Are NFL Cheerleaders Being Exploited?

A topless photoshoot is raising new questions about the treatment of cheerleaders.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, this is Annie, and this is Bridget, and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. Today we were
talking about cheerleading and cheerleaders. Were you a cheerleader? Annie? No? Uh.

(00:27):
I wanted to be, though, And I often think that
if I hadn't moved, I moved it like critical development,
developmental period of my life. And the friends that in
my old hometown they were all cheerleaders. And my friends,
the friends of my new hometown, none of them were cheerleaders.
So I like to think there's an alternate reality where
I became a really awesome cheerleader to earth to Amy's

(00:51):
on top of the pyramid. That's right. I'm just cheering away,
cheering my heart out. What about you? Were you at
cheer I was. I would sort of cheer adjacent a
go to a school that had cheerleaders, but I went
to cheerleading camp. Yeah, I forgot about cheerleading camp. Yeah.
It sounds like both of us are folks who have
healthy respect for cheerleaders. Oh absolutely, Yeah, that's something that

(01:13):
I think people forget about cheer because when you're a cheerleader,
you're often in a skirt and you're in pom poms.
But cheerleaders are really talented. These are really talented athletes. Yeah, um,
I tried out for the not cheerleading, but the dance
team at Georgia Tech. And there's another Annie. And if

(01:35):
she's listening, hello other Annie. Alternate Annie. I called her
and she was in all of my same classes, and
she and I both tried out and she made it
and I didn't. She was slightly better than me at everything.
I respect her. I love this Ulternate Annie. Alternate Annie.
There's just so many iterations. Fun fact is that I

(01:58):
did dance team for most of my my I did.
And actually people who are on dance team, or at
least the ones that I knew, they like. There to
be a very clear distinction between cheer and dance. Yeah. Caveat, Yes,
very very much a caveat. But I bring that up because, um,
I sort of assumed foolishly that I would get on

(02:20):
there because I like dancing. Dancing is one of my
favorite favorite things, and I'm pretty athletic. I did not
make it. I don't think I was even close. Really,
what's alternate Annie up to these days? Alternate she's like
a rocket. Probably she's probably I know she's in New
York could be a rocket. She really could be. Oh no,

(02:43):
I don't know what I'm gonna I'm gonna have to
reevaluate some things. If alternate Annie is a rocket crisis
for later, crisis for later. But yes, the whole thing
to say, cheerleaders very talented and a lot of athleticism involved.
Um professional sport team cheerleaders are often dancers with backgrounds

(03:04):
in ballet, jazz, modern and hip hop and tap, and
they have to beat out dozens of other dancers for
the job, and then they have to show off the
athletic and dancing skills they have honed for years on
the fields. Yeah, these ladies are serious athletes. That's there's
a lot of kind of back and forth about is
cheerleading a sport or is it not a sport. In
my book, it's very clearly a sport. These people are

(03:26):
up there, they're breaking bones, they're doing flips, they're doing
dangerous stunts. It takes a lot of athleticism. Yeah. A
couple of studies from the first decades of the two
thousands found that the leading cause of catastrophic sports injuries,
which are serious injuries to your brain or your spine,
for American Girls was cheerleading, and it used to be.

(03:46):
I did a little of digging for fun into the
history of cheerleading for this, and it used to be
much more kind of like chant leading the crowd and chance.
And now it has become much more of a kind
of gymnastic, has a gymnastic element that was not there
until it had this resurgence and around the eighties and nineties,

(04:07):
and then Bring it On came out, and you know,
oh my god. A side note, Bring It On is
about cultural appropriation and racism conversation for a later episode.
But y'all know it's true. I've never seen it. Oh
my god, Annie, I miss like all of the popular
high school any kind of even wrong com adjacent I haven't.
It's not actually a rom com. It's about female athletes

(04:29):
because it's about cheerleaders. But to this day, if anyone
and you're not gonna get this reference, but people out
there probably will. If anyone ever says Burr, I can't
help but fill in the it's cold in here. There
must be some toros or some clovers in the atmosphere.
You don't get that, remast, Let's watch it. You will. Okay,
we have quite the list of we do. So back

(04:52):
to cheerleading. You know, it seems like a very, very
glamorous job, but it actually sounds like cheerleaders put up
a lot of bs just to do their job. Yeah,
and NFL cheerleaders schedule varies, but most can expect to
work eight hours per week for rehearsals, plus additional practice
time for rookies, and a full eight hour day at
the stadium for home games on Sundays or sometimes Monday

(05:12):
nights or even holidays like Thanksgiving, our Christmas. Regular special
appearances at community, our each charity and corporate events are
required as well. Many cheerleaders are not paid by the
hour either, but with a set fee for each game
or appearance, and many complain about not being compensated at
all for practices or travel times. Yes, so it seems
like they're not being compensated the way that you would

(05:34):
expect that a lot they're doing, a lot of things
would have that are required of them, but they're not
paid for them. And we'll talk more about how that
gets really twisted and toxic and reported in a little bit.
But even when those things are on the up and up,
you know, charity events, things like that. It seems like
those things are required of them, but they may not
be even being compensated for those kinds of things. Yeah. Yeah,
And they also have a lot of really demanding and

(05:57):
often strange rules. Tell me about it. Former NFL cheerleaders
say that members of their squad were sometimes bench for
gaining weight during a season. They can also be fine
for things like wearing the wrong outfit to her practice.
Some other kind of strange rules they have are not
being allowed to drink or curse or chew gum in public,
So I could definitely not abide by those rules. And
bands on hanging out or dating NFL players. The States stations,

(06:21):
that's the SATs in New Orleans, the New Orleans Saints
their cheerleaders they are rules actually prohibit cheerleaders from fratnizing
with players, to the point where a cheerleader would be
required to leave a restaurant or a party if an
NFL player entered, even if she was there first. One
team meeting required that all the cheerleaders had to have
straight hair. The playbook for the Jills comes with these

(06:42):
instructions never eating uniform and less and arrangements have been
made in advance just say thanks so much for offering,
but no thank you. Never all kept say oh we're
not allowed to eat like that's a bad look. Yeah. Um.
It also has other of gem's like learn how to
use a map, quest um, pedicures, exploration for all caps.

