"So why, may I ask, would cheerleaders not be down to support their fellow lady killers who put it all on the line in other sports?"

Because those short skirts and suggestive "dance" moves have a function.

If I remember anything from high school, maybe it's because they don't want their peers to see them as lesbians? Not judging or anything, just saying.

this sounds like a case for the NYC Radical Cheerleaders!!!

I agree Jessica. If high school kids didn't "feel funny" about it and only reasponded with apathy or boredom, I would be less convinced that this was an important change.

My high school's varsity squad cheered for both boys and girls varsity sports, and they were a nationally ranked team.

Cry me a friggin' river, Amanda Cummings.

I actually didn't write this post--the lovely Courtney Martin did--but I totally agree with her.

I was a cheerleader in high school and we cheered for the girls varsity teams also. Most of the cheerleaders also played field hockey or soccer and softball in the *off season.* In other words, most of the girls were athletes and cheered more for competition than in order to be sex objects.

Ugh. I was a cheerleader (at a Catholic school, no less ... amazing I came out a feminist =) ) during my junior high and high school days, and this is so stupid. I'm glad the squad now has to cheer for the girls' teams too (not so glad the directive came from a court ruling, but I guess it's a step in the right direction).

I'm also pleased as punch that Kate Torgovnick is writing a book about the sport of cheerleading too. It's pretty annoying when people stand around crowing about how cheerleaders aren't really athletes. Oh yeah? Do you want to do five backhandsprings in a row or toss a 120 pound girl twenty feet in the air without some athletic ability? Didn't think so.

yea, the one girl seemed to have a real problem with it (by feeling funny) but it seems like everyone else just didnt like the extra workload. which is understandable, but then, why should they cheer for anyone? if its becoming a serious sport in itself i think it should just continue going that route and stop being the eye candy for mens/boys teams

Is it spelled
A-B-L-E-I-S-M?

I jest, kind of.

Anyways, I still think that cheerleading is the gender equivalent of a minstrel show.

"...the cheerleading captain, said that... she has continued the tradition here of decorating the lockers of the basketball players on game days and bringing them treats."

Which must be a super-big pain in the ass, especially because now she won't get anything out of that flirtatious behaviour. I completely think that cheering is a tough, physical sport - but giving treats to the other athletes on game day is certainly not helping them be seen as "serious athletes"...

Mary B: I thought overt hetero girl-on-girl performances for the masses were a fixture among the ass-backwards folk? Remember, they're not LESBIANS if a boy might be watching!

I'm not so sure what this is about:

...these women don’t just stand around and look cute anymore.

Before Title IX, cheerleading was the only sport open to girls at many, maybe even most, schools. According to my mama, when she was in high school cheerleading was what the athletic girls did, simply because there were no other outlets. Obviously, cheerleading is a much tougher sport these days because the stunts have become so much more complex, but that's consistent with the professionalization of high school sports across the board.

They could easily address concerns about workload by having separate cheerleading squads for varsity and JV sports, or different fall/spring squads, or any other number of measures.

JaneMinty: Naturally, but being a hetero-lesbian is only cool when guys are watching, remember? (Actual lesbians in my school were feared by girls.)

On an interesting side note about my high school experience: upon professing my interests in feminism to my girl friends, one of them told me, "But if you don't like men, then WHO are you going to like?"

kmg, thanks for addressing that line. It really irked my athletic sensibilities.

That being said, let's not get so down on high school girls who don't want things to change and can't express themselves as well as those of us with college and graduate degrees.
Adolescents are in a developmental stage where change is bad. It's hard for us to see as adults, but ever taught high school? Try telling your students that you're changing today's lesson to having pizza and ice cream. They'll bitch and moan, rather inarticulately, because they hate change. They might love pizza and ice cream, but they hate change.

This is an important development for schools, and I am glad to see it. Even if it does bring up a lot of ambivalence about high school girl's behavior. Remember, they don't exist in a vacuum. Let's save our scorn for those creating the environments they so willingly defend.

my dad wouldnt even let me be a cheerleader bc he thought he was pathetic that anyone would volunteer to stand on the sidelines cheering for a group of boys who were actually playing a sport. there was definitly no cheerleading for the girls, and even if there was, i still sort of have an issue with it.

