Every so often, you can find the Jackson-Reed bleachers filled to the brim with loud students displaying their school spirit by cheering for their respective grades as they see who can make the most noise. However, for one day a year the bleachers are not only full of loud teenagers, but boys in sports bras and girls in flag football gear, getting ready for the annual Powderpuff game.
Directly preceding homecoming comes a much-anticipated annual event: Powderpuff. The high school and college tradition gives male athlete upperclassmen an excuse to go sports bra shopping at Target and shriek on the sidelines as junior and senior girls compete against each other in a riveting game of flag football, much to the enjoyment of spectators.
Most high-schoolers find it to be a fun get-out-of-fourth-period free card and we too countdown the minutes until we get to leave our classes. That is, until you put a few seconds of thought into it. The idea of Powderpuff basically being, “Wow, wouldn’t it be funny if women could play sports and men wore bras!” seems a little, well, archaic. Especially at a school where girl’s athletics is just as important as boy’s.
Jackson-Reed has taken every possible opportunity to tell us how gender-inclusive they are, from the signs on the bathrooms to the gender neutral prom court. So how does Powderpuff remain unquestioned?
Starting in the 1930s and 40s at a college level, the game has been adopted by local high schools, and is often played as a fundraiser. These fundraisers generate a lot of money for schools and broader causes like medical research, and generally provide comic relief for those who get to watch; it’s all good and fun as long as we don’t think too hard about it.
Powderpuff is not the only way to hold fundraisers and increase school spirit, and we know a lot of girls wouldn’t be okay with someone outright disrespecting the intensity or importance of their sport and yet it seems as though Powderpuff has slipped under the radar.
It’s important to see both sides of the story; we can understand the fun but to also consider the outdated gender norms it perpetuates as well as the harm that comes from those.
