Today is Sadie Hawkins Day, a day when women are encouraged to take life by the balls and ask a guy they like on a date. Though we had Sadie Hawkin’s dances in high school, we did not understand the history behind the name of the dance where young women were expected to invite young men (instead of the guys doing the asking) until today, when we found out the epic and hilarious story behind the tradition on a little site called Wikipedia.
According to Wikipedia, this legend is derived from an old-fashioned “hillbilly comic strip”. In that comic strip called “Lil Abner” Sadie Hawkins was the daughter of one of Dogpatch’s earliest settlers, Hekzebiah Hawkins. What “Dogpatch” is, we have NO idea, we are assuming a small tumbleweed crap shack of a town. The “homeliest gal in all them hills”, Sadie grew frantic waiting for suitors to come a-courtin’. When she reached the age of 35, still a “spinster”, her father was even more frantic—about Sadie living at home for the rest of her life. In desperation, he called together all the unmarried men of Dogpatch and declared it “Sadie Hawkins Day”. Specifically, a foot race was decreed, with Sadie in hot pursuit of the town’s eligible bachelors— and matrimony as the consequence.
Um. Weird.
This is a funny and completely absurd tale, one which, if rooted in even the tiniest bit of truth makes us very happy to be living in modern times and not in 1937 where people found this kind of rag-tag tale entertaining.
The Wikipedia entry goes on to explain that in 1939 Life Magazine included a pictorial of women chasing boys at colleges across the US. By 1952 the trend was catching on- one day a year there was a role reversal of the gender and women were allowed the boldness of “inviting the man or boy of their choice out on a date- almost unheard of before 1937”. Now THERE is a purpose we can get behind.
Happy Sadie Hawkin’s Day. Be bold, prosper, and ask out a guy!
SFAR