Mina Repice | October 26, 2023
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Let us take a step back for a moment and reflect on spirit week. I’ll refresh you regardless don’t worry. As per Dr. Hamilton’s Weekly Newsletter,
“Monday – BBQ Dads vs. Soccer Moms, Tuesday- Barbie vs. Ken, Wednesday – Greek vs. Green [misleading typo, Hamilton], Thursday – Class Colors.”
Something is glaringly bizarre when I look at this, which I hope you can notice as well. What is the deal with these either/or prompts? Each year, metro typically has days such as “twin day”, “decades day”, and the like, none of which are to be found here. And no, I don’t think that my issue with this stems from the lack of creativity that they allow, but that very much was a problem during the week.
No, what I noticed was much stranger. Somehow, this spirit week elucidated interesting motifs of gender roles and separation that I haven’t seen before at Metro. On Monday, you could either dress as a stereotypical dad or mom; on Tuesday, you could either dress as stereotypically feminine or masculine dolls; on Wednesday, if you chose “Greek life” you could either dress as a stereotypical frat bro or sorority girl. These gender binaries seem a little strange but become especially weird when you analyze who dressed as what on each day.
Focusing on Monday and Wednesday’s prompts in particular, the choices that students made during spirit week were particularly interesting. I found that on Monday, the majority of students decided that dressing up as barbecue dads would be a much more fun endeavor than the other choice of soccer mom. On Wednesday, within the more popular option of “Greek life”, nearly everyone chose the more alluring “frat bro” over the “sorority girl”. Now, why is everyone deciding to dress as boys, and is this revealing a deeper nuance to gender that was just waiting to show itself?
What I noticed was that students simply found it much funnier and easier to dress as boys. Being a “barbecue dad” was simply much more interesting to most than being a “soccer mom”, something that I think maybe highlights issues in society’s treatment of typical roles portrayed by men vs. women. Why is it more desirable to fulfill the role of a dad? I don’t think the answer is just that it is funnier. Both these dads and frat bros are much more culturally recognizable than their female counterparts, which I find a little strange.
Yeah, maybe it was more fun for you to dress as a stereotypical dad and a stereotypical frat bro, and yeah, maybe you had a blast dressed up as a stereotypical hyperfeminine or hypermasculine doll on Tuesday too. Personally, I didn’t, but I can understand the appeal. I just think that it is very important that we continue to be cognizant of the constant perpetuation of gender roles in life around us, as obvious as that sounds. By choosing broader, more inclusive, and frankly just more interesting prompts in years to come, we could definitely foster much more “spirited” spirit weeks and stop promoting such outdated concepts. Come on Metro students, we can do better than this.
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