Image from http://www.nydailynews.com
It’s that time of the year again where you can dress up as a sexy school girl and embrace your inner stereotypical girl nerd, or at least it was going to be that time of year in Raleigh, North Carolina before it was cancelled by the community for being blatantly creepy and pedophilic.
The “Sexy School Girl” 5k, an offensive, hypersexualized race that “allows you to dress up like a sexy school girl or nerd on a day other than Halloween” and let’s you show of your “‘inner school girl & nerd sides’,” would have raised both money for the MATHCOUNTS Foundation and the interests of many possible pedophiles but was deemed too disturbing after the Raleigh community’s backlash.
Despite its cancellation in the Raleigh area, the website posts listings of the next locations the race will be held at and urges runners to sign up due to limited space (and limited respect for women, apparently). Former Raleigh police captain Paula O’Neal commented on her issue with the race by stating that the prevalence of rape and violence against females in school and college campuses led to being a factor in her disapproval toward the race. City Council member Wayne Maiorano also expressed disapproval of the event on his Facebook page stating that he was “pleased that this race has been cancelled” because of its “offensive and troubling” message, despite The Raleigh City Council’s previous approval of the event in March.
Although the MATHCOUNTS Foundation, the non-profit organization the Sexy School Girl race has decided to help raise money for, aims toward engaging young teens of all ability to participate and excel in the field of mathematics, partnering up with a not-so-kid-friendly race that further perpetuates harmful stereotypes of underage females, tiny private school uniforms, and a boderline pedophilic attitude toward young girls probably isn’t the best way to spread the love of math to schools that are plagued by misogyny worldwide. If the goal of an organization is to teach young adults to participate in math, taking the participation of active sexism out of the equation would equate to a much more positive experience for young adults to learn from both academically, politically, and socially.