(07:06):
I know like speaks for itself. Bad breath is offensive.
Always keep it in check. Never engage in gossip. Don't
hang out too long in the bathroom. Other women will
judge you there too. Never use phrases such as like
always say excuse me when you burp, sneeze, or fart,
even if you think someone isn't around. Avoid conversations about

(07:28):
the weather it seems desperate. Do not eat bread at
a formal event. This is so specifically. Bare shoulders and
low cut tops are not appropriate. Um dining etiquette. There's
something about how to put in a tampon quote a
tampon too big can irritate and develop fungus. Change every
four hours. Seeing they're they're like up in the ladies.

(07:51):
These requirements are like bartim. Yes, the Raven cheerleaders are
required to friend their director Facebook. They also have to
buy the bikini calendars and sell them. They can keep
the profits, but they're stuck with any they don't sell,
and they have to buy one hundred calendars at twelve
dollars a piece at least, And that's nothing to sneeze

(08:12):
that you might not have that money. Well, they especially
probably don't have that money when you actually look at
how much these athletes are being paid, which is frankly
not that much. No, not at all. And even while
a lot of these handbooks are clear to point out
that cheerleading is not supposed to be a full time job,
they actually don't really make that much money. Now. I
did a lot of digging on these stats trying to
figure out how much these athletes make, and it's not

(08:35):
really widely available, probably because they're not making a lot
of money and they want to keep that information secret.
But one lawsuit filed on behalf of one former San
Francisco forty cheerleader said that she earned a total of
one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars per season, which
when you do the math, works out to about two
dollars per hour, which is nothing no one. Anonymous NFL

(08:56):
cheerleader wrote in to Cosmopolitan that she was paid three
thousand dollars during the two thousand sixth season, but after
adding up non non reimversed expenses for things like makeup
and stylist appointments, she netted only three hundred dollars. And
stuff is really expensive, and from what I read, most cheerleaders,
professional cheerleaders are expected to pay for it out of pocket.

(09:18):
And I mean high school cheerleading is not the same level.
But I remember my friends had to they had to
wear a certain color makeup, they had to wear makeup,
and they had to do their hair a certain way.
And I was always kind of like, wow, really, but yep, yep,
yep they do. And that becomes especially troubling when you

(09:38):
remember that these athletes are not making that much money.
To then say you need to buy this calendar out
of pocket, you need to buy this makeup out of pocket.
That's out the out of pocket. To require that to
be something that you need for your job, but then
make you pay for it when you're not being paid
that much is a bit much. According to Time, NFL
cheerleaders earned somewhere between seventy five and a hundred and
fifty dollars per game and might make because much as

(10:00):
fifty dollars per hour for a special corporate appearance. The
San Diego Chargers cheerleaders had been getting paid a flat
seventy fee per game, but a California law that went
into effect actually mandated that they be paid for all
of their work at least at the state minimum wage
of ten dollars per hour. Wow, it still sounds pretty grim. Yeah,

(10:21):
I'm surprised that this is that is a win, like
getting the minimum wage. Yeah, I mean great, good, But
still I think I I read about the the jiggle
tests where you do the jumping jacks and if you're jiggling,
they might bench you for having gained weight. Um, and

(10:44):
if you get benched, you're not gonna get paid for
that game. And if there's only eight games in a season,
then that's an eighth severe the whole paycheck. Like that
seems so unfair. I think people listening might be saying, well,
when you signed up to be a cheerleader, you know
that you're a peer. It is going to be a
thing part of the job. But this just seems demeaning. Yeah,

(11:04):
and um, in my time that when I've done some
acting things, um, you get paid as an actor for
like rehearsal and like showing up to get costuming and
stuff like that. And I do remember one guy said
to me on set once, isn't it weird to be
in a profession where it's all about how you look?

(11:26):
And I was like, well, yeah, now that you see
that really strange it is now. It is now, but
it is strange. But at the same time, if that's
if that is the case, you should be paid for
the work you're doing to achieve that look, like the
makeup and the hair, all of it. That should be

(11:46):
not coming out of your pocket. Well, if it's part
of the job, would think that, you know. I think
that the issue comes in because when it's cheerleaders, the
idea is that they're sexy, their women, and that people
sort of don't understand that it's just like any other
labor concern, that cheerleaders just because they wear skirts and
they wear makeup and they're beautiful women who are dancing,

(12:06):
that doesn't mean that it's not a regular labor dispute.
And so I think that some people might have a
hard time wrapping their head around the fact that, yeah,
it isn't there if you are not making a lot
of money, and that you're still asked to on top
of that, by your own makeup, byr own mess byron
that if those things are requirements for your work, it's
sort of not fair. But I think it's one of
those issues that because it involves women and because it

(12:29):
involves a certain kind of sexuality on display that people
kind of it becomes murkier for some folks, when in fact,
for me, it's very cut and dry. It's a labor
it's a workplace issue. Totally agree. We have um a
lot more, a lot more of troubling workplace issues to discuss.

