Can someone tell me the advantage of football?

[LeftyMom]

36. This comment is itself rather sexist.

My sister (who also played football and baseball and did karate and now *gasp* boxes competitively) used to cheer. Which is how I know all about cheer as a major source of injuries. But basically competitive cheer is just a group form of dance and tumbling.

At the competitive amateur level it's not about titillation at all, because other than the few young men on teams and the bored fathers waiting to drive their daughters home, competitions are in a hall consisting almost entirely of women and girls. The outfits (which I think are overpriced and of terrible quality, but that's another post) are no skimpier than those used for gymnastics, and significantly less form fitting because they're usually made of some ghastly trouser weight polyester double knit. (At one of my sister's interminable competitions I did see a team competing in spandex outfits. It was the least attractive thing mankind has ever devised, I assure you, and not a trend likely to catch on. I suspect they just couldn't afford the aforementioned ridiculously expensive uniforms.)

Professional sports cheer teams are another story, but you're maligning a whole lot of young women if you lump their carefully timed and choreographed dance and tumbling routines in with a few dozen women who have part time jobs doing four dance routines on a Sunday afternoon in a skimpy outfit. And even that isn't stripping and neither are ring girls. (Hint: if it doesn't involve removing your bra or rubbing your ass on a guy's crotch it's not stripping.)