Should there be a Sadie Hawkins dance?

Opinions
Mt. Carmel SUN
A7
February 12, 2010
Should there be a Sadie Hawkins dance?
Sadie Hawkins was originally a character whom no man would marry, from a Li’l Abner cartoon. In order to find a husband, the town gave all unmarried women free
reign over the most eligible bachelors in the city for one day. Since then, the concept has exploded into a dance that spans the nation’s high schools and colleges.
Though it takes place at different times during the year for different schools, the theme for the dance is the same: girls have to ask guys to go with them.
Sundevil Perspective
YES
KEVIN LAGE
SPORTS EDITOR
In this world where we supposedly have reached a level of full
equality, how does it make sense
that at MC, a guy still has to be the
one that asks a girl to dances?
Now, of course there is no rule
against girls asking the boys to
dances, but there is just such a precedent that is it so rare that it almost
never happens.
The only way schools encourage girls to take on the role of asking a boy to a dance is with the use
of Sadie Hawkins dances.
Because of our lack of a Sadie
Hawkins dance, the pressure to ask
is almost always placed upon the
guy.
Every dance the guy has to
come up with a cute, creative way
to ask the girl.
This task is almost always unfairly given to the boy.
Then when guys don’t ask the
girls who were pressuring them to
ask, the girls end up feeling angry
and hurt.
This could be avoided if girls
would take the initiative and ask
the guy in the first place instead of
dropping hints that end up confusing the boy more than guiding him.
Girls will argue that it’s not
NO
CORDELL HUNTER | PHOTOGRAPHER
Freshman
Sophomore
Matt McEachern
their job to break the tradition that
states that they must wait and hope
that the guy will ask them.
If you choose to believe that,
then you cannot complain when the
guy you like chooses to ask someone else over you.
Some girls think that, even
though they wouldn’t mind asking,
it would be strange for them to ask
the boy because it wouldn’t be normal.
That’s the point of the Sadie
Hawkins dance—to make it normal
and gives the girl the chance to ask
him without the strangeness.
It would also be a potential
boost for the schools finances. Before almost every dance, we hear
ASB pleading with people to buy
tickets. Adding a change like a
Sadie Hawkins dance could help
ticket sales.
Other schools, like Rancho
Bernardo, run their Winter Formal
dance as a Sadie Hawkins dance,
and it always works out very well.
Now as Winter Formal is one
of our top dances as far as ticket
sales go, it’s understandable to
leave it as is.
A dance like MORP however,
which almost always seems to be
undersold, could use a nice change
like turning it into a Sadie Hawkins
dance.
Herby Collins
ANNIE FERGUSON
STAFF WRITER
“Yes, it’s a chance for guys to
sit back and relax while the
girls do all the work.”
“Yeah, that way guys aren’t pressured to ask girls out. Girls get to
feel what guys go through.”
Junior
Senior
Emily Myers
Danielle Hindi
“Yes, I think it would be fair
for girls to have the chance to
ask out the guy. It would be
fun for girls to get the opportunity.”
“Yes, it changes things up a bit,
and guys get a break, and girls
will get to ask someone they
actually want to ask.”
Teacher
Kris Hizal
To see more pro Sadie Hawkins articles written by
Jay Huey, Isaiah Bruce, Shayon Said, and Jordan
Ugalde visit the Opinions section on MCSUN.org.
To be entirely truthful, I must
tell you that the original insignia for
Sadie Hawkins is a cartoon of a rednecked, homely spinster in an awful
getup. She does not, in any respect,
portray the kind of character most
girls strive to become—and I can’t
say I blame them.
Just like the image of Sadie
Hawkins, the concept is out of date.
We no longer live in a society where
men have the sole ability to begin a
relationship, and women are forced
to wait to be asked out or bide their
time until this once-a-year event.
The turn-around dance is an
old fashioned concept that no longer has a place in our world where
men and women have equal rights
and liberties. We don’t have to wait
for any guy to ask us out. We can
do the asking anytime we want to—
Sadie Hawkins dance or not.
Diving back into hick roots is
another unappealing aspect of this
event. The Sadie Hawkins dance requires participants to bedeck themselves in their finest flannel shirts
and long-johns. Everyone knows
that the best part of the dance is the
dress, making the requirements for
Sadie fall short of what is acceptable for a dance.
I have the feeling that not only
do few people want to embrace this
image, but even fewer would go to
the dance to begin with.
Though some might say that
a flip-flop dance is wrong because
tradition supports men doing the
asking, this isn’t the reason I object to this dance. In our go-get-‘em
generation, both guys and gals are
willing to ask the big question, and
no restrictions should be placed on
that right.
This dance goes against everything women have strived for the
past 150 years. The only message
it sends is that girls should only
be assertive on this one occasion,
and the rest of the time they should
stand around batting their lashes
until their guy gets the message.
Not to mention that this dance
is a joke anyway. The idea came
from a comic strip. It’s supposed to
be a joke that the girls do the asking;
it’s an indulgence for females who
don’t want to wait to get asked.
If anything, this dance is derogatory, rude and crude. I don’t
find it funny or cute. No one, women included, should be subject to
the restrictions it places on finding
dates for dances.
Women today deserve more
than just one dance out of the year
to ask out their special someone.
To see more con Sadie Hawkins articles written
by Mackenzie Lance and Camille Mansour visit
the Opinions section on MCSUN.org.
“Absolutely, just once I’d like
someone to ask me to a dance.”
Should there be a Sadie
Hawkins dance?
59%
36%
23%
DENNIS SUN | ARTIST
Yes
No
No opinion
LAURA SLUSSER | ARTIST
*250 students polled
Editors
Mackenzie Lance News
Melanie Dickinson Centerspread
Shayon Said Opinions
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Mt. Carmel High School 9550 Carmel Mtn. Rd., San Diego,
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CA 92129 (858)484-1180 ext. 3211 [email protected]
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