(12:50):
But first we're going to take a quick break for
a word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. Okay,
so let's get into sort of the biggest news happening
in the professional cheerleading world right now. There was a

(13:10):
bombshell report in the New York Times alleging some pretty sleazy,
troubling behavior going down with the cheerleaders on the Washington
football team. Uh. You'll notice I did not say a
certain word that starts with the letter R, even though
that is the official name of the team. Being from DC,
I can tell you there is a big push to
get that name changed. Uh. I believe that name is

(13:33):
a slur, so I try not to say it, and
I we'll try not to say it in this episode,
but it's a little bit of a we should come
up with a different name for it. I feel like
they have a different name that's been proposed. There was
actually this social media hoax back in twenties seventeen that
was put on by a group called Native Advocates to
bring awareness for this name change, where they made a
fake news website or a fake news press release saying

(13:56):
that the team name was being changed to the RedHawks.
So it's called them the red Hawks. That's enough. So
again this you might be thinking, what is happening, Um,
we're gonna be calling the Washington d C professional football
team the red Hawks instead of their actual name. We
know it's the act. We know this is not the name.
Don't write in and say you've got the team name wrong.
We know this. It's a slur. I'm not gonna say it. Well,

(14:20):
I have a confession I must make. I thought this
was the Washington State football time. Annie. Oh no, I
am more out of touch than I thought. This is
like a you're I mean, like this is I'm not
a sport person, but this is shocking to me. I
am shocked as well. I am not lie. I am

(14:42):
learning this now. Annie. That's the Seahawks. The Washington State
football team is the Seahawks, the Washington d C, which
is a different place where the Red Hawks. I didn't
know about the Seahawks too. I don't know how. I
never realized there's discrepancy there that they had to t
ms in my head. Oh, I gotta, I really need

(15:03):
to think about things. I need to find alternate Anny
Nascar for some advice. Yeah, she's gonna take you after
her demanding rockets work out. She's gonna take you for
lunch and get your life together. That's what I need.
That's what I need. Okay. So here's what's going down.
According to this report in the New York Times, the
Washington RedHawks took their cheerleading squad to Costa Rica for
a calendar shoot. The cheerleaders were paid nothing beyond transportation costs,

(15:26):
meals and lodging, which I already found a little bit
if you know. I mean, I guess maybe you would
be happy to to go on a Costa Rican vacation.
But still, so here's where it gets really sketched in
my book, Red Hawks officials took their passports upon arrival
at the resort, depriving them of their official identification. Now,
the officials say, this is just a routine thing to

(15:46):
keep you know, to keep the logistics or keep them safe, whatever.
But if you got to Costa Rica, a different country,
and the first thing that happened to you that you
if you were there for work, and the first thing
that happened was give me your passport, that would already
give me some creepy vibes. Yeah, and I feel like
there are many situations where you might want your passport
in another country. I would say pretty much all situations.

(16:09):
I would feel super unsafe without my passport. Yeah. And
as someone when you travel, the advice you get is
make a copy of your passport and leave one at home. Like,
if logistically they're saying it's logistics, why couldn't they just
have a copy of the passport, you would think. So
the steer leaders go to an adult's only resort and

(16:29):
they're they're here for this photo shoot. So the Red
Hucks cheerleaders they show up to this adult's only resort
and they are doing this calendar, this kind of sexy
calendar photo shoot. Some of them were required to be
topless and others of them only were body paid. Now,
this resort isn't kind of a secluded area, so you know,
not a big deal. You know, would wouldn't be if
you felt uncomfortable being topless. It wouldn't be that maybe
that big of a deal because it's secluded. Except the

(16:52):
RedHawks invited spectators, a contention of sponsors and FedEx Field suiteholders,
all men were granted up close access to the photo shoots,
which is gross. Yeah, that's disgusting. Well, it actually gets worse.
After a fourteen hour day that included posing and dance
practice and all of that, the squad's director told nine

(17:13):
of the thirty six cheerleaders that they had a special
assignment for the night. Oh no, I bet you can
sort of imagine where this is going. I I unfortunately
think I can. Yes, So some of the male sponsors
who'd been there probably leering at them all day like creeps,
had picked them to be personal escorts at a nightclub
later that night. And oh no, it's bad. So so

(17:37):
it doesn't sound like they were forced or required to
have sex with these men, but it's still it's a
it's a weird situation. One of the cheerleaders said, they
weren't putting a gun to our heads, but it was
a mandatory for us to go. We weren't asked, we
were told other girls were devastated because we knew exactly
what she was doing. Wow, I can't I'm shocked that
this was kind of a surprise assignment. That that feels

(18:00):
very shady to me in and of itself, and the
whole thing is, but the fact that it's just sort
of sprung on you. Hey, you have to go do
this thing that you might be very uncomfortable with. We
didn't give you any warning. You just gotta go do it. Yeah.
According to this report, some of the schooletters when they
found out they had to do this, burst into tears,
like on the spot. That's so sad. So when the

(18:21):
nine cheoletters were picked to do this quote special assignment
showed up to the club, they found the club dark
and pretty much empty except for the men who had
requested them. And when they got there, they actually found
that Red Hawks officials were there at the club, Lawn Rosenberg,
the senior vice president of operations, and Dennis Green, the
president for business operations were both there. A former Red

(18:41):
Hawks cheerleader who volunteered as a sideline assistant during the
games was encouraging the women to drink and flirt and
have a good time. The issue was that management really
seemed to condone all of this. One cheerleader who was
there said, according to this report, so honestly, it's like,
you get to this club, there's nobody there. Let's be real,
this group of men who's probably been ring at you
all night while you were topless, and you really couldn't

(19:02):
say anything about it. He hand picks you more or
less makes it mandatory if you go to this nightclub
with him. You get there and it's like your bosses
are there and they're encouraging you to drink and flirt.
That's weird. That is so strange, and that would fall
under like if that happened at almost any other company,
it would be very very troubling and problematic and probably

(19:25):
gets sued. You. Yeah, it would be bad. So here's
a kind of extra added layer of making this sort
of a sleazy experience for these for these women. They
say that after the nightclub, around two or three am,
they got into the van only to be stopped by
several police officers, who of course asked for their passports,
which they didn't have. Yeah, and after they were allowed
to leave by the police, a man affiliated with the

(19:46):
cheerleading squad allegedly said quote, I guess they thought you
were prostitutes. Wow, it's really hard to stay without having
them without knowing. That's what inflection he said that if
he was being helpful or rude, Yeah, I mean, that's
just such an uncomfortable experience, so much so that when

(20:08):
they returned to the resort, several women on the team
decided not to return to the squad the next season.
What happened in Costa Rica, they said, made them feel
worthless and unprotected, and I can understand why. Yeah, you
just feel very as if the people in charge of
in charge of you in your career and one would
hope keeping you safe when you're traveling, and to be

