High School's 'Prom Draft' Under Scrutiny for Being a Sexist Creepshow

By Lindy West | May 7, 2014 | 8:30pm

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Corona Del Mar High School in Orange County, California, has a longstanding tradition called the “prom draft,” in which senior boys draw numbers to choose dates from a pool of available girls. Boys also have the opportunity to pay “as much as $140” for a first-round pick, in hopes of “getting” the girl they “want.” What the girls want, apparently, is irrelevant.

This year, after parents protested that the practice encourages their children to think of women as prize hogs that can be bought and sold at auction (and then you have sex with the hog later in a car), the school’s principal also spoke out against the draft.

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Via CBS:

“If they treat women this way at this age, what will they do then when they’re of legal age,” parent Vivian Rowe said. “They’re drafting them. That’s not exactly respectful.”

On the other hand, a number of students told CBS2/KCAL9′s Kristine Lazar that they feel the draft is not a big deal, and that the entire issue is blown out of proportion.

“It’s pretty, just like, an organized way of doing it,” Varol said. “I don’t think it’s anything bad.”

“It’s supposed to be a funny thing that the guys are doing,” student Adrianna Cremo said. “And I don’t think that the girls are really being affected by it.”

The school’s principal, Kathy Scott, meanwhile, sent an email to the parents of both juniors and seniors, urging them to talk to their kids about the potential consequences of their actions.

“I am sure that the intention of this ‘draft’ is not to be harmful, but it may be. It is not ok for any student to be objectified or judged in any way,” the email said.

I mean, guuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh. Obviously the “prom draft” isn’t the end of the fucking world—it’s a drop in the ocean of institutionalized misogyny and female objectification that kids are steeped in every day of their lives—but it’s still an event structured around literally ranking and claiming women. Instead of doing that, you could just NOT do it. You could just find a person you like based on chemistry, shared interests, and mutual attraction, and then ask her to prom and go with her IF SHE SAYS YES, like the rest of us have been doing since Primordial Ooze BC. (Also, girls are allowed to ask boys. Or other girls. Or literally whomever.) Prom drafts? Prom-posals? Save your money for college, dummies. Hangover-Slurpees ain’t free.

Also, prom doesn’t matter. (The only thing I remember about my prom is that my date ate a whole bag of hot dog-flavored potato chips and then fell asleep in a chair.) You know what actually DOES matter? Learning how to treat women (yourselves included, prom draft lady-pool) like human beings, because in a couple of years, you’re going to have to live and work in the world with a whole bunch of them.

Naturally, Twitter is making a bunch of excellent points:

Touche.