Guys ask girls to dances

In today’s day and age, the young population has proven to be more open-minded, nonjudgmental, and nondiscriminatory than previous generations. Softening the boundaries of race, religion, and sexual orientation, millennials are breaking social norms and rejecting deep-rooted prejudices.

In the context of a high school, these trends remain valid. Any teacher that has been at Aurora High School for an extended amount of time could tell you that there are significantly more members of the LGBT community, more racial tolerance in each class, and a wider sense of general acceptance in the students of our generation.

That being said, why is it that there is an expectancy of males to ask females to dances?

In a society constantly evolving to challenge established traditions and status quos, it’s curious that such an old custom is still firmly set in our society. Although we used to have a Sadie’s dance, where it was mandatory girls ask guys, there should be a less lopsided number of females asking males to regular dances such as Homecoming and Spring Fling.

Alluding to a previous point, there are more and more LGBT community members in every class, which begs the question of how these traditions apply to them? In a nontraditional relationship, it would be difficult to apply old customs.

Whatever the relationship, most would agree asking a person to a dance is a stressful, time-consuming, and, at times, expensive task. Therefore, it should not be seen by our society as a tradition of only males to do.

There’s no clear beginning to the expectancy of males asking females to dances, although it surely started as a result of the values of generations before us. Since our generation has already illustrated a knack for breaking down customs and reevaluating our society, school dances should be next on the list.