(20:33):
treated that way, as if you're just going to do
this and I don't really care what happens to you. Yeah,
we're not going to give you security. Just think if
that night, which was already awful, really got unsafe and
somebody had to run out of there because one of
these men got grabby or whatever. You don't have your passport,

(20:54):
you don't have security, you do have nothing. I mean,
and especially with the alcohol flowing, it just does not
sound like they were set up to have a safe experience.
It's no, it sounds like the opposite of it, in fact,
which is mhmm, terrible. Yeah, it does sound terrible. I
should note that Stephanie Jokanian, a longtime director and choreographer
for the Red Hawks, disputes much of what the women

(21:14):
say happened in Costa Rica. She totally denies that the
nightclub night was mandatory and says that the cheerleaders who
went were not chosen by sponsors. She says, I was
not forcing anyone to go at all. I'm the Mama Baron.
I really look out for everybody, not just the cheerleaders.
It's a big family. We respect each other and our craft.
It's a very supportive environment for these ladies. The Red
Hawks also put out a statement pretty much saying the

(21:35):
same thing, disputing the claims of what happened in Costa
Rica and reaffirming that there you know, they stand for
the safety of all of their athletes, which sounds to me, yeah,
it does. Have that as we say. Dan Schneider, the
team's owner, has also been accused of making the whole
cheerleading program raunchier, like pushing it in that direction. Mr

(21:58):
Schneider was quote bringing the craft closer to pole dancing
with every season, said a two thousand nine column in
the Washington City Paper, which referred to an advertisement on
Mr Schneider's w t e M a m sports talk
radio station that year. In the ad, Breathymale Voices discussed
a listener contest in which five lucky winners would have

(22:18):
Red Hawks cheerleaders wash their cars. One man asked the
other if he would like the cheerleaders soaping up and
scrubbing you. Yeah, that makes my skin crawl. Just yeah,
these are athletes. I mean, no shame to women who
are in the you know who dance or who are
sex workers. But it's like that's not what these wouldn't

(22:39):
sign up for. They weren't signed up to be just
because they wear shorts, carts and dance on a field.
They do not sign up to wash cars in a bikini.
Doesn'thing wrong with that, but that's not they didn't do
like years and years and years in ballet training to
watch some jerk's car and they have their owner. The
owner of this team be the one who's putting them
out there to do that. It's just really the great

(23:01):
even worse, on the Red Hawk's own website, fans were
able to play a version of the game not or Hot,
where it would be two pictures of Red Hocks cheerleaders
and you get to pick which one is hot and
which one is not. And that was on their official website. Now,
after this New York Times report was released, they took
it down with their screenshots on the internet. This was
a thing that they thought was appropriate to have on

(23:22):
their official website until this report came out. Right, I
recall um a bit of a greffuffle around the hotty
alert um, which was like a social media thing where
they once a week would publish like a picture on
Instagram upon the cheerleaders in bikini, but the cheerleaders weren't
allowed to publish quote sexy pictures on their personal personal

(23:46):
Instagram accounts, and a lot of teams that did that
said it was for their safety to prevent stalking. But
um fans, which is tag like that, that excuse doesn't
hold water. Yeah, I want to talk about that more
going forward. But it is clear to me that they
dictate these women and their sexuality to a degree that
is absurd. Right where they tell you when to change

(24:07):
your tampon, you know what you can and can't do
when you're in public on your own time, all of that,
and it's clear to me that they when you find out,
like there's a cheerleader who says that she was fired
because she posed in a one piece bathing suit on
her personal Instagram account, and it's clear to me that
the NFL, then, you don't have a problem with sexuality,
but they want to be in control of it. They

(24:29):
want to use the sexuality of their cheerleaders to make money,
to promote to whatever, and they want these women to
have no agency and no control of their own sexuality,
which is a really weird discrepancy. Clearly, they don't give
a crap about the modesty of these players or whatever
excuse they're giving, because if they did, they wouldn't be
doing they wouldn't be allowing men to leer at them

(24:51):
when they're trying to work. So they clearly don't care
about that. But they're saying, oh, we care about your modesty.
We don't want you to be stocked. It's very like
benevolent sexism, but it's also very just toxic. And isn't
any wonder then that these fans oftentimes feel entitled their
to their bodies. You know, these women describe what they
have to put up with when they're on the job,
and this is in their handbooks of how they're expected

(25:12):
to behave. If a fan gets grab you with you,
your actual handbook says that you're not supposed to offend him.
You're supposed to sort of be sort of gracious and polite.
And so clearly they don't. These rules are not there
to protect these women. If they really cared about protecting
these women, they would have security with them, they would
they would make very easy efforts to protect them. They
clearly don't care. So that excuse is so clearly bulle. Yeah,

(25:33):
And it's just weird when it again like we want
you to be in this sexy outfit here, but don't
do it on your own time. That doesn't make that
doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense. So
there are a couple of other like really creepy allegations.
Um a former Red Hawks cheerleader, shared one especially unusual assignment.
Several years ago. She said her and five teammates were

(25:55):
told to drive to address that the Red Hawks have
given them. When they got there, they thought it was
gonna be a business or some thing like that, but
it was a house. They go inside thinking maybe it's
a party or charity event or whatever, and it wasn't.
There were seven men in their forties just hanging out
in this house. When they get there, the homeowner says,
you know, who's single, who's married, starts sizing them up.

