[starbox]
After @RicharsonHS1 tweeted “RHS welcomes @JustinLookadoo for a special assembly on Wednesday,” I decided to look this guy up, and the website I stumbled across left me wondering if the PTA was trying to pull a somewhat cruel (or maybe funny) joke to tick off the students. Though it soon became evident Lookadoo was no joke, I’m convinced they brought this guy in to teach us a little bit about unity and the awesomeness a group of students can display when they get über offended.
Lookadoo.com isn’t the most intriguing website. It reinforces that yes, this guy is a professional public speaker, and no, he has not updated his website since 2008 when frosted tips were cool and NSYNC was blasting from every girls’ MySpace page.
One of the links at the top of the webpage reads “R U Dateable?” Of course, I know that I’m dateable, but just to make sure I met this Lookadoo guy’s dating standard, I clicked the link.
Boy was I in for a treat. The link takes you to a page with “Dateable Rules” that says “dateable girls know how to shut up,” “(dateable guys) keep women covered up,” and “God made guys natural leaders.”
In case you are worried these rules don’t apply to you, and that you might be destined to a life of making sandwiches for your cat instead of you’re hunky husband, you can clarify just how dateable you are by taking the “R U Dateable?” quiz. If you are deemed un-dateable, a message along the lines of “You’ve probably told him everything about yourself so why would he want to see you again? But it’s not too late. Start talking less and listening more” will appear on your screen to boost your confidence – because it’s never too late to shut your trap and listen to your guy drone on about college football.
Mr. Lookadoo is just looking out for us, don’t you think? He wants to make sure teenagers have the tools to make themselves dateable, because date-ability is the key to success in high school. Excited to turn my dating fortunes around, I decided to, along with my team of feminist tweeters, take to social media to express my anticipation for the assembly.
With a preconceived idea of what Lookadoo’s presentation would be like, the assembly could only go one of two ways – canceling The Walking Dead-bad, or Miley’s VMA performance-bad.
Luckily, Lookadoo didn’t mention his beliefs, or his website during his presentation. He didn’t bust out some nude spandex and a foam finger and start dancing provocatively on the props on stage. Instead, he spent the majority of his time attacking women’s ability to drive, their ability to stand up for themselves and their ability to be independent.
“Women, ladies, you are the most evil, horrible, vindictive creatures on this planet,” Lookadoo told us at one point in a sad, pouty voice.
Of course, he’s a funny guy, and who doesn’t laugh at funny guys? Listening to his rant against women, you wouldn’t think a thing he said offended the crowd based on all the laughing and clapping. But if you stayed after, you saw the reaction of a group of girls that had their claws out ready to poke holes in his sexist philosophy.
When one girl asked Lookadoo about his website, he denied that he had anything to do with it, though the dateable guidelines were based on a book he wrote. He also told a Dallas Morning News reporter he had looked at the website once in the five years since it’s been up. You know how people are always saying what you put on the internet will stay with you forever? Yeah, I don’t think Lookadoo kept this in mind.
When another girl asked why he didn’t see guys and girls as equals, he looked at a small junior standing beside him and said she would be seen as equal when she could bench press the guy standing over her.
“Girls control relationships. If you control the girl, the guy will change,” Lookadoo said to one of the girls when she asked why he didn’t address guy’s offenses in relationships.
Trying to control a group of raging females firing off questions and comments like there’s no tomorrow is just about as hard as fending off a zombie apocalypse. After a Twitter war broke out during Lookadoo’s presentation, local news stations decided to join the fuss. The Dallas Morning News, Buzzfeed, Yahoo News, Huffington Post and The Atlantic are just a few of the publications that covered the commotion – I’m surprised Susan B. Anthony didn’t rise from the grave and join the feminist assault.
Whether you agree with Lookadoo’s points or not, he’s made the same presentation thousands of times. But this is the first time a group of students has risen up to show the power of their voices through social media, and across the aisles of an auditorium. I am proud to say that those voices were the voices of my school. Scrolling through my twitter feed, I could feel the feminism oozing through my veins as I read tweet after tweet dissing Lookadoo and radiating girl power.
