On February 19, 2019, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posted an article titled, "A Wisconsin School District Shrugged After High School Coaches Body-Shamed Cheerleaders."
The main part of the article was about how, back in March of 2018, Tremper High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin was having their annual cheer banquet with over 100 friends and family members attending. During this banquet, awards were given to the cheerleaders to congratulate them for all their hard work. However, not all the awards were positive. Also presented were awards that were given to the cheerleader with the largest butt, the largest breasts, and an award for being the thinnest girl.
Parents and another coach from a different team who attended this banquet expressed their concerns with the principal, and when the coach of Tremper High School was contacted directly, she said,
"I honestly don't feel that I need to explain myself about how we ran our banquet. Actually, we have run it this way for years and have never had a problem."
Not only did the coach of Tremper High School not see this as a concern, but the administration also brushed these concerns aside, insisting that the awards were just a joke.
After an investigation from human resources and the coach being instructed to submit her resignation, the principal rejected this recommendation and allowed the coach to keep her job.
The article also mentions that this is not the first time something like this has happened. The article tells of how female students in this school district were unfairly targeted with what they wore to school. Students who spoke about this issue said teachers who enforced the dress code degraded them in front of their peers and forced them to miss out on classroom time.
In another incident, in this school district at Bradford High School, students had to watch a movie in their health class where a female college freshman, named Melissa, was drugged and raped by a male peer. After the video, students were asked to answer the question, "What could have Melissa done differently to have avoided her sexual assault (provide at least 4 examples)?"
With a question like this, it insinuates that Melissa is to be blamed rather than the man who drugged and raped her.
Overall, this article made me feel extremely upset for the young females in this district. The students are being taught that "making jokes" about how you look and body shaming is okay, or what a female student wears is a distraction to the male student and that how a woman presents herself will ultimately get her drugged and raped, so she is to blame.
This is not okay!
It is 2019. As a society, we should not be letting things like this happen. We should educate young women that they are not just awards and prizes, as well as teaching them that it is not okay to body shame one another. If you do see this happening, speak up for yourself and others.
As for the young men, we need to teach them that what a girl wears is not a distraction to them, that just because a girl wears leggings does not give you the right to objectify a girl or think they are asking for it.
Just because the coach thinks how they have run this banquet for years and never had an issue does not mean this isn't a problem now. As a whole, how women have been treated for decades have been an issue, but realistically, society has changed immensely over the years. What was seen as "appropriate" behavior is not appropriate now.
There are many places and people that are aware that things are different, that shaming and blaming are not how we make progress. Yet, we still have schools that are indirectly teaching their students that this type of behavior is okay. Once again, it's not.
I hope, one day, schools such as this one realize how hurtful they are being and change the way they handle these issues.