(26:15):
The men were all drinking. They asked the women if
they wanted to drink they the women were like, probably
no thing, because this is weirdess um. The women they
did a two minute dance in the basement of this house.
They spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the
house and having awkward conversations with the men while the
men were watching an NFL game on TV. One shooter
who was there said it was sketchy because we were

(26:36):
in some dude's house, some random house, and it was
physically uncomfortable to be there. And yeah, it just seems
like they're being treated like property, like escorts that you
can just call and they'll show up on demand, and
you know, it's one thing to be expected to dance,
and if someone's having a charity event at their home,
a big party, that's one thing. But then it show

(26:56):
up and it's like, oh, you just want me to
hang out in this house in this basement with like
seven strange men while they hang out. I mean it
want It just sounds like a terrible time. It's it's awkward,
and three it's just it's dehumanizing. Yeah. And I think
if I had to describe, if I had to write
a job description of what I thought a cheerleader did,

(27:18):
that doesn't fall under it. Oh yeah, hanging out with
seven old guys you've never met in a basement of
someone random house. That's not part of the You don't
think that was part of the training. That's not on
your resume. I don't think that came up. No. Um. Yeah,
And I'm just kind of they're struggling with why why

(27:39):
that's even happening either. I guess they're big fans. They
must donate money, Like, I don't know. I just feel
that that must be kind of a wink quink, nudge nudge.
No one tells you that that's going to happen, and
no one really lists officially that that's happening. I don't know,
it's so, I mean, it's I feel for these women,

(28:02):
I really do. And then I mean, I think this
comes up again and again, not being able to tell
these men to off like not like, not being able
to be like, this is an uncomfortable situation. I don't
want to I don't want to do it having this
be mandatory and having your response also be mandatory, because
I've had I've done all kinds of weird jobs where

(28:22):
I was my physicality was involved, and usually in those jobs,
at the end of the day, you are the one
who is responsible for keeping yourself safe, and so you
are empowered to be like, yeah, this situation seems not
on the up and up. You don't have to do it.
I was a campaign worker for a while, the person
who would knock on your door and be like, oh,
do you want to vote for Barack Obama? And it
was clear like if I didn't feel comfortable going to

(28:42):
a house, guess what it was okay if I was like, no,
I'm not going to that house. Because people in workplaces
need to feel empowered to keep themselves safe and in
this environment, it sounds like no one has been given
that agency. It's sort of reminds me of Um, I
was a waitress for a while and just having to
depend on tips and encountering so much sexual harassment and

(29:06):
just because it's your customer, the customer is always right
and you're depending on the money. That's where most of
your money is coming from. Um. Yeah, a lot of
times they would say something to you. Becaustomer would say
something to you that made you feel really inappropriate. Maybe
the whole thing feel really inappropriate and uncomfortable, and you
just kind of like laugh try. I called it de escalating.
A lot of people use that term, but I was, yeah,

(29:30):
like I'm going to go to this other table now.
Um it's sort of similar to that, but it's different too,
and that at least at the end of the day,
I can go home and post whatever on not that
I could do for that long day, I can go
I can go home and take up a keyy shot

(29:52):
me eating a doughnut and in a bikini like I
won't be able to sit it. Also, spitting and swear.
It's a little thing. It's just the little things. Um.
So another creepy allegation, this time on one of the
creepiest places that you could possibly So if you want
to think, where is someplace where I would not want
to bind myself in a creepy situation top top thing

(30:15):
to thing that comes to mind? Okay, okay, it's now
I was going, I'm gonna say boat. I want to
find myself in a creepy situation on a boat. But
in that is exactly what happened to the Red Huck
steerleaders jo Jackian we mentioned earlier, who was a choreographer
and a squad director. Basically, the Red Hucks cheerleaders had

(30:37):
to have a mandatory team bonding boat trip at a
peer in Georgetown, and they get on this boat. They're thinking, oh,
it's gonna be a party boat, it's going to be
team building whatever, you know, a bonding thing that you
might do at any workplace. They get on and they
realize it isn't a commercial boat at all. It is
a yacht with several man aboard, including one familiar face
and Mr William R. Til Jr. Who is a spawn

(31:00):
sir of the Red Hawks and as a sponsor, he'd
helped judge the cheerleading tryout and occasionally was invited to
buy package deals to attend those calendar she was that
we talked about earlier. He also paid for Red Hucks
cheerleaders to attend the Super Bowl. Now, five of these
cheerleaders described this experience as a wild gathering where men
shot liquor into the cheerleader's mouth with turkey basers below deck.

(31:22):
Men handed out cash prizes in turking contests. Now, none
of the women who went on this trip so they
were touched in appropriately, and to team captains that the
trip was pretty pleasant. One added quote, they were all
adult and got out of the experience what they wanted
to get out of it, you know. A few years later,
one cheerleader was told what to expect about this sort
of annual team building bonding, wild boat liquor being sprayed

(31:44):
in your mouth affair. She was told, I've been given
a heads up that we were going on this particular
man's yat and that he had a lot of money,
and that you could make a lot of money there
if you wanted, referring to the cash prizes. But that
was not for me, and a lot of us felt
the same way, but we were too scared to complain.
We felt that our place on the team would be
compromised if we did. Sure if if the guy who

(32:05):
owns the boat, the yacht is judging the cheerleading tryouts,
I would very much feel the same way. Team bonding
is a very misleading name for that. Yeah. Even the
head choreographer, the squad director, Mr. Jockeyans, said that she
didn't really understand how this was a team bonding experience,
which it doesn't sound the tea bonding experience at all. No.

(32:27):
At first, I was like, h I wonder if this
is going to go the way of that Office episode
where there on the booze cruise and then there's a
working contest and cash prizes involved. Like, Okay, it's a
little bit worse than that, just a little bit. Uh.
And Mr Teal, whose name is still painted on two
prime parking spots at FedEx Field though he no longer
owns a suite at the stadium, was adamant and saying

(32:48):
that nothing inappropriate happened on his boat and that he
always treated the cheerleaders with respect. I have five sisters,
he said, adding that at his boat's parties, no one
was allowed to be disrespected. Oh so because you have sisters.
I hate that. It's awful. It's awful. So if you so,
Basically it's like we could do a whole episode on this, yes,
but basically it's like if I'm no one's sister or

(33:11):
no one's daughter, like if my if my dad is
dead and I'm the only child, people can treat me
however however they want said like, oh, like that's someone's daughter.
It's like, what if you're not someone's daughter, what does
that mean? You're still a person? Right? Whenever um sexual
harassment thing would come out, and I always think of
Paul Ryan and I don't know why, but they would
be like, oh, I've got a I've got a daughter

