i was a deb, not by choice. many of my friends were in the same boat so it wasn't altogether terrible since i had companions to mock the whole absurd process with. but yes, apart from tokens, it was a largely snooty white girl affair--nowhere near purity ball creepy, but not something i consider any kind of personal accomplishment.

the dress was nice. i remember arguing with my parents about why i should be allowed to wear doc marten boots underneath it (you couldn't see anyone's shoes) and being shot down.

my boyfriend's sister was one, that was only about 3 years ago. I'm not sure of it was segregated or not, but I wouldn't be surprised as the country clubs around here are. I think the whole institution is a classist, sexist, racist nightmare. Young women get enough instruction in primping and shopping and regarding themselves as objects. As far as teaching tradition and giving and all that, why then are the boys being excluded? and why can't we learn to give and uphold traditions in jeans?
It's also important to note that the events amount to a society girl's "coming out", which loosely translates to being placed on the marriage market by her parents (at least symbolically).

In short, congratulations on having the brains and the guts to not only avoid the whole thing, but to write this letter. and you're lucky to have parents that allowed you to act that way, as some other young ladies obviously didn't

oh god, I totally was a sort of debutante. In my town they had an annual Mardi Gras ball which was a debutante ball even though they never used the word. I mostly tried to block it out of my mind but I remember having to attend a tea with some of the ladies of the auxiliary club before the event and then wearing a white dress and dancing with my dad at the event itself. I wasn't really a great debutante, though, because afterward my boyfriend and I spent the night in the hotel in which the event was held. I was excited about wearing a white princess gown (pathetic I know, but I have always had a weakness for elaborate ball gowns). I also remember getting in a huge fight with my mom because I refused to wear my hair its natural color and dyed it bright red instead.

I am ashamed to admit that at the time I did not really understand what it was all about. My sister had done it before me and it was something that my parents wanted me to do. The ball itself was entirely a mono-racial affair, despite the fact that it was held in a fairly diverse east coast city.

I must say that I am totally jealous of your mature conviction, Courtney!

Yep. Well, sort of. The symphony orchestra in my hometown has a debutante ball for the children of parents who have volunteered for the symphony for at least four years. In the early 80's they began to allow male participation, too, so "debutante" has been changed to "honoree," although the overwhelming majority of participants are still female.

My experience? Bizarre. I was actually not an honoree, but my friend asked me to be an "escort." (Opposite-sex escorts are a requirement. I don't think this convention has ever been challenged.) We were required to attend two dance lessons with a woman who had been involved in the Ball since the fifties. She proudly told us that they used to prepare for months, with a full slew of etiquette and dance classes. She considered it a damn shame that we got off so easily.

Still, they'd clung to most of the old traditions. Debs wore white dresses (or tuxes), and for girls, elbow-length gloves. Escorts were required to wear pastel dresses (or black tuxes) and wrist-length gloves. (Do you know how difficult it is to find Minnie-mouse style gloves in this day and age?!) Social status was made very clear. The ladies were also charmingly infantilized; during the formal dinner we were required to wear bibs so we wouldn't ruin our dresses! Apparently the guys could be trusted not to spill food on their tuxes, however...

Anyway, yes, it was a very, very white & upper-class event. In their defense, I know of one woman of color who participated and no one raised an eyebrow; however, the symphony committee was widely considered to be a pastime of the town's "elite," a group that was largely white.

Sorry this is so long. My high school also had "Debs" in the form of social clubs, kind of proto-sororities, invitation-only, with names like the sub-Debs and the Devilish Debs. I've lived a lot of places since then and every time I tell someone this, I get a blank look. Did anyone else go to a school with groups like that?

I didn't realize that this crap still exists.I was really amused by your note, though. Way to be a teenage up-start!

I am really not familiar with the custom or its racial components. (Thankfully, my exposure to this kind of stuff while growing up in Nashville was limited to taking one of those "junior cotillion" classes, I believe at the behest of some friend's mom who thought we should learn how to foxtrot.) However, I think that in at least some middle-class black communities in the south, the debutante thing -- a variation on the old white one, I guess -- is a big deal. I knew a couple of people in Nashville who were really into it, and according to this article at least, it's big elsewhere too.

