LONDON – A British newspaper columnist recently posed this question to a group of educators and scholars: “Is cheerleading in schools sexist?”

While the query posed by TheGuardian.com writer Rebecca Ratcliffe didn’t produce a consensus answer about the issue of sexism in cheerleading, it did reveal a world of controversy and criticism of the sport that often gets hidden behind the pom-poms and the cheerleader pyramids.

University of Chichester professor Elizabeth Pike praised cheerleading as “a highly skilled, physically demanding sport that enables competition, self-expression and teamwork,” but cautioned that “when girls do such sports, the emphasis tends to be on their feminine appearance and they are portrayed as playing a supporting role to males rather than as athletes in their own right.”

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Pike also warned that cheerleading can reinforce “a perception of female inferiority, and if it is (wrongly) seen as only for girls, it could be perceived as second class to traditional male sports.”

Jean Williams, senior research fellow at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, noted it’s often “uncomfortable seeing cheerleaders performing in skimpy outfits in front of a mainly male crowd,” but determined that cheerleading is “a symptom of the wider sexualization of female athletes, not a cause.”

The controversy also extends to the realm of professional cheerleading.

A recent Care2.com column noted that so far this year, National Football League cheerleaders have filed five lawsuits against teams. Some of the cheerleaders’ complaints cite low pay and practices that treat the women as sex objects.

Care2.com writer Jessica Ramos explained the problem:

“Recalling infuriating images and language of slavery, one team has the women (dressed in skimpy bikinis) dunked into a body of water. If that wasn’t bad enough, they are then ‘auctioned off’ to ‘ride around in a golf cart for the rest of the event with the winning bidder’ as sexy trophies. And then it gets worse. Considering the small size of golf carts, the cheerleaders usually end up sitting on the bidders’ lap; it’s a cringing display of patriarchy, objectification and sexism.

“A beautiful body is non-negotiable, and some teams go to extremes to ensure that their girls are in tip-top shape. This has very little to do with health; it’s more for aesthetic purposes. The players aren’t the only ones who can be benched; an overweight cheerleader can be benched, incur penalties or, worse, let go.”

If high school cheerleading is the first step down the road to public humiliation and objectification, maybe parents should simply forbid their daughters (or sons) from getting involved in the sport.

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One anonymous writer for feminist.com disagrees with that conclusion:

“We should tell our daughters they can try out for cheerleading if they also take calculus and chemistry; we should talk to them about the difference between skills and popularity contests; we should discuss what their motivations are and what they hope to achieve by being a cheerleader. … As feminists, it’s easy for us to believe that traditionally feminine activities are the ones we should shelter our girls from. Yet if women had left religion based on its history of sexism, there would be no female preachers today.

“The question I might ask my daughter is this: How do you plan to make cheerleading a tool for social change? Will you invite volunteers—fat girls, geeks, freaks, or gay boys—to cheer with you each week? Will you make Turn Beauty Inside Out Day one of your community service projects? Will you make cheerleading a forum for raising awareness about anorexia and teenage pregnancy? The question for myself as a parent, then, is not what is a positive use of my daughter’s time, but how can I interact positively with the ways she chooses to spend her time?”

In typical form, the left-wing killjoys among us have managed to take something that’s largely innocent and fun and turned it into a criticism of our unjust and unequal society.

To that we say, “Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, way back!”