From Sabrina Madeaux in the National Post (2018):
The Surprisingly Sexist History of the Prom from Leah Cuen of Mic (2016)
While teens might think they're fighting tradition and consumerism, today's proms are as conforming and expensive as ever. As teens become more economically and politically influential, proms have come to offer an accurate reflection of their generation as it grows up.
"Prom was [introduced to schools] to communicate a conservative, class-based gender script to a larger population," sociology professor Amy Best, the chair of George Mason University's Sociology and Anthropology department and the author of the book Prom Night: Youth, Schools, and Popular Culture, said in a phone interview. "To communicate what it means to be a "proper" middle-class girl, just like the debutante balls, both had narrow [gender role] expectations."
Prom may be a right of passage, but it is also a place where stratification is observed. In this post, Stephanie Medley-Rath explains how stratification related to race and sexual identity are reproduced on prom night... In the book, Prom Night (2000) by sociologist Amy Best, she points out how racial divides are recreated at the dance through decisions made regarding the music played during the dance and in more extreme cases, holding racially segregated proms. More recently, Morgan Freeman paid for a Mississippi high school’s first racially integrated prom as documented in the film Prom Night in Mississippi (watch the movie’s trailer below), while other communities continue to hold racially segregated proms.
Racially segregated proms have been held in Montgomery County — where about two-thirds of the population is white — almost every year since its schools were integrated in 1971. Such proms are, by many accounts, longstanding traditions in towns across the rural South, though in recent years a number of communities have successfully pushed for change.
Does it matter if the prom excludes certain students from participating? (2010)
In the end, my advice to students is that the day high school ends, it will become irrelevant to your life's experience, the same way that middle school feels now. Prom will feel "so high school". So, don't worry if something goes wrong - if your group is not getting along, or someone wears the same dress as you, or something spills on your tux, or the limo is late, don't worry about it. It won't be a big deal in the long run. And because of that, my advice is to not put too much pressure on what prom represents. Just let it be a celebration of high school.
When I was younger I used to chaperone prom and I always dressed according to the theme. Here are some pics:
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