The debutant ball tradition is definitely still alive an kicking in my home town (rural Australia). I did mine in 2001 and throughly enjoyed the pretty dress and everyone making a fuss over me (my feminist awakening didn't come until I hit university).
Mine was run by my high school and the handful of non-caucasian students that were enrolled there all participated. Any racial bias on this occasion, was probably a product of the schools uneven enrollment, rather than the event.
The rules were that the girls had to invite the boys to partner them, boys had to be invited and the girls had to wear white. The ball was also voluntary, so not everyone participated.
The school has since replaced the 'debutant ball' with the more neutral 'presentation ball' where either sex could invite the other and the girls weren't obliged to wear white (although reputedly they all still do).

Eh. If you're a white girl looking to marry for money, this is a good place to be.

I've known several debs in the NY/Conn/NJ area. The balls are certainly still around and thriving. Some of the gals and guys do it to appease family members without seriously buying into the whole "money must wed money" thing (and some of them were surprised to find a wonderful mate whom they fell in love with). And I know others who are just looking to marry well off. ::shrugs:: As long as money is an important way of life, I can't see these balls falling into obscurity. Still not the best way to keep equality of the classes.

In Oklahoma City being a Deb is alive and well. A volunteer for the organization I work at is going through this with her daughter. The young girls must be 19, in college, not pregnant and have no tatoos. I'm sure there are other requirements, but those are what stuck out to me. But really, it is rich white folks. It costs a ridiculous amount of money for the individual "coming out" parties, and then there is a ball of some sort.

I have only lived in OK for 2 years and I have to admit that when I heard about this my jaw dropped and I thought I had just been time warped back 50 years or more.

I did it, though few people know my deep dark secret.

My older sis and I both wanted to refuse. Unfortunately, right before my sister's year, my brother was involved in a minor scandal that was in the paper. My parents asked her to do it so that they could show they weren't ashamed of their family.

When it was my turn, we had a repeat - though it was my sister with the scandal this time.

There were tons of parties for months. It was crazy. Luckily, my parents supported my decision to study abroad that season, so that I missed the bulk of it.

danyell, i'm from the south. they eat this shit up down there.

our town's whole debutante grooming system started out really in sixth grade when we were invited to join "cotillion", which mostly consisted of three years of incredibly awkward themed dances (really, in middle school the LAST thing i wanted to do was have my personal space invaded or my feet stepped on by the boys in my class, ew!).

courtney, i admire your youthful opposition. i think at the time i could definitely see the class issue for what it was and at least recognize the debutante thing as a ridiculous, anachronistic social ritual that existed solely for the purposes of making rich, suburban parents feel like aristocracy and of giving old tea party ladies something to occupy their time. unfortunately the racist aspect did not hit me back then. i wish i had had the chutzpah to write a letter and voice opposition to it all instead of just going along with it.

i will add though, that even though i lost the battle over the docs, my escort was my gay best friend (closeted, at the country club at least, in the grand tradition of fine, southern gentlemen).

When I went to school in Virginia a lot of my friends from the south, black and white, had been debutantes (most were from middle to upper middle class families from Georgia and the Carolinas). I'm from Minnesota and the first time I heard a friend talking about her "coming out" party I was excited that she'd actually thrown a party to come out to her family. She then informed me she was straight and that it was a southern tradition.

I still think a "coming out party" would be fab!

Wait, they really have those? Being a middle-class Jewish lesbian from LA, the only DEBS I've heard of are the ones who are seduced by Jordana Brewster. Mmmm, Jordana Brewster... Sorry, what?

