Sadie Hawkins Day is an American folk event and pseudo-holiday originated by Al Capp's hillbilly comic strip Li'l Abner (1934–1977).

The annual comic strip storyline inspired real-world Sadie Hawkins events, the premise of which is that women ask men for a date or dancing.

She grew frantic waiting for suitors until she reached age 35 and was still a spinster, and her father was worried about her living at home for the rest of her life.

The storyline sometimes also includes the Sadie Hawkins Eve Dance which is held on the previous evening, when the young women wear hobnailed boots and stomp on their partners' feet, to make the bachelors run slower during the event.

[4] Inspired by Capp's satiric race in which eligible women chase down terrified bachelors for the purposes of wedlock, the event reverses the cultural norms of men as the romantic pursuers.