Challenging Existing Stereotypes about Cheerleaders

What do you think of when someone asks you, what is a cheerleader? The way many people across the globe view cheerleading is merely a stereotype. This stereotype consists of the idea that all cheerleaders are pretty, overly enthusiastic girls that lack intelligence and athletic abilities. Many people have decided on these grounds that cheerleading cannot be considered a sport, but what exactly constitutes a sport? Generally, any activity that requires physical demand, risk, skill, and commitment to succeed is a sport. The technical definition of a sport, defined by the Oxford Dictionary is, “an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment” (“Sport”). Cheerleading requires these key characteristics that determine a sport.

Being a cheerleader takes a positive attitude and the willingness to work hard! It takes commitment, self-discipline, and dedication. It takes energy and skill and it takes each of us working together to be our very best!

That is very true but cheerleaders also compete so we aren’t just cheering for basketball and football players. In games we don’t just cheer we also perfect tumbling skills during time-outs and also perfect stunts, maybe being used for competitions that we were struggling with. Cheerleading also takes a lot of practice, it isn’t something that you can catch on to quickly. Overall cheerleading is athletic and requires skill, even if people disagree.

Cheerleaders have competitions which they physically work together to perform and compete to win awards. “The word sport is defined as "an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment” (Tori Jackson). Also cheerleaders don 't get points by scoring a touchdown or making a basket, but they get points by performing a perfect routine, like other sports. “They also note that competitive cheer squads are judged on their skill--just as in figure skating, gymnastics, diving, and other sports” (pom pom shake up). Lastly cheerleaders have rules to follow just like football does, like no going off the mat just like football players can 't go off the field.

Cheerleading: Is it a sport? Basketball players are known for their height. Football players for their strength.

A majority of high school cheerleaders dream to be a part of a college cheer team. The level of difficulty goes up along with the number of rules and regulations go down. Even though both high school and college cheerleaders cheer for the same reasons, like getting the crowned hype for the game and supporting the players, they have many differences that we don't notice.

Stereotypes are simple images or beliefs over the attributes assigned to a particular social group, are models of behavior that become schemes deeply rooted in our mentalities to the point that we adopt them as part of human naturalness. Stereotypes can be racial, religious, sexual and social. These could be the caused of a known incident or attitude years earlier, or simply the result of frequent rumors. Stereotypes can affect different spheres of society. These assumptions can filter into many aspects of life.

All Asians are good at math, all blondes are dumb, all Muslims are terrorists - these are all common stereotypes. Without even realizing it, stereotypes have undeniably played an enormous role in individual lives. Minds seem to already set a certain image in them based on the people they encounter. People judge others by their skin tone, ethnicity, and physical appearance unconsciously, and this have been proven by many social experiments. Of course, though these stereotypes might be accurate at times, there are situations where they are completely defied.

We all are entitled to our opinion of sports. Therefore like Football, Cheerleading and even Tennis. But cheer has a lot of opinions of if it is determined as a sport or not. For instance reasons why cheer is or is not determined as a sport is, stereotypes, sideline cheer, and sport qualifications.

There is no halftime for competitive cheerleaders. Although, many Americans do not believe that cheerleading should be considered a sport, AMA members states that “cheerleading is as rigorous as many other activities that high schools and the NCAA consider sports. Adding it to the list would mean more safety measures for cheerleaders and proper training for their coaches.” Many people fail to distinguish the difference between school and competitive cheerleading. School cheerleaders are mainly targeted for getting the crowd involved with team cheers, and most importantly, pushing the sport they are cheering for, to a victory, which would not be considered as a sport. But as for competitive cheerleading, it should be considered as a sport.

In today’s society, individuals and groups are labeled with either positive or negative stereotypes. People encounter stereotypes everyday and everywhere. It is the picture people paint in their minds when approaching a group or individual when in fact it may be different in reality. Stereotypes affect a person’s way of living and thinking either in a negative or positive way. Stereotypes are based on truth but in an exaggerated way, while misconceptions are formed from having stereotypes.

On March 11, 2017 the world’s best all-star cheerleading teams will be at the ESPN Wide World of Sports in DisneyWorld for the most prestigious cheer competition of the year. The teams there have qualified by getting bids from regional and national competitions, similar to how gymnasts qualify for large meets by competing well in smaller meets. Throughout the competition hundreds of teams will perform their routine filled with the most elite tumbling and stunting sequences ever performed. The tosses and baskets will be so high that if they were performed in a smaller building the flyers, or girls in the air, would hit the ceiling. The tumbling will be so fast and so powerful that if someone was to radar gun the pass, they would be going over

What is Cheerleading? Many may think it’s a sport that you dress up, apply makeup, slick your hair with a bow, and simply put on a smile, and yell as loud as you can to keep the crowd pumped. Cheerleading includes all those easy and pretty factors, but it is also a sport that you stunt, tumble, and jump. Jumps and tumbling may seem really easy to many people, but there’s more work done than most might think is possible. Stunting is also a major element in cheer, and that’s what really pleases the crowd, but stunting takes tons of work. What is really the secret to perfecting all these major components in cheerleading? The straightforward answer is PHYSICS! Nothing could be done in cheerleading without the use of physics. This year I was honored to be the captain of the cheerleading team in Zapata High School. We started since June in the summer to try to perfect the simple stunts needed to know before we got to the more challenging and difficult ones. This was not easy for us, we failed and failed until the 100th time, we would finally stick the stunt. I would blame this entirely on the fact that not all the cheerleaders have taken physics in high school with Mrs. Pangi. If all of the team would’ve known at least the basics of physics, we wouldn’t struggle as much in the stunting area of cheerleading. Same thing went to play as we tried to jump and tumble, it was all so hard for us. For today’s presentation and research, we all needed to know the concepts of physics dealing

For example, jocks, nerds, prodigies and many more. Lindsay Goobersoly wrote an article on different types of stereotypes on college students. One of Goobersoly’s stereotypes is about a guy categorized as a nerd and says, “He walks into class wearing glasses, a button up, and some nice blue jeans that momma picked out for him.” This is an exaggerated stereotype because there’s no way a college student is being made fun of because of the way he dressed. College students do not go to school to make fun of others in the way other people dress, that is lamentable.

This is more towards NFL cheerleaders but it also affects high school and college cheerleaders. “As George Kurman claims, the cheerleader incarnates in a word, a basic male-voyeuristic fantasy.” Cheerleaders are the ultimately a male fantasy and as the authors described it, both virgins and vamps. A virgin being  product of the early year cheerleaders and a vamp representing the one that all men want. In the 1940s and 1950s cheerleaders were seen as wholesome, good girls.