reading my high school newspaper with a new feminist perspective

One of my favorite parts of my high school was my student newspaper, Inklings. I occasionally wrote for the paper, and now my little brother has joined the newspaper staff. He always emails me his articles, and once in a while one that he thinks I may find interesting, usually something about an old teacher I had or a club I was a part of. Last week, he emailed me this article about a tradition with the cheer leading squad. Football is a huge deal in my town, everybody goes to the games and the school is extremely supportive of the team. The article talks about a tradition where each cheerleader is assigned to a varsity football player who they bake for the night before a game, along with putting up a good luck poster in the cafeteria the Friday before a fame. The article discusses this tradition as sexist, because even though it is not required, there is the "everybody does it" idea that forces the cheerleaders to participate. The response to this article was mostly negative. Students claimed that it was not a big deal and could not see how it was sexist. What the article does not mention, however, is that it goes way beyond baking and signs in the cafeteria. At least while I was in high school, cheerleaders would often do their players laundry, carry their books the day before a game, bring them their lunch to their table, run errands for them after school, was their cars, pretty much become their personal assistant. I never really though of this as sexist while I was in high school, but looking back on it the entire thing seems absurd. What worries me most is not that this is happening, but the response that the students have to this "tradition". I was always very interested in women's rights, but never really considered myself a feminist until I went to college, when it was too late to be able to fix this and many other issues of sexism in my high school. I was curious to see what other women's studies students would think of this article and see if anybody who identifies as a feminist had any similar thoughts when they look back on their high school experiences.