Cheer Feature from Down Under

Flames cheerleaders out to bust ‘dumb blonde’ myth
By ANGELA THOMPSON
Illawarra Mercury
May 16, 2013, 10 p.m.

NRL cheerleader Jessica Gallimore loves the roar of the crowd and being on the field when the atmosphere lifts at big games.

Less endearing, though, are the comments. She gets them at every game, shouted from the sidelines or from cars driving past the stadium.

“[Comments] range from ‘you look good’ to things I can’t repeat,” said 23-year-old Miss Gallimore, who has cheered with Wests Tigers and, now, with the St George Illawarra Flames.

“There’s always some young, drunk guy yelling out … things like wanting to take you home and what they would do to you. I wouldn’t say it’s flattering at all to be spoken to like that.

“I’m always really self-conscious about what people there with families are thinking.

“[Those making the comments] wouldn’t objectify their own mother or daughter or sister. Don’t treat us any different to how you treat them.”

Miss Gallimore and fellow Flames member Stephanie Buncombe are part of a push to debunk the “cheerleader myth” on the eve of the NRL’s Women in League round this weekend.

According to Miss Gallimore the myth – which casts cheerleaders as “girls that just dance [with] blonde hair, big boobs” – is outdated, if it were ever true.

She points to the occupations of Flames members and her own academic achievements – a double degree in Dance and PDHPE from the Australian College of Physical Education and, in progress, a bachelor of social science in criminology and criminal justice at the University of Western Sydney – as proof that the stereotype is undeserved.