Cheerleading

MSN Kidz has a feature on whether cheerleading is sexist. One school of thought holds that cheerleading is a sport and has all the benefits thereof, while another sees it as a sexist relic in which girls are on the sidelines "standing by" male athletes. There are also ritual invocations of the existence of male cheerleaders, though I think today they're still predominantly female. While normally I'm with the feminist position on these sorts of issues, I think I have to take the "conservative" position here: While many people do make cheerleaders into mere sex objects, we should not allow such attitudes to deligitimize a complex and important part of American sports custom.

In my high school and college, it was common knowledge that cheerleaders worked, if for no other reason than you often saw them practicing. It is also true that there are cheerleading competitions which mean a great deal to those who participate in them. Any sports fan knows that the crowd is important, and one of the reasons why "home field advantage" is such a big deal. Cheerleaders at once both symbolize and guide the crowd in cheering on their teams. That's why they're called cheer*leaders* and not "cheering girls," or something. Cheerleading is also a performance, and a cheerleading squad with a good routine is just as much worth watching as a good marching band.

Criticism of cheerleading sometimes focuses on costumes, even though in this case those really do serve a functional purpose. More important, however, is the idea that cheerleaders are judged by their beauty and are mere sex objects. I think this is a media image that does not equate with reality. There are unattractive cheerleaders, and everyone knows this. Most "guy talk" I hear focusing on them in concrete cases isn't rooted in their role as cheerleaders, but rather the fact they are women in a public, performing role, much like one sees with female pop stars or drum majors.

Anything else is just based on a media culture such as in the movie Angus where the sexy cheerleader dates the handsome QB before deciding the nerd isn't so bad after all. The cheerleader in this sense is as much an iconographic cultural symbol as anything else, and I don't see a problem with invoking physical beauty in that context. And just to go out on a politically incorrect limb, I'm not sure those cheerleader images are as damaging as some make them out to be. If girls lose self-esteem or decide not to try out because they don't think they're pretty enough, then that is bad, but has a lot more to do with cultural standards in general than the activity of cheerleading in particular. Many will inevitably respond to girls dancing around in mini-skirts in a sexual manner, but don't use that as an excuse to stop girls from going out and pursuing an activity they enjoy.