First Graders Shake Their “Booties” for an Audience
September 27, 2010
by Karen
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
A mother of a six-year-old girl, Jennifer Tesche, in Madison Heights, Michigan near Detroit was concerned about the cheers on her daughter’s cheerleading squad. She voiced her concern to the coach and to the local school officials. Instead, her daughter got kicked off the cheerleading team, and she is now publicly and socially ostracized.
The cheerleading she objects to?
“My back aches
My skirts are too tight
My booty shakes from left to right.”
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/H-0SB8KmrZU" width="425" height="344" allowfullscreen="true" fvars="fs=1" /]
Jennifer Tesche underestimated just how much other parents and how much coaches enjoy watching or even imagining six-year-old girls shaking her butts in too tight skirts. Certainly quite some imagery, hm? Cheerleading coach Lisa Ernest called her a “lunatic” A lot of people are comfortable with the actual sights as well as the mental imagery of 6-year-old, 8-year-old, and 9-year-old girls gyrating . They shout out, “Shake that booty!”
She described the reasons given for kicking her daughter off the team: “They said that the tension would be too high … among the parents if we remained in the organization, and that we could come back next year on probation if we wanted to” Her response: “We’re in such shock that they’d do this to a 6-year-old girl, that I think they owe her an apology,”
I wonder why these people enjoy 6-year-old booty shakes. I am one of those lunatics who think their behavior toward and their grooming is inappropriate toward the 1st graders. I know I am crazy. I consider Jennifer Tesche a hero for combating the sexualization of little girls. I think encouraging 6-year-olds to booty-shake in a gyrating manner is pedophilic, but they are not pedophiles. They are merely voyuerists who enjoy watching the sexualization of little children. Pedophiles just happen to have the similar interests.
If you believe Jennifer Tesche is a hero in defending her daughter against sexualization, please find her and lend her the support she needs. The cheerleading coach Lisa Ernest needs to be kicked out. Do not punish a mother who is concerned with her daughter’s well-being.
I’ll have to join the insane asylum too. While there may be times where sexualization may serve as a form of empowerment, it is NOT appropriate for young girls who need to develop a strong sense of self that does not involve objectifying themselves especially at this age; they are not emotionally equipped to handle all the power and pitfalls associated with sexualization.
It is appalling that the cheer coach thought nothing of the inappropriateness of this cheer and even more appalling the high school level dramatics that ensued.
Regardless of how the mother handled it or could have handled it, the cheer was and is still inappropriate especially for this age group.
The mother did absolutely nothing wrong and I am sorry that she is feeling bad about “hurting” anyone when all she did was speak up to protect her daughter.
What is lunacy is that speaking up to protect our daughters comes with the repercussions of being mocked and shunned.
I believe the coach, who was a volunteer, was fired from this position due to the media attention this has drawn.
That’s absolutely disgusting. “My back aches”??? “My skirts are too tight”??? What kind of disgusting mantra is that? It’s so pedophilic. But not only that but it is a training ground for a woman’s self respect and dignity. Cheerleading is a great sport and it should be lauded as a sport in its own right, and not simply a tangent to the sport. Because Cheerleaders were sexy men decided to make cheerleading about being sexy, rather than the top sport it actually is.
Thanks for drawing attention to this Karen, this poor woman and her family need all the support they can get. I agree that she was absolutely correct and courageous for questioning the cheer.
We are truly on a long, ugly slide downward if a mother can’t even speak up about the whorification of a six year old girl.
amen to janis
I hope the mother will come to see that this was a blessing in disguise. and hope they find a better sport which respects little girls and their moms.
The thing is cheer leading used to be about girls having fun and being together. Somewhere it became about looking hot for men and seeking male approval. Just like women singers used to be about musical talent and presenting a female view, now it is about looking hot for men and seeking male approval. There used to be great women actresses who played complex parts in movies about the women characters. Now being an actress is about being hot for men and seeking male approval while playing one dimensional characters who work in the sex industry. They have all lost the idea of female fun and complexity. And they have lost the female audience.
Bes isn’t it so obvious when a female is looking for male approval? And isn’t it obvious when males do the same? They pretend that the action is important, or the discussion, or whatever when really they simply want to be around males?
That men -expect- everything to be about them is obvious…but it’s counterintuitive. For instance, cheerleading. Cheerleaders are hot, therefore, cheerleading should be about being hot. There is no good reason for anything to be about men/males.
kiuku: The big truth that men are sexually attracted to almost anything is usually completely left out of the equation also. !Honeys!, you don’t need to run around looking and acting like hootchies, men will pretty much screw anything that is female human and not dead. Just act normal, like yourself, if you know who you are, and men will still want to have sex with you because they always want to have sex with the vast majority of women. And I say this as a woman who likes men and has been married several times, I am not being judgmental, men are what they are and given what they are there is absolutely no reason to try to go out of your way to entice them. The whole system of everything being about male approval is wrong and it has been getting worse for the past 20 years.
I would love to find this woman and tell her that she is my new hero. She stood up for decency and good sense in a hostile situation and should be commended. I have walked out of dance performances where the cat-calling and hooting in the audience during an overly sexualized performance was just too much to bear. I wanted to yell at these cretins, “you do realize that these are 7-YEAR OLDS!” Ms.Tesche, you did nothing wrong here.
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