Homework Assignment Tells Girls To 'Be Lady-Like' And 'Go Out With A Boy'

Salt Lake City-based Highland High School has come under fire for assigning students to go on a date and giving the students gender-biased dating guidelines for said date.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the assignment came in a state-required “adult roles and financial literacy” course. Students were challenged to go on a date for less than 5 dollars, and boys and girls were given their own separate dating suggestions.

Suggestions for girls included, “Be feminine and lady-like, don’t use vulgar language or swear,” and giving their (presumably male) date a chance to be “gentlemanly” by waiting for him to open doors. Girls were also advised to keep it to themselves if they think they’re “too fat.”

The guidelines for boys actually included some solid notes like, “Don’t be entitled to a kiss (or more),” but some silly ones, too like, “Have plans for the date and let the girl know what they are doing.”

The assignment went viral after Jenn Oxborrow, the mother of a Highland High School student, shared images of it on Facebook.

Oxborrow told the Tribune that she was worried by how “heteronormative” the assignment was.

“If you’re trying to figure out where you stand with your gender identity and then you get an assignment like this, it puts our kids at risk,” she said, “our teachers and our principals have to acknowledge some of this and teach in a sensitive, evidence-based way — and they’re not.”

The assignment did not come from Highland High School, reported the Tribune. The teacher in question chose it from a database of state-approved assignments. A spokesperson for the Utah Board of Education has said that it has since been removed.

H/T The Cut