A Hootin’ Hollerin’ Good Time: Sadie Hawkins
There’s a few things to know about the formal dance where gals ask guys, the Sadie Hawkins dance. The Sadie Hawkins is a girls ask guys dance and is not a new event. Sadie Hawkins was actually a character on a cartoon according to an article on Today I Found Out by Kathy Padden.
Sadie was the offspring of the first of two founders of a new town, called Dogpatch. Sadie, a bachelorette, who was desperate for a husband, started to annoy her father who wanted to rid her from the household. To do this he needed to find her a man. He invented a day, declaring it Sadie Hawkins Day.
“I had no idea the dance started this way,” junior Will Swanholm said.
Although somewhat degrading for women, the first Sadie Hawkins day included a race where all the suitors of the town began with a head start. Then Sadie was released, chasing after any man she could catch. If Sadie brought any of the men to the finish line with her, they were officially binded together, or married.
I think it shows a lot of equality between the genders
— junior Mollie McGrann
The dance also came from this same cartoon by Al Capp. The bachelorettes in the cartoon also arranged for all the bachelors in the town to come to a dance.
The origins of Sadie Hawkins is not all that favorable for females but in today’s day and age, Sadies is a yearly dance at Orono. The Spartan Speaks talked to students around Orono to see how students actually feel about the reversal of traditional roles.
“It’s a fun, different way to go to a dance, and it’s a great way to bring some sort of equality to it,” senior Elena Calderon said. “It’s a chance to bring out girl’s creative side, and it’s very cool and shows how far we’ve come.”
Sadies has evolved from a cartoon to a sock hop of blue jeans and plaid in our parents’ day to what it is today; a formal occasion that continues to be one of the many highlights of high school students’ school years.
“It shows equality. Boys ask girls to Homecoming, so it’s fair,” junior Aaron Patterson said.
“I think it shows a lot of equality between the genders,” sophomore Mollie McGrann said.
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