Evolving in (all-male) colleges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries purely as attempts to encourage crowds at their sporting competitions to cheer, the practice spread and became largely a female activity as time progressed. Organised cheerleading contests were formed; most high schools around the U.S.A. had formed cheerleading squads by the 1950s. Today cheerleading competitions are a ubiquitous feature of American public schools and universities.
Cheerleading has a rather mixed reputation as a serious athletic endeavour. Cheerleaders are stereotyped in thousands of television shows and movies as vacuous, unintelligent, bitchy, attractive, and sexually available (particularly to members of the sporting teams for which they cheer), and the routines regarded as opportunities to expose and highlight their attractive bodies. In its defence, it is doubtful whether any detractors of cheerleading have ever tried to perform a routine.
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