(33:32):
and a wife, and I really don't want them to
be treated like this. And I'm like, so if they're
not related to you, if they're not directly within your circle,
yeah whatever, if I didn't have this wife and daughter,
who knows. Also, you don't see women saying there's not
any men in my life, so I murder them. I

(33:53):
don't didn't know they were human because I don't have
any any male family members. I didn't know that's true.
You never hear people really say like I have husband
and I have a son, like, I would never do that.
I have a father. No, No, I always think of like,
don't we all have the mother though? Can't we just
relate to that thing? It's asinine, It's so asinine. Oh,

(34:15):
I have another creepy allegation, this time on a golf course. Um.
This is a lawsuit that described an event where cheerleaders
were auctioned off at a golf tournament and then we're
expected to ride around in the golf cart on the
winning bidder's lap because there was no space in the
golf cart. And this was after like a dunking contest,
and it was sort of a charity event but demandatory

(34:36):
to go um and uh, it made it made the
cheerleaders involved very uncomfortable, I can imagine. So it actually
sounds like being sort of loaned I don't even know
if I don't want to say I mean, I don't
know if that's the right word, but it sounds like
being sort of loaned out to men. It's kind of
considered part of their job, but they weren't even being
paid for it. The way one cheerleader saw it, it

(34:58):
was unfair that the team making money off It's cheerleaders
who get paid so little or asked to do this.
She says people would just call up the managers and
say how many girls do you want? For how many
hours do you want them to dance? It's literally like
you're calling for an escort, she said, And she recalls
that she was only paid a hundred dollars for a
promotional event while the team charged twelve hundred dollars per cheerleader. Oh,

(35:19):
the math doesn't add up there, it doesn't add up,
So she she makes it really good point. She says,
it's not like somebody grabbed my boobs and nobody told
me have sex with me right now. It's a lot
more nuanced. It's like every other abuse dynamic. You don't
feel like you have the liberty to say I prefer
not to do this. In turn, you're treated poorly, you're
paid hardly anything, and ragged on the rehearsals for not
wearing the right lipstick. The whole thing is so messed up.

(35:42):
So it just sounds like a real toxic environment and
an environment where people are not one not being fairly compensated.
Because honestly, if I was a cheerleader and someone said,
bridget how much would we have to pay you to
get in a bikini and wash some guy's car? I would?
I might be like, oh, well I would. I would

(36:02):
write a number of the favorite flight across the table
and if we agreed, fine, But it just sounds like
a situation where a they it's mandatory, they don't have
a choice, and be they're not being compensated for this
extra thing. And again, it says in a lot of
their contracts that they have to do promotional or charity events.
But dancing at some guys random basement party is on

(36:23):
a charity event like this is this is not in
their contract that they have to do this, and they're
being expected to do it, and if they don't do it,
sounds like they get pressured. And it again, it's just
like any other workplace faritess issued it's because there's beautiful
women involved who wear short skirts. Doesn't make it anything
different than any other labor dispute. Yeah, no, not at all, um.
And all of these allegations come as NFL cheerleaders are

(36:46):
involved in high profile discrimination lawsuits against the NFL. A
former cheerleader for the NFL's Miami Dolphins filed a complaint
against the league and the team, alleging that she was
discriminated against because of her religion and gender. Christine Where,
who spent three seasons with the Dolphins cheerleading squad ending
in the spring of sen said in a complaint with
the Florida Commission on Human Relations that she was subjected

(37:09):
to a hostile work environment for her expressions of faith
and Christianity. Where contended that she became quote a target
of discipline, ridicule, harassment, and abuse from the team's cheerleading director,
Dory Grogan, and other coaches and representatives of the squad
only after she posted an off season photo on social
media of herself being baptized before the third season on

(37:31):
the team. So again that social media coming up, that
you have to this like policing what you're doing outside
of Yeah, it's it's sucked up at. Another lawsuit also
involved in social media, a New Orleans Saint st sational
I love the names of these to Bailey Davis was

(37:55):
fired from the Saint Stations after posting an Instagram photo
showing her on an outfit similar to a one piece
bathing suit. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission saying the Saints have different standards for women
and men, which they clearly do. Yeah, clearly, And never
mind the fact that NFL players can punch their wives
in the face and like rape people and beat people

(38:15):
and be pretty much awful responsible human beings, and it's fine. Oh,
a one piece bathing suit, get her out of here. Yeah,
that's too much, subridge, too far. I mean, if she
had beat her partner unconscious at a videotape, that's one thing.
That's one thing we could get. We could get by

(38:35):
with their shoulders. Not on my watch, no way. So
these two cheerleaders were asking for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell
to have a meeting with a group of cheerleaders. If
Goodell agreed, the two former cheerleaders who had filed these
discrimination claims would settle those claims for a dollar each.
The settlement proposal by Sarah Blackwell, the lawyer representing the cheerleaders,

(38:57):
asked the Goodell and league lawyers have a faith meeting
with at least four cheerleaders to create binding rules and
regulations for all NFL teams. Also, teams that currently have
cheerleading squads would not be allowed to disband them. As
retaliation for at least five years. And this really sounds
like a classic workplace protections issue and just because their cheerleaders,
that shouldn't be treated any differently. Yeah, it sounds like

(39:20):
a lot of these women they understand the team's approach
no sex cells if you it's a job where you
have to look a certain way, and I think, you know,
a lot of them seem fine with that, and they
seem like they're really enthusiastic supporters of cheerleading. It up
the team, But it just sounds like they're safety is
just not even being considered. There's no league wide policy

(39:40):
for security or a union to protect them. They're just
they're just sort of on their own and they're dealing
with really really fucked up labor practices and they're supposed
to just take it and like it and shut up
about it. Yeah. Grateful. Yeah, I mean that's actually what
that's I'm happy that you said that, because I want
to talk about how this culture of harassment functions on

(40:01):
cheerleading squads. After this quick break and we're back and
we were just talking about cheerleaders. So it sounds like
there is a real culture of harassment and an expectation
that these women will just suck it up, deal with it,

