It’s that time of year again. Girls are rushing to buy expensive, revealing dresses. Everybody is all abuzz about who is throwing the after party. The big game is approaching and the court is being elected.

It’s Homecoming season.

I’m here to say the one thing that nobody will admit: the Homecoming dance is miserable. Most students think they’re excited, but once they get to the actual dance they begin to question if they truly want to be there.

While the idea of the dance is appealing, and in every movie a school dance seems to be the best night of the year, in reality it is completely over-hyped, especially for girls. Nearly every girl knows the stress and struggle of finding a Homecoming dress that won’t break the bank a week before the dance. Many that are found are way too expensive for something that they are only going to wear once, for it seems to be an unwritten rule that girls can’t wear the same dress to two occasions in a row.

The theme of the dance seems to be, in a word, promiscuous. While many girls enjoy taking advantage of this, it is incredibly demeaning to women. In my opinion, it is difficult to considered oneself a feminist if she attends and enjoys the dance; the entire dance resolves around girls dancing in ways that are pleasing to the onlooking boys. In addition to the style of dancing, the music seems to revolve solely around women performing sexual acts for men, which further objectifies women.

However, some prefer to look past this and enjoy the Homecoming dance anyway.

“I like the dance because I get to dress up, take pictures, and have fun with my friends,” sophomore Rachel Zhang said.

Though Rachel and others manage to have fun at the dance, most students have many other opportunities to dress up and enjoy time with their friends, causing it to be unnecessary to attend an event that has so many negative aspects.

Furthermore, it is impossible for me to deny that the actual dancing is anything but enjoyable. Though it is held in a notably large room, everybody at the dance seems to crowd into the smallest area possible. While some may consider bathing in the sweat of at least a hundred others and getting their toes crushed by heels fun, I personally would prefer to opt out.

It’s difficult to find a solution to a problem that has so many components and is not recognized as a problem by many students; however, the one thing that I would recommend is changing the style of dance. Though this is unlikely to happen, it would cause the dance to be much less objectifying and demeaning to women. Students would still be able to have fun and let loose, but the dancing itself would be more acceptable from a social stance.