything to me because I knew it was stupid; I was never really put upon. It never actually hurt me, which is why I’ve made lots of jokes about it,” he says. “But whenever I make jokes about red hair, I make fun of having red hair, not of people with red hair. It’s a big difference.”

Gleeson says his hair colour has meant he has had to work harder, particularly when it came to love and romance.

“When you’ve got red hair and fair skin, you’ve got no illusions that you’re attractive. People who are attractive are presented as blonde and tanned,” he says.

“There are women who say ‘I’m not discriminating, I just don’t do redheads’. As if I’m supposed to say ‘yeah right, good point, we do look like s**t’.”

He says he has also had to work harder socially and in conversations.

“If you’ve got red hair, there’s probably a better chance that you’ve had to get by on your charms,” he says. “I remember in primary school, if I found a girl attractive, I couldn’t kick a football and make her notice, I had to engage her in conversation and entertain her.”

Gleeson says while he thinks redheaded women are considered more attractive than redheaded men, he doesn’t find them attractive – not even lauded beauties such as Kidman. In fact, he has never been romantically involved with a redheaded women.

“I’ve certainly always been attracted to women with dark hair. Maybe that comes from trying to cancel out negative genetic attributes like getting burnt easily in the sun.”

Joel Cohen and Aaron Webb, founders of RANGA – the Red and Nearly Ginger Association

When redheads Cohen and Webb moved into a sharehouse in St Kilda four years ago, their abode was soon nicknamed “the ginger palace” by friends.

Instead of being offended by suggestions the flat would “catch fire”, the two decided embrace the joke.

They held a redhead-themed flat-warming party, with all invitees required to wear a red or orange wig if they weren’t naturally blessed with flaming locks.

The party was a huge success, and the pair started getting requests to host more “ginger parties”. Soon, they were hosting full-blown events both in Melbourne and Sydney, complete with bands and fund-raising for their mascot – the endangered orang-utan – through orang-utan foundations Borneo Orangutan Survival and the Australian Orangutan Project.

“The association is pretty obvious – it’s ginger primates helping ginger primates,” Webb says.

Cohen and Webb explain the derisive term “ranga” for a redheaded person actually comes from the word orang-utan. Through their organisation, they hope to reclaim the word so it is no longer offensive.

RANGA now has about 1000 members through its website and its Facebook page.

Cohen and Webb, who are working with the Australian Genome Research Facility to track the gene that causes red beards on men with brown hair, are passionate about using science to show that being ginger is in fact a wonderful thing.

They cite research that proves redheads have a higher pain threshold, can produce vitamin D in extremely low sunlight, and can retain heat more efficiently.

On a more light-hearted note, the pair also claim, anecdotally, that men with red hair are more well-endowed. They are also conducting a survey via their website in an attempt to prove that “rangas are better in bed”.

Neither of the men are in relationships with redheaded women, but say they find ginger women attractive.

“We’ve both been with redheads, but you’ve got to be careful, you can really start a fire,” Cohen says.

The pair, which also plans to create a 50+ RANGA sunscreen, has a special comeback sheet on its website for redheaded students experiencing bullying at schools.

“Words are powerful if the marginalised group allows them to be. Black rappers took all the hatred out of the ‘n’ word by reclaiming it. We’re reclaiming ‘ranga’ and ‘ginger’.”

Crystal Thomson, 16, Essendon Keilor College student

There is a serious side to this tangerine tale – the issue of bullying.

Sydenham teen Thomson is living proof discrimination against redheads is alive and well. While she now treasures her apricot locks, Thomson once went to any measure to hide them to escape the cruel taunts of bullies, from dyeing her hair to taking time off school, locking herself in her bedroom, and refusing to speak to anyone.

From year 7 onwards, a group of boys at her school humiliated and derided her, screaming out insults like “ranga pubes” and “red bastard”.

“I’ve been brown, black, blonde – one time I went purple and blue – just anything to get rid of it really,” says Thomson, who is now in year 11.

Unfortunately, dyeing her hair only gave her a temporary reprieve – as soon as her natural colour starting showing at the roots, the cruelty would begin again.

On one occasion, the boys physically harassed her when they pretended to shave her hair off, an experience so traumatic that Thomson took time off school.

“I wouldn’t leave my room. I quit talking to everyone, I wouldn’t say anything, I would be a mute. It really did affect me and I stopped socialising with people. Mum was really worried,” she says.

“People are very cruel and they don’t think about anyone bar themselves. They should think about how it’s going to damage someone else mentally – and physically too, in some cases.”

It was during the school holidays, with the support of her family and friends, that Thomson decided enough was enough.

“After year 7, I just went back to school and I thought ‘I don’t give a stuff about them anymore, I’ll tell them to back off’,” she says.

“I told them to go away and I made out as if I took it as a joke.”

The plan worked; Thomson now celebrates her hair colour and is interested in her Celtic background.

“As I get older, I appreciate having it now,” she says.

“I really do enjoy the colour. It’s really vibrant. I think red hair stands out and is different. There’s things that make you ‘you’, and red hair for me is a part of that.”

Maggie Rutherford, 1970s Redheads Matches model

As Dolly Parton sang in her hit tune Jolene, it’s tough going trying to win a man’s affections when you are up against a beauty with “flaming locks of auburn hair”. There’s no doubt that sexy redheaded women completely defy the experiences of their male ginger counterparts. Growing up as a tall, slim, athletic and gorgeous young woman, St Kilda East resident Rutherford never really knew what it was like to feel marginalised.

In fact, her flaming red hair brought her anything but taunts. During the 1970s, she starred in an iconic television advertisement in which a cigarette hanging from her pouting lips was lit using a Redheads matchstick with the Doors’ Come On Baby Light My Fire playing in the background.

“Someone said to me once, ‘Maggie, there are good-looking redheads, and there are redheads that are not all that good-looking’,” she says. “So I guess I was lucky to grow up and be more of an attractive redhead.”

Rutherford has never married, but at one stage she did meet and fall in love with a redheaded man, and the two had a son – Trent, now 25 – who is also a redhead.

Now in her 50s, Maggie still turns heads with her statuesque physique and scarlet locks.

“Maybe it’s an air that you have – the redheaded air that makes people stop and look. There’s a certain sophistication, an elegance, a true redhead has.’’

Whether it’s considered a hallmark of hideousness or a point of pulchritude, red hair hasn’t stopped turning heads, inciting insults or encouraging envy, even in an age where we’re brought up not to judge a person by their appearance.

I’m still the only blonde person in my family, as it seems the gene for red hair has passed on to my two beautiful nieces.

But while my Scandinavian-looking locks don’t necessarily fit with my Irish-looking kin, I know the truth – that on the inside, I’m pure ‘‘ginge’’.

RANGA is hosting a red-hair themed charity ball on

February 25 to raise money for wild orang-utans in Borneo.

For details, visit ranga.net.au