Social Media's Negative Effects On Cheerleaders

Another issue is the seemingly useless rules that the cheerleaders are forced to follow. One Buffalo Jill said they were not allowed to post certain things like selfies on their personal social media accounts. The person in charge of teaching this made slide show of all of the girl’s “inappropriate” posts and showed them to the girls (Buiso). This rule shows a much more prominent issue: control. Posting selfies, although possibly considered self-absorbed, does not hurt an image or a brand. Posting a video of a fun party does not do anything to hurt a specific appearance. Personal social media accounts should not have restrictions from companies unless they do something to hurt that image. Also, publicly embarrassing someone so that they do

It is unfair that a company can walk all over these talented girls because of what they do in their spare time. One specific rule in the handbook is especially appalling:¨´Do not become the topic of conversation in the locker room and/or by the raider staff. We eventually hear everything!´¨ (Ehrenkranz). This is incredibly frustrating, considering the girls have no control over what goes on in the men's locker room. This rule is implemented so that the cheerleader´s do not try to flirt with the football players, but in actuality it is an excuse for the men to have control over the women´s job. If a football player wanted a girl off the team, they could easily just mention her to get the girl in trouble. The rules, although vaulable in some sense, are much more detrimental than useful. Lastly, the cheerleaders, if they are allowed to date the players, must ask management if the football players are married. The logic is that they should not expect the men to tell the cheerleaders themselves (Ehrenkranz). This is rule is implemented so that there are not fights between the cheerleaders and the wives, but that does not make it any more

The first example of this is that “Some teams do have a height to weight ratio requirement, but this was implemented to ensure cheerleaders were not becoming too skinny”(Delp).The irony with this is that it would not be necessary if the coaches cared about the girls’ health. This contributes to the health and wellbeing of cheerleaders, but it does not dismiss the fact that cheerleaders are starving themselves before weigh-in so that they do not get benched. If they cared about the girls’ health, they would get rid of unscheduled weigh-ins. Acting like the “height to weight” ratio is beneficial to anybody is insulting. It hurts the girls, who are confined to a small weight limit, it hurts the managers, who must constantly switch girls in and out, and it hurts the fans who do not get to see their favorite cheerleader. Overall, the rule is useless and should not be enforced. Another reason is because “‘[The cheerleaders] need to be able to move and our bodies, our lines, need to be defined ... (the uniform) can be very sporty and be very flattering.’”(McGowan). Versatile uniforms are very beneficial to all athletes, but at some point this argument actually turns into fashion over function. If they truly believed the uniforms helped the girls in their performance, the managers would