I chaperoned my kids at a math competition where they stayed in the dorms of UNLV. We all ate in the dorm cafeteria and discovered that along with a math competition, there was also a cheerleader camp in residence. These cheerleaders weren’t as abundant as the math geeks but they stood out against the sea of the academics.
Standing in the buffet line, there were 2 girls: a perfectly normal math girl next to a cheerleader. They looked as if they were 2 different species. Both girls, the same age, the biology was all the same but the difference was striking.
The general population looks like the average girl, but the attention goes to the cheerleader. The cheer-type is really the unusual one, the one that’s posted in the media as what is beautiful. This affects how girls see themselves and how boys judge girls. I wondered what the kids in my group thought about these cheerleaders.
