Dear High School Students,
We count on you to bring a very needed social change to our society. Not all at once, of course, rather one step at a time. Or, going with our topic, one prom at a time.
I’m talking about “gender”.
At this point, if you know what I’m going to say next, please go directly to the Action Plan at the end of the post.
“Gender” is an artificially created concept that we’ve been using for millennia to divide us into two opposing and strictly separated groups. It has to do only with how one of our organs, namely genitals, looked when we were born. Yet, we’ve learned to see “gender” as an integral part of our personalities and believe in it as in an absolute law that governs our life.
Meanwhile, a concept of “gender” was created by our ancestors who, facing a rapid population growth, were struggling with an exponentially increasing complexity required to regulate relationship among all these many people. Introducing “gender” that had only two types, “man” and “woman” (and that’s why it shouldn’t be confused with “sex” that has many), helped them to drastically reduce the complexity – instead of dealing with hundreds or thousands of different people, they now had to care only about two types of them.
But life has changed. Due to advancements in many areas of human activity, particularly in technology, we now can manage much more than merely two types of people – actually, we can manage as many types of people as there are people. We don’t need to oversimplify our world any more. Instead, we can embrace it in its entirety with its fascinating complexity and breathtaking richness. The social concept of ”gender” and the cultural load that goes with it, – such as gender-defined roles and expectations, restrictive stereotypes, imposed behaviors, and narrowed opportunities, – limit our progress more than enable it. I’m sure that by the time you started high school, you had already experienced gender molds and their power to shape your self-identity, your personality, and your behavior.
Changing social order is not easy though, as we, older generation, have learned first hand. We’ve been fighting gender inequality everywhere we can – in offices and classrooms, on TV and in movies, at stadiums and on military bases, – but we can’t win because we can’t completely free ourselves from “gender”. We were born into a world that was strictly divided into “boys” and “girls”, where boys had to wear pants and short hair while girls had to wear skirts and long hair, where boys had to be strong and initiative while girls had to stay modest and compliant, and where boys had to ask girls to prom but never could be asked in return while girls had to wait to be asked but never could ask themselves. Growing up in tough grips of gender prejudice, we, older generation, learned to believe in gender-defined behaviors and roles so strongly that we can’t imagine how it can be otherwise. How, for example, can a girl ask a boy to a prom? “It will be against law of nature!” – we, older people, scream in fury, – “It will be against all moral norms!”
But the truth is that it won’t be against any law of nature or moral norms. What it will be against is the freedom to take initiative and the right to make your choice. The only laws it will be against is an outdated and restrictive law of people. You know this better than any generation before! You were born into a different world where boys can have long hair and girls can wear pants, where boys are allowed (sometimes) to be humans, not supermen, and where girls are allowed to disagree and are not (always) punished for taking initiative and speaking up. You now live in a world where not only “Male” and “Female” are officially allowed to exist, but also “Other” – an evolving third gender we, as culture, start recognizing. And you accept and cheer for this new world. You cheer for these “Other” people, who are not other to you, but an integral and natural part of your world. That’s why your world is different – it’s richer, more exciting, and more fun, even though it might become too complicated at times.
Yet, this new world has a lot of obstacles that prevent it from evolving faster. Some of them deal with official laws and regulations, such as paternity leave and same-sex marriage, while others lie in the area of unwritten rules, such as traditions and rituals.
One of such traditions is prom. Historically originated in a very gendered society, prom later served to promote heteronormative practices and fight homosexuality. If you take a minute and think about a typical prom, you will easily recall many attributes of this event, beautiful otherwise, that reflect its strong gender-centric and heteronormative nature. For example, naming a prom king and prom queen and following strict gender conformity in dress and behavior are one of them.
Why do we stick to these traditions even when we know that they don’t serve our social needs anymore and may even delay our social progress? Mainly because we learn them as kids when we are too young to analyze what we are learning, and then follow them throughout our life without thinking too much about them.
But sometimes it’s time to break traditions. That’s why I want to invite you, high school students, to participate in online campaign #ChooseYourProm.
I remember when my daughter was in high school and her prom was approaching, she liked to share with me stories when boys asked girls to prom and all the creative and funny ways they came up with to do that. And I caught myself thinking, what if we didn’t limit creativity to only one half of the class? What if everybody in my daughter’s senior class were “allowed” by cultural norms to take initiative and ask another person to prom without regard to their gender and gender role they were traditionally supposed to play? Wouldn’t we have much more diversity, creativity, and much more fun?
And that was how the idea about #ChooseYourProm was born.
#ChooseYourProm is about changing outdated social norms when you, high school students, agree among yourselves to move away from traditional gender roles when it comes to prom. The beauty of it is that you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission, you can do right now and right there.
#ChooseYourProm is about making your choice. You can choose to ask somebody to prom or you can choose to be asked, no matter what your gender is and what your gender role dictates you to do.
#ChooseYourProm is about expanding your options. Instead of having to perform only one role imposed on you by your gender, you now have two to choose from, and both are equally exciting. It’s like with giving presents. Instead of having to only give presents all the time or only accept them all the time, you can now do both.
Here is the Action Plan.
- Ask somebody to prom or wait till somebody asks you.
- Take a lot of pictures and videos.
- Share them on social media using hashtag #ChooseYourProm.
Let’s make it big! Let’s make it a splash! In many schools you already start ignoring gender roles to some extent, but in many others you don’t or even can’t. By showing how many of you move away from traditional gender roles, you will make it a new social norm. And that is what you are after because at the end of the day it’s about you and your new world.
Rethink gender roles that have been imposed on you, move away from outdated and not working gender behaviors, and by doing so in a creative, fun, and open way, you will bring a very need social change to our world – one prom at a time. 🙂
See you at #ChooseYourProm!
– Elena