In recent years, former cheerleaders have sued the N.F.L. over pay. In 2016, the New York Jets agreed to pay their cheerleaders almost $325,000 in back pay, while the Raiders agreed to a $1.25 million settlement with the Raiderettes. Among the six N.F.L. teams that do not have cheerleaders are the Buffalo Bills, whose cheer team was disbanded following a class-action suit over pay, and the New York Giants, whose co-owner, John Mara, has noted that “philosophically, we have always had issues with sending scantily clad women out on the field to entertain our fans.”

“I have two young daughters,” said Drexel Bradshaw, a lawyer who has represented cheerleaders in fair-pay lawsuits against the San Francisco 49ers and the Raiders. “I would not want my daughters to be treated like these women are treated.”

Margery Eagan, a radio host, put it more bluntly in a recent column for The Boston Globe. “It’s time to rethink N.F.L cheerleaders and their barely covered breasts being ogled on the sidelines by drunken men with binoculars,” she wrote. “It’s embarrassing for us all. Or should be.”

To make it in a man’s world, the saying goes, women must do everything men do — but backward and in high heels. For N.F.L. cheerleaders, there’s a further twist: They must stand on the sidelines, in high heels, cheering for the men for very little money in a world where players rake in millions and even the mascots make up to $65,000 a year.

As The Times and others have noted, the rules placed on cheerleaders today are reminiscent of a different era, with weigh-ins, mandatory manicures, advice on the proper use of tampons and suggestions for how to politely respond to fans who are prying or engaging in harassment. Were a person to sift through the 1960s-era rule books of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy clubs — rules created for the female servers called “bunnies” — they would find striking similarities: the bunnies were issued “demerits” for chewing gum, dirty fingernails or unkempt hair. But even they got a salary and benefits.

“What’s so hard about being an N.F.L. cheerleader is that not only do you have to be a technically trained dancer, but you have to look good while doing it,” Ms. Davis said. “You have to wear three-inch heels while doing it. Your makeup has to be full on, you have to constantly be smiling, even when you’re just standing there.”