I run about 50/50 on the Penn&Teller "Bullshit" show.  Sometimes they really hit the target squarely.  Other times they seem determined to miss it.

Their recent episode on cheerleading was very much the latter.
www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=14033851001&bclid=89670588001

The way they tell it:  Title IX made cheerleading not a sport, therefore cheerleading doesn't get proper supervision and status, therefore the participants (almost all girls) get hurt a lot more than sports participants.  Blame the feminists!

The reality:  Title IX could not qualify cheerleading as a sport for the simple reason that no one was competing in it.  Duh.

Things have changed — now there are cheerleading competitions, and it's a very athletic pursuit.  Basically it's team gymnastics.  So it probably should become a sport.  That is, if its primary purpose is to compete, and not to cheer on some other (male) team.  Even if it doesn't become a sport, there's no reason we couldn't be regulating cheerleading like we do sports.  This would be a useful tack. 

Not so useful?  Focusing on this one unintended consequence as if it were maliciously intended, and pretending we either have to dismantle Title IX or keep injuring and killing cheerleaders.

Whom did they interview?  One feminist, Dr. Bernice Sandler, called the godmother of title IX.  She talks about the way cheerleading was in 1972 and how it was in no way a sport.

One thing I noticed in the interview, or rather, the voiceover by Penn, was mockery of her hairdo.  I recall a P&T interview where Penn said they didn't want to be like other magic acts that made fun of people's looks (calling someone baldy, or commenting on someone's mohawk, for example) — as a big guy with a ponytail and red-painted pinky, he felt he didn't have a right.  In fact I kinda remember Penn saying he didn't like the practice of choosing magicians' assistants on the basis of their sexy bodies.  Given the typical supporting cast for the show, I guess that principle is no longer relevant, either.

Another more useful bit of information is that pretty much all the cheerleading supply companies are one company — Varsity Brands, Inc.  As www.mrdustin.net/?p=758 notes,

It seems that Varsity has a major interest in keeping cheerleading frombeing classified as a sport.  If cheerleading was regarded as the sportthat it is, then championships would be run on the state level with thepotential for real safety measures.  In its current form, Varsity, Inc.operates as many as 60 “national championships” per year instead of theone that would be afforded to a typical high school or college sport. Without the numerous national championships, Varsity, Inc. is able tocollect a slew of participation (and other) fees in addition toadmission fees for parents that wish to watch their children perform.

So it's P&T's much-vaunted free market that's actually driving cheer teams away from safety!  Who would have guessed?

I am glad they did this show, because I did some research on cheerleading, Title IX, and modern feminist cheerleaders.  Here is a list of links I found interesting:

www.thesportjournal.org/article/cheerleading-context-title-ix-and-gendering-sport
An excellent but long article which disputes some of the claims in the show,notably the idea that cheerleading is more dangerous than football. I would take some of this with a grain of salt, however, given that their source for this information is ACCA, a wholly owned subsidiary of, you guessed it, Varsity Brands, Inc.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_cheerleading

Radical cheerleading is a form of cheerleading  that originated in Florida, but has now spread across the United States as well as Canada, Europe and beyond. The idea is to ironically reappropriate the aesthetics of cheerleading, for example by changing the chants  to promote feminism and left-wing causes.

www.tallladypictures.com/pirates.html

"We're punk rockers without instruments," says Marisa Lange, co-founderof the Pirate Cheerleaders. Part rock-n-roll, part activism, and allfun, the Pirate Cheerleaders are a feminist pep squad from Milwaukee;and they're out to start a revolution.

radcheers.tripod.com/
Has several cheers listed on the site and a list of squads across the country, e.g.:

riot dont diet by Mary Xmas
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
hey girl (clap clap clap)
get yer face out of that magazine
you are more than a beauty machine
you've got anger soul and more
take to the street and let it roar
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
RIOT DON'T DIET
GET UP GET OUT AND TRY IT
uh-HUH (clap clap clap)
If cosmo makes you sick and pale
you know what you need to do
MOLOTOV COKTAIL!
liberate the beauty queen
burn the bibles of the fashion scene
LET'S (CLAP) GET (CLAP) MEAN!!!!!!

www.williamsportguardian.com/?article=200703011101&PHPSESSID=cea225cf3ef30869ffac9a1cef861cf0

The real problem with cheerleading is that society has not been able tokeep up with it. High school cheerleaders are stuck on the sidelines andtreated as secondary. Isn’t their hard work just as valuable as that inany other athletic endeavor? Why shouldn’t all high schools worktowards eliminating these inequalities by sponsoring solely competitivecheerleading teams?

The whole radical cheerleading idea sounds pretty amazing to me — I would love to see some squads performing.