Spirit week, the big football game and the dance are all significant parts of high school culture. The homecoming dance is an event where society expects the guy to invite the girl. 

“There’s probably a stigma that the male party has to do the asking because that’s traditionally how it’s been done,” English teacher Barbara Clougherty said.

 According to the Gender Roles and Society traditional values support the belief that the male is in charge of initiating and funding the relationship.The stereotyping of males needing to take initiative stems from cultural norms, the way people were raised and examples the media portrays.

“Society has given specific roles to women because it is inherently patriarchal,” junior Barsha Parajuli said. “Media has been from the male perspective, with a male view, for the male audience.”

In a majority of romance shows, movies and books, such as “The Duff,” “Flipped” and “10 Things I Hate About You,” males have usually initiated the relationship after a lot of dramatic plot changes that convey an extreme misinterpretation on how society actually works. 

As stated by National Geographic, in many different animal species, females are the more dominant gender and take control. A lion pride, for example, is mostly female led. The lioness does the hunting, takes care of the pride and protects her cubs.

“I find it kind of annoying that I have to do all the work,” senior Jack Wolff said. “But I’m expected to, it’s just the way it seems how it’s always been.”

Many males can testify that they feel pressured to ask a girl to homecoming just because of how they were taught things should be. This adds a clear division in the roles that different genders have.

 “Modern feminism has pushed for a lot of these roles to not be so clearly defined anymore,” senior Aries Taylor said. “A lot of women see actions like being asked to homecoming aren’t worth only allowing the men to do.”

Modern feminism says that girls asking whoever they want to homecoming can be normalized no matter what the outside opinion says.

“If girls do it then they’re going to come off as obsessive, but when guys do it, it’s super romantic, ” senior Nabeela Ahmed said. “There’s a stigma that girls aren’t allowed to make the first move.” 

Internalized Motifs.com explains, young ladies are taught from an early age that the man is the provider or are taught  to wish for a big, strong prince to rescue the damsel in distress. Most girls decide to wait for a guy to initiate the homecoming proposal because they do not know any other way. 

These stereotypes make girls base their worth on a guy’s opinion.The realization that there is a divide between genders that runs deeper than biology is a conversation that some people are not ready to hear. This also requires self reflection from both genders on how women are viewed.

 “Modern feminism has really given a strong sense of independence for women,” sophomore Cooper Young said. “It shows that women can take leadership roles, provide for the family and do honestly anything.”