Recently this past weekend I covered all of the homecoming events at my old high school. Homecoming has always been a big deal in my town, it's not just for the kids at the high school it's an event that the entire community can take pride in. I was one of those kids that was involved and ran everything at high school and homecoming week was one of the big heights for me, for everyone, especially on student council. When I was in high school people respected the efforts that student council members took to make sure each year was better then the last, and the title of homecoming queen and king went to the students that were most deserving of it.
Last year homecoming was great and I enjoyed it very much not just as a former alumni but as a reporter as well. Words can not describe my disappointment in covering the homecoming assembly this year. A once classy and well dressed court had turned into a joke the girls weren't in dresses and the boys were in costume. I soon found out by the president of student council (who is a friend of mine). That this year homecoming was being looked at as just a joke. And it was all thanks to everyones favorite social media networking site Facebook. Joke ads and campaigns began being passed around to vote for students merely as a joke. That's it. There was a haze of disappointment in the air as the teachers watched on in disgust to see what had become of this longtime tradition. The camaraderie among the upperclassmen and lower classmen was gone, and even the student council president had tears swelling in her eyes to see that after 4 years this well respected tradition had turned into nothing more then a rowdy joke. It's never been more apparent to me to see the influence of new age media in the minds of these young students. As a junior in college I consider myself to be extremely media literate and I don't allow the influences of media to enter my life unless I let it. However, at the assembly I saw tons of young students who had no idea the effects media were having on them. I'm glad I went through high school when I did. I remember alumni saying to me "wow this is really great, we never had this when I was in school," and as I stood watching the assembly I could only think "Wow, this is sad they'll never know what we had when I was in school."
It's a lesson to be learned that life is meant to be lived, not through a television, and not through a computer, and as I write this on the eve of my 21st Birthday I can only say that things change sometimes for the best and sometimes not, we just have to keep moving forward.
The statement you made about the girls not wearing dresses is sexist. That also goes to show how these sorts of traditions are built on strict gender role conformity with a big serving of patriarchy. If girls are not wearing dresses, they are not presentable; it they aren't pretty with make up and a nice dress (classism thrown in there as well), they are unacceptable at a high school dance.
ReplyDeleteIf the sexism and classism of this are not apparent, I can elaborate in another comment.
NO! It's not sexist at all. Have you ever heard of something all time, place, and manner? Apparently not! Would you go to a job interview wearing jeans and gym shoes? No, you would not. Certain things call for appropriate attire. Clearly you have never participated in anything like this at all, nor did you understand what I was actually trying to say in my blog at all. You completely missed the point, and how you arrived at an assumption like this makes me wonder what is truly wrong with the world today.
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