I love your letter, Courtney! I almost contacted you ladies at feministing this past winter about my own debutante dilemma...I wish I could have written a brave letter like you but I was torn between pleasing my father and living my ideals. My father has been long distance but kept in touch ever since I was a baby, he even helped with college tuition, and we are trying to mend our adult relationship together, so when he asserted that he's never asked me for anything before, and my "coming out in society" would be extremely important to him, so much so that he would consider it a dishonor if I did not participate, my young feminist self was devastated. I tried to rebel in little ways, I did not take out my hoop nose ring for the pictures or on stage, I let my step-mom (who more than made up in anticipation for the event where I lacked) pick out all of my (4!) dresses, and during the announcement for the maid's (oh yes, I was a maid because at 23 I was too old...) accomplishments, while everyone else listed their sororities and church groups, I proudly listed "Ving Tsun Kung Fu," "Young Feminists" and "Students for Social Change." In retrospect perhaps it wasn't the most mature thing to do....but I was just disgusted that my father was going to show me off like a possession and hand me off to a "duke" whom I had never met, on stage in front of his wealthy friend. Or that there is a ceremony celebrating "high society" at all. And yes, there were only white people participating, and "my duke" told me that up until recently, blacks were forbidden to join the Mississippi society. In the end, my father was ashamed that I did not smile on stage or placate the people involved....actually at the first dinner we were told to write a rhyme for our "duke" or "maid," so on the spot I came up with, "To my duke, your name is Jay, We'll be good friends if you keep the misogyny at bay," I suppose if I did not agree with the event but wanted to please my dad, I should have swallowed my pride and played along......or not have gone at all...in the end I pretty sure I did not please him at all...but I think I did get people thinking and talking--after the event was over "my duke" confided in me that all the girls at the event who he'd grown up with had never given him a second look, but after spending time with me, he was more confident. I don't think he realized that open-minded people existed!
All in all, I am still really confused about what the best solution would have been.
What do you think?

My grandmother was a debutante. We kind of uncovered her life when we were sorting through her stuff after she died, and it seems she spent confined by her class and 'position' in society. Her family decided everything for her, she was pretty much browbeaten into marrying my grandfather, who she hated. Unfortunately, her family was also slightly racist as well. And we knew they considered her debs ball an incredible event because we found some of the stuff she wore and their prices. They spent about the equivalent of £200 (around $400) just on shoes (I'm accounting for inflation over the years here, of course). Considering the kind of family she came from, their sexist, racist and controlling attitudes and the way she spent the rest of her life, I've never had the impression that debutantes were lucky women. At least not in those days.
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"I did mine in 2001 and throughly enjoyed the pretty dress and everyone making a fuss over me"
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This, I think, is the main attraction. I bet if girls really DID have to be debs or take the 'purity pledge' in their own clothes without all the bravado there wouldn't be so much excitement about it.

I was a deb for my grandparents. Every year there is a debutante ball sponsored by a black men's club in the Ft. Worth area. Although I'm not that into the debutante thing and would not force my daughters to do it the tradition for this debutante ball is understandable.

This men's club started putting on a debutante ball over 65 years ago, most likely for the reason that debutante balls were traditionally for white middle/upper class girls. What I found fascinating though was the classism. Although the ball (and the club itself) was founded to resist racism, there was an application process and the girls were all in college and middle to middle/upper class. Also people who were in the club and involved with the debutantes had this "keeping up with the Jones" mentality including my gradparents (especially my grandmother).

We did have the big white dresses, our escorts were our fathers or a father figure, our date had to be a black male (Funny sidenote: this was strongly emphasized. So much for bringing the white girlfriend), and we did a curtsey called the Texas Bow (and I was sore for days).

Piedmont, California, 1985. I served as one of several escorts for my cousin when she "came out." Indeed, an antiquated and silly practice. (At this event, debs often had more than one escort: dads, beaux, brothers, cousins -- you name it).

Glad to see I wasn't the only one who refused to go along with the debutante thing. In my hometown, it was cutomary for the girls from the "better" families to be part of a debutante ball at the country club after they turned sixteen. It is important to note that I was pretty much raised by my mother's step-mother and step-sister as my parents split when I was in elementary school. My grandfather was a high standing member of the town society, a deacon in the church, and my mother's step-mother was a southern belle, born and raised in Texas. My mother was a deb when she turned sixteen, so her step-mother assumed I was going to be as well. However, at about age 12, I started rebelling being molded into submissive arm candy for the mortician's oldest son (yep, that's who I was being molded for) and by the time I was 14, Grandma and I were at a standstill with the dance lessons and etiquette classes she had given me every week since I was six. When my sixteenth birthday came around in 2001, I let her know in no uncertain terms that I was not going to be a deb as I was not just a piece of meat to be sold to the best qualified young man. It also turns out that many of my classmates had also decided that they were not going to go through with it either. Instead of the 25-30 girls they usually had, they had 12 debs. My mother was right there with me objecting as she had hated her debut as well.

