Former NFL cheerleaders demand more to protect women
Some of their former teammates publicly called them liars and traitors and attention-seekers who disrespected every woman who had ever worn the Washington Redskins cheerleading uniform.
Yet, even as their allegations caused an outcry and prompted calls for change, the five former Redskins cheerleaders who spoke anonymously to The New York Times in May about what they called an environment of sexual harassment and intimidation on the job silently endured the insults.
Now, however, two of the women are coming forward to denounce attempts to discredit them and to speak on the record about their experiences and their frustrations at what they consider the slow pace of change to protect NFL cheerleaders from degrading treatment.
Their names are Rebecca Cummings and Allison Cassidy, and they said they agreed to be named now to bolster the credibility of their allegations and to inspire other women to speak out about workplace harassment.
“Our main goal was for the Redskins to make a safe working environment for the cheerleaders,” Cummings said. “But even after we laid out all the shady situations we were forced to be in, the team failed to really fix things.”
The Redskins conducted a three-month investigation into their cheerleading program after The Times report described some of the most egregious behavior toward cheerleaders, which included accounts of uncomfortable events and interactions with well-heeled supporters of the team and a 2013 calendar shoot in Costa Rica. On that trip, the five women said, male sponsors invited to the photo sessions ogled scantily clad, and sometimes topless, cheerleaders and the squad’s director sent cheerleaders to entertain the men at a nightclub.
Although the resort trip did not involve any expectations of sex with the sponsors, and none of the cheerleaders have claimed that they were physical-