NFL cheerleaders live miserable lives of silent degredation

Actually, though I do think sexism and gender-based oppression are very much at play here, they didn’t factor explicitly in any of my comments. Your example of a sport that doesn’t attract enough attention is an interesting counter to an argument, but it’s not any argument I made. These women are in one of the public entertainment arenas that does make far more than enough money to fairly compensate all of its workers, but it fails to do so. Its definitely fair to compare them to other members of the same public spectacle, and find an injustice there. Football is a hobby for a lot of people, so is dancing. They are both part of the NFL performance, and are both worthy of at least not-heinously-inequitable treatment and pay.
There is also nothing ethical or fair about the “silence” parts of the contract. Making it a fire-able offense to talk about your pay, or the rules that govern your conduct is blatantly unethical anti-labor bullshit. I hear you there are some more universal, non-gender-specific labor issues here, but a lot of the more heinous elements of the contract (tampons usage, makeup requirements, no-underwear clauses, jiggle tests…) are unequivocally gender-based.

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