I always wondered where the name Sadie Hawkins came from 'Said Hawkins Dance' where girls asked guys out. Turns out it is from a comic strip, Al Capp's Li'l Abner. Sadie Hawkins Day was a day-long event in the comic strip named after Sadie Hawkins--the daughter of one of Dogpatch's earliest settlers, Hekzebiah Hawkins, "the homeliest gal in all them hills."
When she reached the age of 35, still single, her father in desperation called together the eligible bachelors of Dogpatch and declared that day to be Sadie Hawkins Day and she had to catch a husband from all the running ones. So because of that, the unmarried women of Dogpatch pursued the single men every year on that day. If a woman caught a man and dragged him back to the starting line by sundown, he had to marry her.
Abilene Christian University celebrates a Sadie Hawkins Week, rather than only one day. However, there is no associated dance, in light of the school's traditional policy prohibiting social dancing. The dances take place in High School especially in the Midwest and South during November, or in some places January or February.
