When you picture a cheerleader, you probably imagine a woman. But in the early twentieth century, cheerleading was all done by men. Frank Guridy argues that the association of cheerleading with women is due to the growth of the sports industry, which has drawn ever more diverse people into sports previously dominated by elite white men. But increased diversity in the sports industry has also meant increased exploitation. Nonetheless, while the industry is exploitative, sports themselves don’t have to be: cheerleading is just one example of how sport can be a tool of survival and self-actualization for marginalized people.
Tag: sexuality
Our guest Heather Love is out to convince us of the value of description — yep, plain old description. In our conversation today, she argues that description has gotten a bad reputation in literary studies. Lately, Heather has been reading sociology books from the 1950s and 60s. She thinks that their neutral, distanced descriptions have an ethical value that most literary scholars haven’t recognized.