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Parents outraged at high school ‘predator and prey day’ where guys dress like hunters and girls like animals

In a recent move so mindblowingly sexist it's hard to believe it happened at all, a high school in Minnesota announced they would hold a "Prey and Predator Day", in which "guys dress in their camouflage and other hunting apparel while girls will show off their animal print." Right. Because men like to hunt down women like wild animals — just like in nature!

The themed dress-up day was the brainchild of the Crookston High School student council, and got the green light from the school's principal, reports Jezebel. After the predictable parental and community backlash to the heinous idea, the name was changed to "Camo Day."

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Still, the school's superintendent, Chris Bates, didn't seem to find the original idea too problematic.

"In hindsight and looking at it from a different light, a better decision should have been made. People might see it in a different way than it was intended. The change is good," Bates tells the Grand Forks Herald.

"I would guess that the kids did not see it as having the potential to be demeaning and undermining."

Regardless of what the kids thought, most people seemed more concerned with the adults who okayed the idea.

Ileanna Noyes was among the outraged. As the relative of a sexual assault victim and the brother of a man convicted of kidnapping and murder, Noyes tells the Herald she's been through both sides, and voiced disbelief at the administration's poor judgement.

"Really, in this day and age, you think it's okay to have the mentality of the men as predators and the women as pretty prey? And that's adults doing this? How absurd. How appalling."

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Crookston is not the only American high school with bad dress-up day ideas.

Canyon High School in Orange County, California was forced to scrap their "Señores and Señoritas Day" tradition last month, after students and parents complained it was demeaning to Latino culture. Students wore sombreros, fake moustaches, and gang colours, as others donned border police uniforms. One girl came as a pregnant woman pushing a stroller.

Here in Canada, there have been no mainstream reports of high school dress-up days gone awry -- perhaps we just keep our administrators on a tighter leash then south of the border.