Our school’s annual Vice dance is coming up. We know what this means: the girls in relationships are elated, the girls in maybe-relationships are nervous, and the rest of the girls (myself included) dare each other to ask someone out even though most of us won’t actually do it.

A brief history on the dance: “Vice” is short for vice-versa — as in, girls ask out guys instead of the other way around. This girls’ choice dance originates from a comic strip character named Sadie Hawkins, whose father created a race in which men were chased around by women and would marry them if they got caught. The story then evolved into Sadie Hawkins Day, and eventually the Sadie Hawkins Dance. By the 1950s, girls’ choice dances had sprung up in tens of thousands of locations.

Sounds harmless, right? I agree: The cultural phenomenon of “girls’ choice” stems from good intentions.

Nevertheless, it’s still fundamentally out-of-touch with the world outside of comic strips. Though the dance is cute, we should bring it into a new age by addressing some deficits that are no longer compatible with today’s society.

Let’s list all of those incompatibilities:

For starters, not every couple includes a girl! Some couples might even include two girls, with many more containing various other combinations of gender identities and sexual orientations. So in each of these relationships, it’s unclear what a “girls’ choice dance” really entails.

Even in heterosexual relationships, Vice doesn’t send the right message. It’s specifically designed to give girls The Choice, which implies that the other dances are specifically designed not to. With this, Vice pretty much says, “Hey girls, enjoy your choice while you can, because we’re dictating when you even get a choice!”

This message is just added confusion to the already complicated high school dating scene. As if everything isn’t already weird enough — what with hormones and gossip and all-around stupidity — there are now labyrinthine rules about gender roles. When do we follow them? When do we switch them around? We keep making more amendments instead of revising the whole system — because why not make high school harder than it already is, am I right?

But hey, I’ve given the dance a lot of flak despite not being entirely opposed to it. I said earlier that the dance was cute, and that still stands! As an avid fan of romantic comedies, as well as an earnest feminist, it’s tough for me to reconcile equality with the gender roles that rom-coms have idealized as romantic.

On the one hand, as a feminist, I believe that equality in society and the workplace also means equality in romantic relationships (as in, I need to ask guys out, too). On the other hand, I’ve not been in a serious relationship before, so plenty of my “knowledge” comes from fiction. I’m left expecting (even hoping) for a guy to make a Grand Romantic Gesture for me à la Heath Ledger in “10 Things I Hate About You.”

While I get that it’s a lot to ask for a guy to serenade me with the help of the school marching band, the sentiment remains: In conventional, squeal-worthy romance, the guy asks the girl out.

Modern Feminist Me knows that it isn’t fair to put that pressure on guys. But my inner Confused High School Romantic doesn’t want it on me either, and it’s so easy to avoid it when pretty much everyone expects me to just sit back and wait for a guy to take action. I don’t want to be an enabler for gender inequality just because I’m too scared to ask a guy out (Vice or no Vice), but I’m already stressed in my classes; I don’t need social stress too.

So for me, girls’ choice dances are honestly just a lot of fun, as well as a momentary cop-out from conventional romance while still being pretty darn cute. Like the iFlirtz we sell for Valentine’s Day, girls’ choice is silly but hella entertaining. Yes, the Vice dance needs to be brought into a new era of gender and sexuality roles, but the question remains: How do we do that without sacrificing the original fun of it all?

I can see you rolling your eyes. I don’t know, Miss Complainer. Why don’t you tell us?

Good thing I’m not just complainer. I’ve got ideas for how to reasonably enact change on the high school romance front:

I propose that we rework our marketing approach for school dances. We need to create a new standard for high school dating instead of forcing one gender to ask the other out one time, and then changing the entire procedure the next. Schools should encourage relationships initiated by and between anybody who is a human being.

But if we want to go one step further, we could completely replace Vice with a dance that is less low-key sexist. I understand that Vice is supposed to be romantic: It’s in February, and love is in the air. But love can waft around just fine without the fumes of gender roles diluting it. I, for one, find it endearing when people appreciate me for the empowered woman that I am. So why not have a Winter Formal or a simple Valentine’s Day Dance? I can see it already: The campus adorned with posters that read, “Ask Your Sweetheart – February 10.” Romance can be kept alive without dictating who asks whom out.

This problem isn’t isolated within a school dance’s unspoken rules. Subtle sexism is built into our society. Although Oak Park is a considerably tolerant place and on-campus student organizations are always working to promote acceptance and diversity, sexism lies in the small parts of our everyday life.

To move into this new age, as extreme as it seems, we must expel sexism from even the most minute of details.

I know, reader, you think I’ve gone too far. But that is precisely my point. There isn’t a “too far” because all sexism is related, and if we want it gone, we have to be committed.

So take a stand. Make a seemingly silly little dance matter to you. Because when stereotypes prevail, all of us lose.