How has Bissinger portrayed the impact of gender on the students and athletic culture of Permian High?

The girls at Permian follow gender roles reminiscent of 1950’s America. Almost every girl at Permian High wants to be a Pepette. These are girls who exclusively devote themselves to the football players. Each Pepette is assigned to a specific player. They act as domestic servants for an appointed player by cooking them football themed deserts or making signs for them. If a girl is blessed with a keen intellect, she simply “dumbs down” herself to fit into Permian school culture. Players like Don Billingsley enjoy a bizarre hero status among many girls at Permian; it is a status that affords them everything from getting their books carried to getting paid for sex. The accepted fate for most of the boys after high school is a physically punishing career on the oilrigs. For girls, the future is even bleaker. Like something out of a Jane Austen novel, the best these girls were taught to hope for was to marry from a select lot of boys whose best before date ended after their final day of high school football.