(40:22):
and not make waves. And I think a big part
of that is this feeling that you should feel grateful
and lucky to be a cheerleader, and that because we
dang to have you joined the squad, you're one of picked,
one of you know, a handful of women who would
kill to be here, you should just shut up and
not make waves. And I think that that is a
really toxic situation. Yeah, and just that feeling of um,

(40:47):
you can be so easily replaced and if you fall
out of line, we'll get rid of you, and there's
so many women in line to take your place like
that is not a good work environment. It's not a
Dallas wait shooter said, we be that hundreds of girls
for this position. It was always very apparent, always there
there's always somebody else who can do this job. We

(41:07):
never talked about these things, never questioned them. And even
looking at the handbook that some of these athletes deal with,
some of them make it very clear that they don't
want you to make waves. In the handbook for the
Cincinnati Bengals cheerleaders, for example, they're pretty much sternly warned
about in subordination in bold, big capitalized letters. The handbook says,
in subordination to even the slightest degree all caps is

(41:30):
absolutely not tolerated. You will be benched or dismissed, said
the handbook, with three exclamation points. That. Yeah, that's intense,
and that's also unambiguous. It's like very clear someone says
do this, and you think this is not this goes
against my values or doesn't make me feel safe. It's
right there in plain day in subordination and even the
slightest degree will get you dismissed. Like it's very clear,

(41:53):
the slightest degree that could be out so fa I
like this would never work for a law professor at
Southern Methodist University, saide of that handbook. Language for the
handbook to say you can't question anyone an authority is
to say, shut up and do as you're told. You're
telling them in essence, don't bother complaining and because you

(42:13):
may get fired. And that's up. Yeah, it really is. Uh.
And there's another report from the Dallas cow Girls. Um,
the Dallas Cowgirls taught their cheerleaders and dancers what to
say to people who said offensive things or touch them
in appropriately. Like we were discussing earlier, the women were
told never to upset the fans. We were taught if
someone's getting handsy on you, how to navigate that, said

(42:34):
the former longtime Cowboys cheerleader. We were told what to say,
like that's not very nice. To be sweet, not rude,
say can I ask you to step over here? Use
body language to help deter the situation. Never be mean,
never always courteous, because if it's not for the fans,
we wouldn't be here. That's how we were supposed to
think of this. Yeah, that just sounds so problematic to me,

(42:55):
because I think as women, we are all sort of
taught this land whige of how to what you called earlier,
de escalate. And I wish I could say that any
time a man touched me in a way I didn't
like that, I punched him. It was not a tough bitch.
But sometimes that's not safe, and sometimes you you as women,
I think that we are burdened by society by having

(43:17):
to put up with something that makes you feel like
like nothing, that makes you feel disrespected, it makes you
feel like less of a person, and then having to
react in a way that's still keeps their feelings at
the at the front lines that you know, you don't
want to make the matter or or insult them, so
you have to say that's not very nice, or giggle
and move a hand away. And I just think that

(43:40):
as women telling a woman how to respond when someone
does something. That's if someone grabs you, that's just. And again,
these women should have security, like no one should be
no one should being grabbed against their will when they're
trying to do their job, these women, so there should
be something in place to make sure that's not happening.
And who gives it what the fan thinks? I mean,
if a fan is slapping someone on the ass and

(44:01):
they're drunk, they shouldn't be in a public setting like that.
They need they need to be kicked out or escorted out.
Like yeah, I just think it's it's clearly they're bending
over backward to protect the feelings of the fans while
putting their their employees at risk. Yeah, and it sends
a message of kind of yeah, this is what we

(44:23):
value this more than this, and that's as a person,
not a good feeling to have and um to tolerate
that kind of behaviors too. It just sends a message
that is not a message that should be sent. You're
worth less than this. Yeah, your dignity, both as our

(44:43):
our valued employee and as a human sking being is
less important than this drunk guy's sucking ego. And then
it's prescion ng sensibilities like heaven forbid he feel offended
they slapping someone's ass or grabbing someone against their will
out of goddamn football game. And the was just thinking
this is this isn't even I'm not even cheerleader, and

(45:04):
I'm like angry on these women's behalf. I know, the
cheerleaders and dancers in Dallas, as in most NFL stadiums,
were required to visit tailgate parties. And that's I mean
in areas that are essentially standing room only bars. They
visited high price at luxury suites and came to dread
certain ones. You knew the alcohol was flowing and that
they could be handy, she said, arms around the waist,

(45:25):
kisses on the cheek. You know that they would and
you couldn't say anything and if they did object quote,
you'd be dismissed from the team. Yeah, that just boils
my blood and breaks my heart to feel like you
are a professional and that you have to just this
is just part of the job, being groped and kissed,
and if you have a problem with it, you're out. Yeah,

(45:47):
all that training, we don't care. Um. And one of
the ways that this has been allowed to go on
for so long is with the use of India's so
a lot of teams require their cheerleaders to sign non
disclosure agreements or NDAs, and this apparently raises a big
red flag that harassment it's likely to take place now.
According to Deborah Cats, who is a Washington based lawyer
who has three decades of experience bringing sexual harassment cases

(46:09):
to light, she says when employees of little power signed
n d as, it creates an environment or sexual harassment
or improper pay can proceed because people are fearful of
speaking out. Anytime you have a profession or an industry
where sexual harassment can be anticipated, putting someone under an
NDA is designed to clearly protect the image of the team.
And that's really why a lot of these women feel
like they can't report. Yeah, and they rarely do report

(46:32):
harassment cases, either because they feel it is an expected
part of the job or out of fear of being
removed from the team for complaining. For countless women who
have worked for teams of the years, the statute of limitations,
which varies by state, has most like most likely expired
handbooks and contracts provided to cheerleaders really have detailed information
on how to handle or report harassment from fans beyond

(46:55):
legal boiler plate. The San Francisco forty Niners, who outsourced
oversight of their goal rush cheerleaders to a third party.
Another possible complication to claims made against some teams include
this line in the contract. If there is ever a
case where you feel uncomfortable or sense a fan that
is acting inappropriately, please get immediate assistance or contact your

