As videos of girls asking guys out to the Abbot Ball with witty puns flooded the Andover Instagram circle, a question arose: Why are girls asking guys? “Abbot” is a semi-formal dance traditionally held at the end of Fall Term that got its name from Abbot Academy, a secondary school for girls that eventually merged with Phillips Academy to form our current co-ed system in 1973. With Abbot’s reputation as “Andover’s Homecoming Dance,” many students are questioning why Abbot doesn’t follow the norm of homecoming dances, in which guys ask their partners out. At first glance, it might appear awkward that Abbot reverses the conventional gender expectations, placing the expectation on girls to make the first move. However, once we move past the initial moments of confusion and hesitance, we realize that the significance of Abbot lies much beyond the makerspace-made posters and Instagram stories: it brings women’s emotional desires and needs to the center stage, providing them the autonomy to make a decision for themselves.
The stereotypical American homecoming looks something like this: a football player finishes his game, poses to take a photo with a girl, then surprises her with a hastily written “HOCO?” invitation with roaring applause from the respective friend groups. This trend is seen as almost a symbol of youth and the vibrancy it brings. Although this tradition has manifested through decades of romance-comedy shows and lighthearted jokes, it reflects a much deeper gender norm that traces all the way back to the Victorian era. During the ballroom dances in the Victorian era, all men were expected to ask women to dance and escort them back to their chaperone once the dance was over. The norms strictly dictated that women ought not ask men to dance with them. During the same time period, a young girl was not expected to explicitly indicate her interest in finding a husband. Being “forward” with men was seen as an indicator of an excessive sexual appetite. This assumption is not surprising considering the gender-based hierarchy of the nineteenth century, wherein men were granted the full privilege of expressing their emotions towards women, which were considered acceptable, whereas equivalent acts from women were seen as desperate, contributing to the modern “slut-shaming.” In short, women were emotionally and socially considered lesser than men, thus having to depend on men for occasions as trivial as ballroom dances.
Granted, high school homecoming dance culture is significantly more lenient in its gender expectations compared to the nineteenth century; the norms still reveal an aspect of the deeply problematic and sexist narratives in our history. Leading up to most Homecoming Dances, girls are expected to wait for guys to ask them out, calculating chances and mutual (or not mutual) emotions in hindsight while battling the social condemnation against girls who take action first as “not good enough.” This expectation resembles the confinement of women in a domestic sphere, as seen in the short story “If I Were A Man,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in which the female protagonist spends the entire day weeping in the house over a small argument with her husband earlier in the morning, while the husband completely forgets about it, engaged in business with other men. Many girls are conditioned to anxiously wait for guys to show interest, without much control over the situation.
Abbot subverts these gender norms. Abbot not only normalizes girls asking guys to the dance, but also completely reverses the expectation so that girls are the ones who decide which partner to ask out and eventually make a public “Abbotposal.” By restoring the autonomy for girls to weigh their emotions and ask the guys first rather than waiting in the dark, Abbot is significant in putting women on an equal (or even higher) playing field than men. The public nature of the “Abbotposals” makes them even more significant, because it makes a statement against the expectation that women ought not to reveal their emotions outwardly, providing avenues for female emotions to be not merely normalized but also celebrated. These values parallel the principles that Abbot Academy forwarded as a pioneer in female secondary and higher education. As one of the few secondary schools in New England built specifically to educate girls, Abbot emphasized the independence of women as well as the recognition of their legitimacy in public spheres. Alongside the Abbot Academy Fund and the Brace Scholar presentations, the Abbot Dance is a perhaps less recognized yet equally important event for Andover to continue carrying on the values championed by the first female members of the Andover community.
In “Jane Eyre,” the quintessential feminist literature of the Victorian era by Charlotte Brontë, the protagonist Jane says, “women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint…” Although Abbot might not bring the satisfaction of experiencing a “traditional” high school experience, it does make a bold statement about the restraints that have placed women in an inferior and dependent position. So, for all the girls reading, ask them out! You’re living proof that Abbot and her values live in all of us decades later.
