Cheerleaders for girls and for geeks
posted by Michael Abramowicz
The N.Y. Times has an interesting article by Winnie Hu on movements to have cheerleaders cheer equally for boys and girls teams. The legal theory is that girls’ sports, deprived of cheerleaders, are receiving less support from their schools than boys’ sports receive. The unsurprising reality in many cases is that the equal cheering makes no one happy — including the players on the girls’ teams that receive the cheers.
Will the next move be equal cheering for the coed academic teams? I did receive a varsity letter in high school — for my participation on the math team. Our team coach was able to convince the administration that we needed to be treated equally with the sports teams. You will not be surprised to hear that I put the big orange “M” in the bottom of the dresser instead of sewing it onto a jacket.
I can just imagine what math team might have been like if we had cheerleaders: “Calculate the area, hooray, hooray; pi-r-squared, that’s the way.” That would have been enough to get me to quit the math team, although thinking with all of the cheering going on might have created some additional challenge. Plus, I suppose that I might have gotten to know some of the cheerleaders on the bus rides to competitions. This could have made a great ’80s movie.
On the merits of the curernt dispute, my own view is that having (almost exclusively) girls cheering the boys does not send the right messages about our idealized views of sex roles. But it probably doesn’t make things much worse either, and the new interpretation seems like a stretch of Title IX. My preferred solution would be to turn cheerleading into a sport in its own right, if there remains enough demand for it, with squads competing against each other while not disturbing other athletic contests. Some will say that to cheer, you need something to cheer. But I saw “Bring It On,” so I know better.
January 14, 2007 at 7:24 am
Posted in: Feminism and Gender
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Responses (11)
not an MIT beaver myself - January 14, 2007 at 10:30 am
E to the u du dx,
E to the x, dx.
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine,
3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
Integral, radical, mu, dv
Slipstick, sliderule, MIT!
matt - January 14, 2007 at 11:54 am
When my high school’s mock trial team went to the national tournament, the school rented a limo to drive them to the airport and had the cheerleading squad see them off with cheers.
I don’t think cheerleading for academic teams would be a bad thing.
Ann Bartow - January 14, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Cheerleading is already characterized as a sport at some institutions. Note the part of the NYT articel that reports:
Cheerleading has long been a source of contention. Some women’s sports advocates complain that schools count it as a varsity sport as a sneaky way to increase the numbers of the female side of the athletic department balance sheet without changing historic disparities. Others see the varsity letters as a mark of respect for the athletic and acrobatic feats the squads perform.
Also, I was curious as to why some of the problems that supposedly occurred when the cheerleaders went to girls’ basketball games (according to the article:
Several cheerleaders there recalled a game two years ago, long before the complaint, when the squad decided at the last minute to cheer for the girls’ team because a boys’ game was canceled.
The cheers drowned out directions from the girls’ coach, frustrated the players, and created so much tension that the cheerleaders left before halftime.
Why don’t they annoy the boys’ teams just as much, I wonder?
At the South Carolina basketball games I attend, the announcers, our mascot “Cocky” and the pep band do most of the crowd enthusiasm generating. Heck, for better seats I’d consider holding up signs that say “Go Cocks!” and jabbing my fist in the air during timeouts. I don’t know how much money is spent on college cheerleadering squads, but there has to be a better use for it. Away teams don’t bring their cheerleaders with them to our coliseum and they still often play very well indeed, unfortunately :>)
Ann Bartow - January 14, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Huh, screwed up the html tags somehow in the previous comment. This sentence:
The cheers drowned out directions from the girls’ coach, frustrated the players, and created so much tension that the cheerleaders left before halftime.
…is a quote from the NYT article.
I have some addition observations here:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=1390
Maryland Conservatarian - January 15, 2007 at 12:00 am
“…my own view is that having (almost exclusively) girls cheering the boys does not send the right messages about our idealized views of sex roles.”
cheerleaders probably want be where the people are…which usually means going to cheer on the guys…once again the market works in inconvienent ways, doesn’t it?
Ann Bartow - January 15, 2007 at 10:11 am
When a University decrees that the “Cheerleading Team” will have 24 female and 6 male members, and that the women must be below 110 pound but the men can be any weight at all, the “market” is indeed working in inconvenient ways, of course. When a high school decrees that all cheeleaders must be comprised of females, again, market inconvenience, obviously. When a school sends cheerleaders to basketball games but not to soccer games, even though spectator attendance at soccer games is higher, of course its market failure, what else could possibly be going on.
Maryland Conservatarian - January 15, 2007 at 12:12 pm
first, the market does’t “fail”, it reflects…that it doesn’t reflect leftist sensibilities enough to suit a lot of people may be seen as a failure to them but is just a source of amusement to many of us.
…and if Ms. Bartow is implyiong that the market isn’t allowed to work in certain instances, well, I am all for those schools opening the process up to a more “market-oriented” approach – you know, like sports teams are chosen – usually the most skilled, however defined, are chosen – the rest of us watch from the sidelines.
So I’m all for letting the market dictate which sports the cheerleaders show up for…although I continue to believe that making such decisions explicitly market-based would just re-emphasize how inconvienent the market can be for those who “know” what’s best for the rest of us.
Alex R - January 15, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Premise: Cheerleading is a sport.
Premise: All sports are entitled to have cheerleaders rooting for them.
Conclusion:
Maryland Conservatarian - January 15, 2007 at 3:37 pm
The NY Times: “Thirty girls signed up for the cheerleading squad this winter at Whitney Point High School in upstate New York. But upon learning they would be waving their pompoms for the girls’ basketball team as well as the boys’, more than half of the aspiring cheerleaders dropped out.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/nyregion/14title.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I blame society
(H/T – NRO)
Jennifer Hendricks - January 17, 2007 at 10:05 am
Well, I was a cheerleader and on the math team. (I wore my academic letter on my cheerleading jacket.) On math team we always made flamboyant entrances to intimidate the opposition, and having the rest of the cheerleading squad along would have been a definite plus.
I’m shocked that equal scheduling of cheerleaders is still an issue. We cheered for girls’ games but not nearly as extensively, or with as large a squad, as for the boys’ games. In Montana, where I practiced, there is a 20-year-old consent decree that addresses equal cheerleading support, and I assumed that was now standard practice.
charlene bates - January 26, 2009 at 6:42 pm
At our local high school, the varsity cheerleaders only cheer for the varsity boys basketball team. Varsity cheerleaders in the surrounding schools cheer for both the girls and boys basketball teams. Our girls team is undefeated in our district. The season is well over half over and this past weekend the varsity cheerleaders hopped on the girls bus and rode to the game with them instead of the boys. If they weren’t supporting them last year and for over half the season this year – why go now. I believe they’re riding on some coattails. The girls basketball team is getting a lot of attention and some even think we may make it to state. I think it’s too little too late and is an insult to women everywhere.
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