As stated in the article Not Just a Performance: Cheerleading and the Politics of Sport, cheerleading
has tried, for many years to gain the respect of many athletic
organizations to be considered a sport. Though cheerleading was once an all
male activity, with the involvement of women they have changed
the "nature of cheerleading," shifting the appearance of the women
to be more appealing and sexy. Cheerleaders have a naturally given stereotype
to be dumb, underweight, and promiscuous. Luckily, the stereotype is slowing disappearing
due to the switch in becoming more athletic. With this transformation men have
been drawn towards this sport. According to UCA executive "the idea of
picking the cutest girl to be on the cheerleading team is so far gone now that
guys have migrated back into it and feel good about it." Today,
cheerleaders define themselves as "cheer athletes" because of the
jammed action packed, high intensity routines they perform. It's hard for
cheerleaders to gain the respect and recognition they deserve because of the
history of cheerleading and to keep on its legacy. No matter how hard college cheer
tries to incorporate "masculine" qualities of athleticism and competition,
people think of cheerleading to be more traditional with the qualities of supportiveness
and performativity. Cheerleading is especially difficult for males. For
most male cheerleaders, they are immediately stereotyped as Gay. According to
Ben, of Delta State, " most people assume, if you say I'm a male
cheerleader, they assume you're gay. It happens all the time. That's why I
don't even tell people [that I cheer]. People always ask me if I play football,
and so I just tell 'em yeah. It's not even worth getting into a
conversation about." It's horrible to believe that our country is
so anti-male cheerleaders and that if you cheer then you must be gay, when
in fact that is not the case at all. Ben also states that "the fact f the
matter is, these guys [on the football team] can't do what I do in the gym.
Like, I'm more athletic. I have more strength than these guys. It's just,
people look at you differently when they find out you're a cheerleader; it
takes away from who you are." Which in some cases, he lifts girls for a
living, football players carry footballs.