Alyssa+and+Kristina

http://shine.yahoo.com/fashion/prom-dress-wars-girls-social-media-dibs-gowns-173700960.html
This article is more for the pictures: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2309209/New-York-school-girls-post-warnings-Facebook-Twitter-chosen-prom-gowns.html

These articles discuss the recent Facebook pages where girls post pictures of their prom dresses so that no one else will buy the same dress for that particular prom. Girls have been taking the "claiming" of dresses to a whole nother level and some leave threatening comments to go along with the photo of their dress. The vulgarity involved in this issue, ""Don't Steal My Prom Dress, B" and "Steal My Prom Dress and I'll Knock You the F Out" is absurd. Whether the titles of the pages and the threats are just meant to be funny or not, many are worried and frightened by this type of behavior.
 * Abstract:**

__Do these types of prom pages, which are meant to prevent drama, actually stir up more drama?__ __What is your stance on these prom pages? Good idea? Bad idea?__ __What are the causes of this type of behavior? (e.g. parenting, social media)__ __What are the causes of the growing "materialistic world"?__ __Does the media influence girls to become more aggressive and competitive? If so, what kind of messages are these mediums giving girls?__ __Why are boys not competitive when it comes to prom? Or are they competitve in different ways?__ __The more aggressive gender: Female of male? (Stereotype: Men are aggressive) Are the male and female genders aggressive in different ways?__ __How does this make you feel about the future? (Do you think some girls will continue to act this way?)__ __Are there any solutions to this issue?__
 * Discussion Questions:**

I thought this would be an interesting and fun topic to discuss in our class because there are Facebook pages where classmates post their prom dress for both the senior Iolani class of 2013 and the junior Iolani class of 2014. This has been a fairly new practice to my knowledge (21st century)--the first time I was invited to one of these pages was last year for junior prom. In my opinion, I don't feel that the page is necessary. I always thought a girl should pick a dress that makes her feel good about herself. She shouldn't be hindered from her dream dress just because someone else already "put dibs on it" (There are only so many dresses out there that fall into each girl's budget and fits to her liking), but as the article denotes, some girls do in fact care--and they care a little too much. This is the only reason I would justify having a page--it is to (hopefully) prevent as much "on-the-night-cat-fights." That is not to say that the page is the all-cure solution to the drama--Actually, the page has been shown to stir up a great deal of drama //prior// to the prom, which leads me to ponder if the page creates even more unnecessary drama or not. This type of behavior: swearing and absurd threats (even if they are jokes, the threats still reflect aggressiveness) is clashing w/ the old stereotypes regarding women: elegant, classy, and sweet. This truly makes me worried.
 * Kristina's Response:**


 * Alyssa's Response:**

Upon first seeing these articles I thought they would be just touching upon the "drama" of prom season and perhaps especially of "claiming" dresses. When i read further to learn I found that many "posts" of girls dresses came with a threatening and horrible caption, warning the other girls not to buy the same dress as her. At 'Iolani, we also have these pages. I've never seen such comments that even come close to the magnitude of some of the ones that are in these articles. I thought that perhaps these girls were just a few from certain situations but the issue has been brought up so many times and to such a degree that parents are worried and upset, and multiple articles are being written and published. Although it does not seem to exist here, it is apparently a problem else where. It worries and almost frightens me that teenage girls are going to such lengths and putting such statements online just for a one night event. I understand that having the exact same dress as someone may be unwanted by some girls but personally, I do not think it is such a huge deal. At most proms, it is dark and there are many people there. You don't even see half the people there! It's quite disturbing that people will say such things simply for a dress. These articles also made me wonder what has caused such things to happen? Is it parenting? Is it the difference between girls and boys? Women and men? What is this difference? There are so many questions but I am unsure of such answers.