At my former high school, during a special event (this was only 4 years ago) the cheerleaders got up on the stage, and did a lap dance around the guys. Because our colors were black and white the varsity football team would all line up on the stage, under a black light and the gloves of the cheerleaders would glow in the dark. They would turn on some c/rap music and rub there hands over the guys chests (making the impression of phantom hands running over their bodies). Then they would sashey around them and gyrate against their bodies. If cheerleading's a sport, so is lap dancing!

I wonder if cheerleading became solely about the competitions (sans any sideline cheering at others' games) how much the interest in being on the "squad" would change.

Hahahaha rugbywoman.

the point about cheerleading is exactly what electrodot said-take out the cheering for ANYBODY (but especially male) and just compete. furthermore, why not just join a gymnastics team? i heard more then a few gymnasts call cheerleaders gymnastics rejects, which i sorta agree with. if you are talented and athletic, which many cheerleaders certainly are, why not pick something else that doesnt require dancing in short skirts for men's teams?

i heard more then a few gymnasts call cheerleaders gymnastics rejects, which i sorta agree with. if you are talented and athletic, which many cheerleaders certainly are, why not pick something else that doesnt require dancing in short skirts for men's teams?

I can think of lots of reasons. The sorts of stunts that I've seen cheerleaders do don't really seem to be the same as the stunts that gymnasts do. That's sort of like asking why someone who was a talanted musician would bother getting involved in the pep-band or the marching band.
I support the "cheer for everyone or no-one" attitude, though. At the very least, perhaps it should be "cheer for the varsity teams"?

When I was in highschool, our cheerleaders cheered for both the football team, and the women's basketball team, and nobody worried that they were somehow lesbian just because they were cheering for other women. *shrug*

i dont know what you have seen cheerleaders do, but i have seen flips in the air, dance moves, etc. yup, i have also seen that at gymnastics competitions. but, at the very least, just do competitions, no teams. there is no real way, theoretically, the a squad could cheer for all teams, often the mens and womens play at the same time, you know there would be issues.

Well, lapdancing isn't exactly a team sport, but it does require athletic ability.

I fail to see the point of downplaying these girls and young women pulling off stunts that my ass couldn't pull off in a million years.

Have a problem with the sexual element if you want, but again all I see there is the bizarre double-standard of how we all believe women should be as sexually free as we want them to be, as long as they are the sort of sexually free "we" deem acceptable.

"Have a problem with the sexual element if you want, but again all I see there is the bizarre double-standard of how we all believe women should be as sexually free as we want them to be, as long as they are the sort of sexually free "we" deem acceptable."

I agree, we should not condemn a woman for her rational, free choice to engage in any sort of sexual behavior. The issue is that the behavior these women are engaging in has been defined by our patriarchal society as a sexual performance FOR MEN. Is the woman's choice to engage in this behavior really a free choice? It is free WITHIN the context of our society, but the society itself is limiting her choices as to how to behave.

The true double-standard is that women are expected to perform sexually and be sex objects for men, but at the same time be chaste.

Honestly, the biggest double standard I see here is the scorn for all the cheerleaders, as if they invented the sport and its place in society, dressed up in the guise of feminism.
If the girls don't have a choice, let's scorn the patriarchy, not them.

Honestly, the biggest double standard I see here is the scorn for all the cheerleaders, as if they invented the sport and its place in society, dressed up in the guise of feminism.
If the girls don't have a choice, let's scorn the patriarchy, not them.

Renee, The "scorn" for these cheerleaders is because they thought it was somehow uncool or degrading to have to cheer fro girls teams, not because they are cheerleaders. I don't know where you got "as if they invented the sport and its place in society" from.

