Sky Views: Is it Time's Up for cheerleaders?
Sunday 4 February 2018 03:15, UK
Greg Milam, US Correspondent
Who'd have thought that Formula One and darts would end up leading sport's feminist charge?
But now that the "grid girls" and "walk-on girls" are being consigned to history, there is another sporting anachronism that needs similar attention.
Isn't it time we waved goodbye to cheerleaders?
It seems peculiar that, as society confronts the issues of equality and exploitation as never before, it is still somehow just fine for women to serve as a skimpily-clad side-show at professional sporting events.
And it is that side-show bit that is most troubling.
If cheerleaders were the main event, if it was all about celebrating their athletic skill and professionalism, things would be different.
I asked Robin Abcarian, a columnist at the Los Angeles Times who has written extensively about the treatment of cheerleaders by professional sport, whether it should be "Time's Up" for the practice.
"I have always thought of it an as antiquated, sexist relic," she says.
"Yes, cheerleaders are often highly-trained dancers, very accomplished, devoted, professional athletes in their own right.
"But even though they're not holding up a placard in a boxing ring or walking a darts player on to stage, they are still a side-show, they are there as crowd-pleasers.
"It is a conundrum to have highly accomplished dancers providing titillation on the side-lines."
As for the idea that cheerleading is empowering for the women taking part, Robin has a one-word response, sort of similar to "nonsense".
"They are being exploited, even if they are complicit in their exploitation," she says.
If cheerleaders were the main event, if it was all about celebrating their athletic skill and professionalism, things would be different.
We all know it isn't: they are picked for their physical appearance, they wear very little and the dance routines are provocative. And the audiences are still mostly male.
Of course, there is a big difference between the mainly American pro sports cheerleaders and the thousands of girls and boys who learn "cheer" at school and DO compete in their own right.
It is the positioning of women as glamorous tinsel at major sporting events that motor racing and darts have decided is unacceptable.
If the starting grid and oche can do without that, so can the touchline at other sporting fixtures still stuck in the past.
Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Paste BN editors and correspondents, published every morning.
Previously: Adam Boulton - Time to give 16-year-olds the vote?