I'm not really a fan of dances myself, but I am aware of the phenomenon of the Sadie Hawkins dance. It's based on the idea that traditionally, at high schools and colleges mainly, boys are supposed to ask girls out to dances. Sadie Hawkins dances flip that around and require that girls ask boys to the dance. This was a thing when I was in college a few years ago, and a cursory Google search shows that it seems to still be a thing. People also still don't seem to know where it came from, though, or who Sadie Hawkins was.

Sadie Hawkins wasn't a real person, but a character that appeared in the comic strip Li'l Abner, by Al Capp. On an unspecified day in mid-November, the town where Abner lived, Dogpatch, would have Sadie Hawkins Day to commemorate her. It was said by the residents of Dogpatch that when the town was small, the mayor Hekzebiah Hawkins instituted the Sadie Hawkins Day race in order to help his daughter catch a husband. She was known as "the homeliest gal in all them hills," and had gotten to age 35 with nary a suitor. The race was instituted, all the eligible bachelors of Dogpatch were called out, and she had to chase them until she could catch one. In Dogpatch, the day was commemorated each year with a similar race, with all the young ladies of Dogpatch chasing the young men, Abner among them.

The story originally ran starting on November 15th, 1937, and was so popular that Capp ran a Sadie Hawkins strip each year. It was never specified which day was Sadie Hawkins Day, but it was always some day in November, a number of days after November 9th.

Culturally, the idea of a Sadie Hawkins race didn't catch on, but it didn't take too long for Sadie Hawkins dances to start becoming popular in colleges and high schools. The dances don't always coincide with Sadie Hawkins Day, mainly because there has been some confusion about which day that is. There is a different tradition which says that on Leap Day, February 29th, women are "allowed" to ask men to marry them, or on dates, or to dances, or whatever. The Sadie Hawkins tradition has grown together with the Leap Day tradition, and many people now call February 29th Sadie Hawkins Day. This is, however, incorrect. They are two different traditions, and Sadie Hawkins Day should be some day in mid-November.

Now, these days it seems kind of odd to have a holiday commemorating when women get to ask men out, given that it's now very common for that to happen anyway. Still, it's an interesting piece of comic strip history that amazingly made its way into the wider culture.

For more info:

Sadie Hawkins Day at Wikipedia

Sadie Hawkins Day, the animated version on YouTube