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Speaker 1: Texas Monthly.

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Speaker 2: Okay, we are going on an adventure.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I'm excited.

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Speaker 2: The woman next to me made history, but you probably

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don't know her. Now we're in a Starbucks parking lot

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outside Irving, Texas, and we're going to drive to the

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site of Texas Stadium.

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Speaker 1: And is it depressive? That's what somebody said it might be.

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Speaker 2: You know what we'll find out ill. Okay, For a

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long time, I didn't know this woman either, but I

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grew up staring at her on trading cards and calendars

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and TV screens alongside other women in various shades of gorgeous.

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Speaker 1: My name is Buzzil Baker, and I'm one of the

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original seven professional Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. The first time we

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walked down that tunnel, we didn't know that we had

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introduced something new to football.

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Speaker 2: And what they introduced would change how we look at sports.

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It would change how we see women on television, and

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it would change countless childhoods of boys and girls like me.

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Speaker 1: I I I just.

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Speaker 2: Saw the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders became America's sweethearts, a very

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Texas hybrid of pageant beauty, good girl etiquette, and come hitherslink.

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But despite their fifty years as a global sensation, despite

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being endlessly photographed, televised, commercialized, what's always been missing from

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the story of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders is the voices

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of the cheerleaders themselves. It's about time we change that.

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What the Cowboys gave me, nothing in my life will

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ever compared to that time.

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Speaker 1: Nothing.

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Speaker 2: So then, where does the uniform come from?

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Speaker 1: Well, it really came from my imagination.

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Speaker 2: What words come to mind when you think of.

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Speaker 1: The cheerleaders boobs, skins, flesh, sex, hair, big hair.

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Speaker 2: It's not just about being beautiful or just about having

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a rock hard body. It's about, you know, being smart.

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And so I went on a search to understand this

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legacy in all its complications. I saw their story as

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part of an ongoing battle of a women's bodies, of

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a women's behavior, over who and what determines our value.

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It bothered me that I was supposed to sexualize myself

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on game days and not allowed to any other days.

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There was an awkwardness because I'm seeing my friends in

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Playboy magazine. They're both major lawsuits for the cas and

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they change the culture of being a cheerleader.

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Speaker 1: Whatever you're doing, you're multitasking. You have so many things

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to do, and then they're asking you to do this

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five nights a week and not pay you for it.

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Speaker 2: Over the course of eight episodes, you'll hear those voices

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as they navigate all that came after that first time

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they burst onto the field. This is a saga of

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high kicks and scandal and cleavage and controversy. I'm Sarah

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Hippola from Texas Monthly. This is America's Girls, Coming September

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twenty eighth to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.