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Cheerleading in Schools — A Challenging Sport or Plain Sexism?
What if I told you it started as an all-male activity?
Team activity in which elements of dance and acrobatics are combined with shouted slogans in order to entertain spectators at sporting events and to encourage louder and more enthusiastic cheering.
Britannica gives the above definition of cheerleading which makes it sound like quite an exciting sport. Like most sports in the modern age, you’d be forgiven to believe that there must be a fair mix of participation of men and women in this acrobatic sport.
Well, you’d be right about it, but only if you looked over a period of a whole century and then some.
Cheerleading has gone full circle from being a 100% male sport to a nearly 100% female-dominated sport.
The male-dominated roots of Cheerleading
Back in the 1800s, the practice of cheerleading began in the sport of football largely at the Ivy League colleges and universities. Over the course of the century, it became a practice to have cheerleaders or who were then known as “yell leaders.” Their job was fairly simple. These folks, all men at the time, were separated from the players and given separate sections to yell and cheer for their respective…
