School dances are without a doubt one of the most fun activities in all of high school; whether one views it as a date night or just as a night to have fun with their friends, dances are looked forward to by almost everyone on campus.  Around dance season, abundant posters, flowers, and balloons can be seen around campus as students plan out their intricate proposals.

While both guys and girls are eager to actually have fun at their school during all of the dances, girls are especially ecstatic about Sadie’s because it is the one opportunity during the year that they get to ask their date to the dance.  However, this excitement highlights a flaw in the asking system: guys are the ones who are normally seen asking out girls.  As a matter of fact, it seems that guys are automatically the ones who ask out their date to the dance, save for Sadie’s.  This is hurtful to both guys and girls, as girls have their choices severely restricted compared to guys, while guys are only faced with immense pressure to say yes once a school year.  School dances should not have specific rules for who asks whom, and they should all be open for anyone to ask anyone, regardless of the gender.

Girls are perhaps more affected by this system due to the detrimental effects that it can have on them.  Because of the fact that girls are the ones to be asked out, they have much more limitations than guys do, meaning that they cannot really choose who their date to homecoming is going to be.  Since guys are the ones that are mostly seen asking them out, their range of dates to select from is significantly larger.  Girls only get to ask the guy of their choice to a dance once a year.   Also, when they are asked out, girls are faced with immeasurable pressure to say yes.  The guy who asks them out may not be a guy who they wanted go with, and this can make the dance not as fun as they had hoped.  But because of the pressure that they faced from being watched by a crowd of people while being asked out, they were compelled to accept their date’s proposal.  As stated before, guys only experience this once, making it unfair for the girls.  The whole issue is not necessarily unfair towards guys, rather it is more lenient towards them.  To put it simply and shortly, guys are given too much freedom in choosing their dates, while girls are given not enough freedom in return.  

Nevertheless, one might say that it is traditional in high school that the guy asks the girl to the dance.  This is a likely claim, as in every TV show or movie that revolves around high school and where the plot involves the dance, the guy is always seen asking the girl.  For decades, it was high school tradition for the guy to ask the girl to the big dance.  Time has passed however; in a world where gender equality has gradually become much more of a current issue, both guys and girls should be able to select the date of their choice to ask out, regardless of what dance it is for.  Guys always being the one to ask out girls is gender stereotyping, and girls are just sitting there waiting for a guy to ask them out who they might like.

In conclusion, social pressure should not identify Sadie’s as the one and only dance where girls can ask out guys.  No matter what dance it is, anyone can ask out anyone.  There is no law that says that a guy has to be the one to ask the girl out, and that the girl has to be the one to be asked out, but it almost seems like that is the way it is supposed to be.  At the end of the day though, whether it be girl asks guy or guy asks girl, or just with friends, school dances are definitely not to be missed by anyone.