(47:16):
director immediately and she will notify the security authorities. But
that's nothing, that's not that's not helpful. I mean, it
just sounds like a very unmeaningful boiler plate line. And
it also kind of, at least to me, has this
five of if you do that, you're being a baby,

(47:39):
or like you're just complaining and you're causing trouble and
making waves and exactly and I guess, yeah, who wants
to be the cheerleader who is known for quote causing
trouble right, like, Like, it doesn't sound like a situation
where these claims will be dealt with in a manner
that is that it will mean anything other than trouble

(48:01):
for you for reporting it, right And it probably will
impact if they are choosing to throw some extra work
or extra money to a cheerleader's way, They probably wouldn't
throw it to you if you complained about something exactly.
And I think I keep thinking about what we're talking
about before this idea that you know these women are
prevented from posing in in swimsuits on their own personal

(48:24):
Instagram accounts and stuff like that, that it's clear to
me that these women are in situations where the power
holders are the males who own these teams, and that
these people want complete control over the sexual agency of
of adult human women. Like it, just when you become
a cheerleader, your job is to cheer, it's to dance,

(48:48):
it's to do the things that are in your contract.
And to say you can't, you don't. You're not signing
away your sexual sense of self, your self worth, your agency.
No one should be put in a situation where they
feel like they don't have control over their bodily and autonomy,
and that their own sexual identity and sexual agency and
expressions of that, that that belongs to each and every

(49:09):
one of us. And it's very clear to me that
in this really like draconian way, that the NFL wants
to be in charge of that, to the point where
they tell you how often to change your goddamn tamp on,
like a like that that is what? What is this?
It's it's infuriating, but it also is so disgusting and
so specific, and so I almost sort of don't even

(49:29):
know what to make of it, you know, Yeah, it's
it's a weird warped image projection almost of what the
ultimate I keep thinking of that, Um, if you farge
or sneeze or burp, even if you think someone's is
not around you, excuse me, And it's like a weird
image of women don't do those things that, Like it's

(49:51):
this almost kind of Barbie doll or Yeah, it's like
they're trying to make them not human women. And they're
also sort of feeding in this idea it that you
are always being watched and consumed and even when you're
alone in your apartment, if you burp alone in your apartment,
or if you do a normal bodily function while you're alone,

(50:11):
assume you are being watched and consumed by a male
gaze in that moment. You can never escape the mail gaze,
even when you're alone in your goddamn home. Like that.
That seems to be what they're saying, and it's so weird. Yeah,
it's a very toxic mix of etiquette that feels like
it's from back when there's eighteen hundreds and women had

(50:32):
all those weird etiquette rules they had to follow, and
then this hyper sexualization got together and had a baby.
This is so it results from it. It was very strange.
Some of the I read. I think it was the
The Jills. Their handbook was released online and it was older,
but just reading it felt like I was reading something

(50:53):
from eighteen fifties, like etiquette handbook. If it's far, it's
it is bizarre, and it's like it's this bizarre abstraction
of femininity that doesn't really exist. Because women fart, women
gain weight, women poop. We eat a lot of bread
out of this. Sometimes sometimes we're busy and we change
our tampon not every four hours. Yeah, yeah, we we

(51:17):
do these things where people were human, you know, And
it's this idea that when you sign up to be
a cheerleader that you're less than human, like your human
your humanity is no longer acknowledge because you signed that
a way, and that's not real. That's not true, Like
you don't sign these things away when you become a cheerleader.
And I think that because it's beautiful women in short skirts,
we just accept that that it's normal. But it's weird,

(51:39):
like when you when you run down the list of
all the things they say that these women aren't allowed
to do. It's bizarre. And if you if it was
any other job, you'd be like, no, I when I
my job is to work for you and do the
tod I say I'm gonna do and then go home
where you know, live my life, and it would be
it's so I think it's not all jobs are like that,

(51:59):
because our jobs where you know, you can't do certain things.
But it just seems so strange that in order to
wave pom poms and dance on a football field, that
they are dictating how much bread you can eat at
a party. Just it's it's just it's bizarre. It is
I read this article by this great writer, Kavithia A.

(52:20):
Davidson on espn W called NFL cheerleaders must be able
to control their own sex appeal, which I think really
really nails this sort of bizarre describancay. She writes, these
women are choosing to use their sexual capital in their jobs,
but they have little choice over how that value is
used by their employers. Teams have dictated when cheerleaders can
dress a certain way when it suits their needs, without

(52:43):
allowing them freedom of movement when they're off the clock.
It's a problem that stems from a conflict central to
our culture. Men want women to exist as pretty things
for their entertainment, but only on their terms. Oftentimes men
would like to simply gaun at them without having to
think about pesky issues such as fair wage practices, not
thinking these women are entitled to protections, but they think

(53:04):
they're entitled to these women's bodies. I think that nails
it for me. Yeah, you hit it right on the
on the head. I think men want to live in
a world where you get to consume women's bodies and
you feel entitled to women's bodies, but you don't have
to deal with any of the realities of what that
what that means, whether it's pay me for that fine

(53:26):
and pay me compensate me fairly for that, or I
am a human being who farts, it eats bread, You're
gonna have to deal with it. I'm gonna do both
of those things all the time. They're kind of connected
a little bit. Oh just bread. Give you guess you
would know food stuff. I not because you fart a lot,

(53:50):
because you host a podcast about food and like the
mechanics of food. Just to be clear, I'm not saying
that any firms a lot. It's a let's end this
show because it's really getting bad. Let's let's wrap this up.
I can breathe. Yeah. So that's what we had to
say about cheerleaders. Listeners. We would love to hear from you,

(54:12):
especially if you have cheerleaded our cheerleading, have any experience
in this or whatever. We love hearing from you all
the time. You can contact us on Instagram at stuff
mom Never Told you are, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts,
or you can always email us at mom stuff at
how stuff works dot com. And I especially can't wait
to hear from Alternate Rocket Annie, So please definitely help

(54:34):
me get my life on Track. Alternate Annie help forget
her NFL team names right