This news piece reveals quite a bit. Cheerleading developed as a sexist institution in an explicitly sexist society (girls weren’t allowed to play sports, and were expected to support/worship/sexually service? male athletes). Of course, girls also transformed the institution to suit their own needs (treated it as a serious sport, used it for female-bonding, etc.). Now, in a less explicitly sexist society (at least in terms of girls being allowed to play sports at the high school level), these two aspects of cheerleading coexist uneasily. I think a lot of girls participate in cheerleading without even thinking about how/why it developed, or the sexism of cheerleading as an institution (probably only a few high school girls at all, let alone cheerleaders, think a lot about sexism). But when cheerleaders are “forced� to cheer for male and female sports teams, the incongruity of the institution may become apparent, even subconsciously, to the girls who participate in it. Perhaps that can explain Amanda Cummings’ “funny feeling.�

i dont know what you have seen cheerleaders do, but i have seen flips in the air, dance moves, etc. yup, i have also seen that at gymnastics competitions.

I freely admit that my exposure is somewhat limited, but the cheerleaders that I have seen worked as a group, while the gymnasts that I've seen, did not. Usually, when I see gymnasts, they're performing solo. Maybe there are large groups of gymnasts that work as a team all at the same time- I have no idea. If women (and men, although, sadly, few) want to be cheerleaders, I don't really feel comfortable telling them "No, go join gymnastics instead." But, like I say, my knowledge on the subject is rather limited. Maybe there isn't any difference. If that's the case, maybe you're right. Maybe they should just be combined?

...but, at the very least, just do competitions, no teams. there is no real way, theoretically, the a squad could cheer for all teams, often the mens and womens play at the same time, you know there would be issues.

I don't know that "there would be issues" is a good reason not to work it out. When I was in band, there were issues, too. Sometimes the pep-band had to make a call which games it would play for. As long as a fair way is found to do so- whether it's "We only play home games, and we alternate if two teams play on the same night" or something else- I don't see why they can't continue to perform at sporting events, if that's what they want to do. If they only want to do competitions, power to them.

Don't the really good cheerleading groups train mainly for competition? My high school's team cheered at (men's and women's)games mostly to get more practice time. As student athletes, they were also supposed to represent our school in the community. This included going to swim meets every once in awhile and volunteering at school events. Someone needs to stop crying over word changes and go back to practicing tumbling.

Interesting that at all male schools the male cheerleaders support the male players without feeling "funny." I don't think this is the best of examples, but even the president of the US was a cheerleader for the guys on the teams. My own high school has boys and girls on the cheerleading squad now and that seems to have made it more fun than before.

This all just makes me think of "Bring It On," one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasure movies.
"Those are not spirit fingers. THESE are spirit fingers!"

renee, all you seem to see is scorn and double standards when they simply arent there. you arent seeing the larger picture. furthermore the girls DO have a choice. you can either not participate bc you have taken time out to see the obvious sexist implications of cheerleading or they can try to change that. the whole point is that you can change things, and these girls dont want to. its not like women are incapable of making a change within inherently sexist institutions or just not getting into them altogether.

I was a cheerleader for 10 years, including college, and I've coached several nationally competitive teams. I've been involved in the sport for over 15 years and it always shocks the hell out of me when I hear that there are still high school squads in 2007 that don't cheer for women's sports. That's ridiculous. I've cheered just as many women's basketball games as I have men's basketball games and the only difference, sadly, is that the men's games usually draw a bigger crowd. Many schools have two squads, which in Kentucky we referred to as the "Boys Varsity" and the "Girls Varsity," with both squads cheering together for football and competitions. Other schools, such as my high school, simply send their varsity squad to both men's and women's games and split the squad in half to handle any nights when one team is on the road and the other is at home. I think it is primarily a northern state phenomenon to have cheerleaders cheering only for men's teams. In my experience, southern schools almost always have cheerleaders for women's games. Northern teams are also much less competitive and tend to lag behind the southern states in skill level at national competitions (with the single exception of New Rochelle High School in Jersey), and now it appears that they're also stuck in the past in terms of gendered notions of what cheerleaders should do. Many high schools, such as many-time national champion Christian Brothers out of Memphis, now have fully coed cheerleading squads. How on earth would Whitney Point High School have handled that? I shudder to think.

No doubt, cheerleading is a highly athletic sport. However, currently it has two roles: to get crowds fired up at games for other sports teams, and as a sport in and of itself. If cheerleading only happened at cheerleading competitions, a different group would need to fire up the crowds. For me, hearing people yell cheers is a big part of the electric environment of high school and college sports; I'd miss them if they went away.

