Hey, girls of Corona del Mar High: Don’t abet the ‘prom draft!’

Dear Girls of Corona del Mar High School,

This week, your Newport Beach school found itself in the news thanks to a peculiar tradition, one that seems more suited to a time far removed from 2014: the “prom draft.”

Though the details are sketchy, your prom draft is not a sanctioned school activity. It involves boys picking lottery numbers that position them to pick prom dates.

You know who the draftees are, girls: you.

This year, according to the Orange County Register, which broke the story, a junior boy paid a reported $140 in order to secure a higher draft pick. It’s unclear who got the money, girls, but I’m kind of doubting this was a charity fundraiser. “Many drafters on the prowl tomorrow for #freeagents so dress nice ladies,” tweeted one participant, according to the Register.

My colleague Adolfo Flores spoke to a former administrator of your school who told him Corona del Mar High l is rife with issues of entitlement among certain students. “The culture in Newport Beach is ridiculous,” she said, “and CDM personifies it.”

Well, girls, you probably already knew that.

As the media makes mincemeat out of your school, though, please allow those of us who have been out of high school for quite some time to explain why your participation in this activity is not in your best interest, the best interest of your little sisters or the best interest of your unborn daughters.

You are being objectified. Ranked for your beauty, not for your brains.

Yes, yes, we know. Everyone does that all the time in our culture. But that doesn’t make it OK. The neo-neanderthals of your school are foisting their caveman values on you. What is worse: You are going along with it.

Get some self-respect, young ladies.

I’m not saying you need to go full “Lysistrata,” but you do need to stop acting like you’re in the steno pool waiting for Don Draper to ask you out.

This is 2014, not 1965.

Women don’t just sit around waiting for the phone to ring anymore. We make things happen for ourselves.

A few examples: The world’s most loathed terrorist, Osama bin Laden, was killed on the watch of a female secretary of state. That same woman has a good shot at becoming our first female president. A woman is chief executive of Facebook. Women have entree into every male-dominated profession now -- they are astronauts, soldiers, chief technology officers. They don’t get there by batting their eyelashes and hoping they get picked.

Perhaps you have read about President Obama’s new initiative to combat sexual assault on college campuses. You probably know that male entitlement is an important aspect of this enduring problem.

But do you really understand what that means?

If you did, I think you would decline to participate in the prom draft, because you are helping develop the gender entitlement of the boys who are picking -- or not picking -- you as their prom dates. You are allowing them to put you in a subordinate position, and I don’t even have to know you to know that you are better than that.

If you want to go to prom and you don’t have a boyfriend (or a girlfriend), just ask someone! Don’t sit around waiting to be rated like a piece of meat.

Do you know about the concept of human agency? Agency refers to your ability to make your own decisions, to control your own fate. Babies have little agency. Slaves have little agency.

You, young women of Corona del Mar High School, have agency.

So don’t hand it over to anyone -- not for a dance, or for anything else.

Be in charge of your own fate. Stand up for yourself and for your sisters. Help the boys understand how this obnoxious tradition encourages male entitlement.

Just say no to the “prom draft.”

And don’t forget to have fun at the dance.