Powder-puff is a time for friendly competition and good laughs, but how does switching roles affect high school students mentally?
Located in West Palm Beach, Florida, Dreyfoos School of the Arts is a public high school. After a three year hiatus, Dreyfoos returned to the popular high school tradition, Powder-puff. Although, the return of this event brought more than just a game.
After the last Powder-puff game, students and staff at Dreyfoos began to notice some issues surrounding the concept of the game–specifically those related to gender stereotypes. Ideas arose about how the game demeans women’s sports and that boys dressed up in a feminine manner disrupts the LGBTQ community of the school.
Powder-puff is not meant to push any stereotypes or beliefs in anyone’s direction. The event is purely for friendly competition with a fun and entertaining environment.
Our school has strong pride in our powderpuff event. Not once in school history have we had any backlash or complaints about the event. This is because most of the students and staff are able to realize the bigger picture in events like powder-puff. Not everything has to be about gender stereotypes, and I think this is the main problem at Dreyfoos High School.
Dreyfoos High School’s population consists of 58.6 percent of students considering themselves straight. I believe that this contributes to this emotional debate. There is no problem with there being a large population of LGBTQ students within the school, but I believe that this drives students to speak out with opinions in a different way. With a very large population of LGBTQ students, the school will be taking everything (like Powderpuff) under a check that considers emotional feelings.
The argument that Powderpuff is “demeaning” women’s sports is completely unreasonable, especially in the scenario of Dreyfoos High School where their powder-puff was a basketball game, and the girls can join the women’s basketball team at any time, unlike our tradition where girls cannot join the football team in positions other than kicker or punter.
Even if the school does not have a certain sport, the girls can play any sport they want outside of school. If the girls are worried about being made fun of, then they shouldnt participate.
The other main argument is that the LGBTQ community felt offended and targeted that the boys dressed up in feminine attire to be the cheerleaders. First of all, that is the entire point of the event.
Another reason I feel this argument is unreasonable is because the boys dressing up feminine is not targeted to the LGBTQ community. It is a traditional part of the event. It is honestly just selfish of the offended Dreyfoos students to think that everything is about them. Nobody can do anything nowadays without being associated with someone’s feelings or beliefs.
The bottom line is that what was supposed to be fun and entertaining school event got ruined because of people feeling like they were more important than others and needed to make it all about them.