Here's an example: at Texas A&M, there are no cheerleaders. Only "yell" leaders, whose sole job is to shout cheers at games. No dancing, no gymnastics, no sexy moves. The A&M group is all men, but it doesn't necessarily need to be so. That strikes me as a good compromise. You don't need to do 12 handsprings to get me to yell a cheer at a game. Just tell me what to say and when to say it. Lead the cheer, as it were.

Jessica, sometimes I question your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Oops, I mean Courtney.

I went into the article expecting to get all pissed off at the sexist cheerleaders "feeling funny" about cheering for their female peers -- but that is not what the article is actually about!

The cheerleaders may be unwilling to cheer for girls, but the article doesn't say so -- the cheerleaders seem more ticked off about the changes to their schedules, having to cheer for two teams each only half the time, and NO AWAY GAMES! That means no checking out other cheerleading squads' routines before competition time, no fun bus rides, no bonding on the road, no sticking by a single team (male or female). Plus twice the work of decorating lockers -- work they took on voluntarily(!) to support the girls' teams. I think they're getting shat on by the change, and that's why they are complaining. Maybe they're sexist too, but I'd rather assume they're not until there's some evidence otherwise.

As for that "funny feeling" -- I'm guessing we've all felt funny when deviating from sexist norms.

Please don't automatically assume that these cheerleaders are being sexist, when they may actually have legitimate gender-irrelevant complaints.

It seemed to me that the only legitimate complaint the cheerleaders had was the lack of away games and time to check out their competitors' routines. The solution to that seems simple enough to me: double the size of the cheerleading team, or work out a schedule in which the team attends an equal number of girls' away, girls' home, boys' away, and boys' home teams. There you go.

The rest of the complaining is just sexist whining. So, stop decorating lockers (or, if you double the squad, the grueling locker-decorating aspect of your sport will once again become manageable). Or only decorate lockers every other game. You don't get to stick by one team through every game, thick and thin? OK. Alternate teams each semester or each year. One year, stick with the girls, the next, the boys.

There are a couple of issues here.
First, there are two types of squads, some are into competition(these are the athletes), and some are just there to look good. I didn't make my middle school's cheerleading squad,(which was the first kind) and I never bothered to try out for my high school's squad because they were only there to wear short skirts (*literally, our school had a strict dress code which prohibited short skirts. The only exception was cheerleaders' on game days)
However both squads cheered for games of both genders (as cycles pointed out you don't need 12 handsprings to get someone to cheer for a team they came to support). This is the second and more important issues. To not have them do so would send a message that cheerleaders were only there to amuse the male players. If the cheerleaders are there for the fans then they should be there for all the fans.

That being said, I think part of the problem here is that the girls are losing opportunities (away games are the most awesome part of high school athletics). The better solution would be to do what high schools tended to do where I grew up and link the girls and boys games (at least until playoffs) and split the squad when that wasn't possible.

title ix, srsly. It's a sport, I've seen it, it's hard as crap. So they should have equal opp to do away games, they should work out an equal roster of major womens' and mens' games, and yes, they should get funding according to their necessary team size. If that size is determined by competition and can't cover all the games, then tough luck for the basketball team, they have some tumbling to do. Cheerleaders equally support both genders in college athletics (though they don't seem to bother with the expense for the WNBA) and simultaneously compete. what made me "feel funny" was flicking through the channels to find the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders holding a girls' camp which included prepubscent and very young girls dressed in minature, belly-baring, short-skirted uniforms. sure, they want to be good dancers, and chorus line dancing is hard, but i don't respect a group that tells girls they also have to be sex objects at age 7.

my sports teams SELF-supported for big events, making "spirit boxes" for big races for each other...holding pasta parties before swim meets, etc....making otherwise skilled athletes wait around in the cold till I finished a cross-country race would have made me feel less than "cheered". actually, watching them jumping around at football games was pretty depressing, too, when i knew how much they could accomplish in indoors competition, and how much our football team sucked. our high school band had better cheers, anyway.

How sad and disguisting is it that these (and so many other) girls have been trained to cheer for the boys, get no support of their own, AND not even be willing to cheer on fellow females. You don't see any male cheerleading squads shaking their butts in support for the female basketball team. Ugh.