Both my younger sister and I were invited to debut (we both declined.) Where I live, the cotillion is disguised as a charity ball to raise money for a local hospital. Women are presented, dads wear white tie, people pay a ton of money for food and booze. They pretend there's no classism involved, but there is. To be invited, you have to have given a lot of money in charitable donations to the hospital already--and the people with the cash to do this are more wealthy. And they're not going to invite people who aren't going to be able to pony up for the trappings of the dress and shoes and all of that, or pay to eat the food, or anything like that.

Personally I found it ridiculous to 'present' myself to a society I had been working in for two years; to pretend to be blushing virgin when I wasn't one; to act as if I was now ready to be married when I won't be ready for that until I'm out of college at least.

But I do know girls who've done it. They were my parents' friends' daughters, and I think going to their cotillions was what made my dad realize he was never going to make being 'presented' a decision for anyone other than my sisters and I to make.

OK that is creepy! I had no idea that's what débutante meant! I'd never heard of a débutante ball until now actually...

I sort of thought it was just an American thing but I see someone from Australia had them? Seriously, so glad we didn't have any of that crap. Anyone from NZ heard of them being held here?

I wasn't an official "deb", but I did participate in Cotillion, through Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Cotillion is just like the deb ball, except we have boys whoe participate as well. i really liked it, because it was kind of like a presentation to society signifying our adulthood (Cotillion and Deb within the Black sororities take place senior year of high school). We had a lot of workshops to prepare for the real world: financial planning (mostly avoiding credit card debt during college), college planning, career planning, sex ed (mostly learning about std's and the different kinds of condoms, etc) we also had a workshop on the themes of Kwanzaa. Volunteering is a large part of Cotillion and it was a requirement that everyone had to complete a certain number of community service hours each month. It also gave me a chance to meet new people.

While I agree that social debs shouldn't be restricted by race, the black sororities hold their own, because when they were founded, they couldn't participate in the white ones. I admit that Cotillion and Deb aren't for everyone, however it was a fun experience for me.

We have a different tradition here which however has the same undertones. At around 16, everybody takes ballroom dancing and etiquette classes. Or, almost everybody and it's done because it's done. I didn't want to, I hate physical contact and I wanted to take a course of Spanish which was at the same time as the classes where all the people from my school went and I just had to go because parents insisted that in my life, I'll have a great use for waltz et al.

Yes, there's all the crap about having a different dress for every class (once a week for like five months) and at the end, there's a ball for the participants and family members which was one of the two balls in my life I ever attended, the other one being the graduation ball.

I have a special frustrated feeling about this. Ever since, I've hated physical contact. Even when I was a small child, I would run away from aunties who wanted to cuddle me and it hasn't changed much. Ballroom dancing involves physical contact so it's excruciatingly repulsive for me. My parents know it and knew it well by then but because everybody takes dance classes and nobody objects, I will go and enjoy as well. I must admit that after a few weeks, I would take a book with me and spend the evening in the nearby cafe, sitting there in the silly dress reading.

In Australia some schools still have debutante balls, although maybe not with quite the classist fervour of some American ones!

Mine would have been last year if I had decided to go. I decided that I would only go if I could go with a girl, because I couldn't stand the idea of doing it "properly" (and I'd get to wear a cool suit!).

I asked the vice principal if that was ok... I remember saying "do I have to have a penis to dance the boys steps?" He "thought" about it and asked one of my teachers if I was heterosexual or not. He then informed me that if I had been a lesbian they would have been unable to deny me... but because I was straight my choice was inconsequential!

No matter that partnering someone for a deb is not a matter of sexuality and same sex couples should be allowed merely on friendship! I thought about saying that I was going through a time in my life when I was unsure of my sexuality... but by that time my partner had backed out, sigh.

So yeah, misogyny and obsession with sexually stereotyping people is still rife in Australia!