Imagine being out for dinner and having to leave because a fellow employee has entered the restaurant.

Not your manager. Not the company’s CEO or a member of the board. Just another employee.

Imagine being told you can’t wear jogging bottoms out in public. Or that you can’t even talk to other employees on social media or via text.

Or that, when you speak to certain employees, you can only say “hello” and “great game.”

Imagine being told you can’t even tell other people where you work. 

And this isn’t like you’re a secret agent or undercover police officer.

That is the life of a NFL cheerleader. These super-stringent rules have recently come to the public’s knowledge and the reaction has been mostly outrage and calls for change.

I wrote a few weeks ago, following the removal of grid girls in Formula One, that American Football no longer needed cheerleaders, that the role was archaic.

But this was before I realised that the rules these women have to adhere by are prehistoric.

While this doesn’t change my original point, cheerleading really isn’t needed in 2018, if they are to continue working in the sport, their rules and guidelines need updating instantly.

Some teams force their cheerleaders to pay for uniforms while paying them less than minimum wage.

Others have a rule preventing cheerleaders going to parties with team players. God forbid these franchises want to promote a work-friendly environment where everyone gets along and you can ask someone how their family are doing.

What’s ironic is that players can do what they want. They can make contact with cheerleaders, be it in person or online, but the women aren’t allowed to make first contact. Sexism 101.

Apparently, some of these rules are in place to stop the women being preyed upon by the men. By why is the onus on the women and not the men?

The men can actually do want they want, when they want. It’s the women being punished for the behaviour of the men in the building.

One team’s tryouts for cheerleaders involved making the women do jumping jacks to “see if flesh jiggled.”

This same team made the cheerleaders attend a golf tournament where they were paid to do backflips and then men bid on them to ride around in their golf carts.

These carts had no extra seats so the women had to hang off the back or sit on the men’s laps.

The team dictated how to apply tampons and how they handled their menstrual cycle.

The more you dig into how these women are treated, the worse it becomes.

Auditions are currently held for the 2018 season and when attending tryouts, the women must arrive in: ◆ Crop/half top

◆ Shorts

◆ Skin coloured nylons or dance tights

◆ Arrive with hair and make-up complete

◆ Arrive with layers/warm-ups over audition attire.

I get that interview processes usually acquire a dress code but can’t they try out in jogging bottoms and a t-shirt?

Does it have to be with half their skin on show?

Why do they have to wear make-up?

Why are they being judged on their “personal appearance?”

Why are they being told “a lean figure is demanded by our uniform?”

The male players don’t have to go through this. There are countless stories of players arriving to training camps over the summer overweight.

The team then helps them cut the weight, if required. Some players put on weight during the season, as humans usually do over a period of time.

But for some cheerleaders, they must always be within a few pounds of their ideal weight.

This isn’t their full-time job. Yet the demands are horrendous.

And should they protest, they are then told this is a privilege and that they should be so lucky to work in the NFL.

One former NFL cheerleader told the New York Times about the harassment she received while working and how the team she worked for told her and others how to deal with it.

“We were taught, if someone’s getting handsy on you, how to navigate that,” said the former cheerleader. “We were told what to say, like ‘That’s not very nice.’ To be sweet, not rude. Say: ‘Can I ask you to step over here?’ Use body language to help deter the situation. 

“Never be mean. Never. Always courteous. Because if it’s not for the fans, we wouldn’t be here. That’s how we were supposed to think of this.”

She wasn’t the only woman who spoke out against how she was treated.

When detailing a particular incident with rival fans, she said: “We were walking by, waving and smiling, and one guy caught my eye,” said the cheerleader. “He looked at me and said: ‘I hope you get raped!’ That’s the kind of stuff we’d have yelled at us. 

“Even from our fans, once they get drunk, they yell things and you’re like ‘Really?’ It’s part of the job. It comes with it. You’re supposed to take it.”

But they aren’t supposed to take it and the league needs to do something about it, not release non-committal statements like “The NFL and all NFL member clubs support fair employment practices. 

“Employees and associates of the NFL have the right to work in a positive and respectful environment that is free from any and all forms of harassment.”

But they clearly don’t “support fair and employment practices.”

And while they say that they “have the right to work in a positive and respectful environment that is free from any and all forms of harassment,” the truth is they aren’t.

And the league and teams are doing nothing to improve worker conditions.

A cheerleaders’ union is long overdue.