โHalloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.โย These words, spoken by the ever so quotable Mean Girls franchise, often act as the main logic behind costume selection each Halloween season.
And as much as I support women dressing however they wish, whenever they wish, regardless of the opinions of others, I have a major issue with Halloween wardrobes.
No, this has nothing to do with women dressing provocatively on the holiday.ย Hell, I donโt care if you want to walk around with nothing but tassels on your lady-parts.
Like I said before, if a girl wants to dress in a particular way I am in no position to judge how many articles of clothing that may or may not include.
This issue comes from the sad, sad selection that we get for Halloween and in case you havenโt realized, we arenโt given a lot.
Costume stores provide women with limited options, essentially sexualizing every mundane, simple idea. If you find yourself in a costume store, take a good look at what your pre-packed choices are: you can either be a sexy animal, a sexy occupation, a sexy character, sexy athlete, a sexy profession, a sex symbol, or sex, sex, sex, sex, oh, and more sex.
I look to other costumes, the hilarious ones that will certainly be a crowd favourite and receive multiple compliments at a party. I see costumes showing life-sized beer pong tables, whoopee cushions, giant genitalia and popular culture references. But what I think is especially noteworthy about these costumes is that these awesome costumes are being marketed and targeted only towards men.
I do realize that women can very well purchase these costumes for themselves, and I wholeheartedly encourage a girl to go as a giant beer pong table this year for Halloween (because letโs face it that would awesome).
But, if you look at whose modeling the โbeer pong tableโ and โwhoopee cushionโ costumes, thatโs usually an indicator of who the costume was intended for.
It deeply concerns me that in 2013 women continue to be hypersexualized in something thatโs supposed to be a fun and silly. Not every woman wants to be a sex object for Halloween, nor needs to be.
Iโm not asking for a boycott, judgment, or anger towards the retailer. And Iโm especially not saying letโs bash the women who choose to wear promiscuous costumes. Iโm just asking for the option not to be that.
Why donโt we ever see creative, humorous, or witty costumes tailored towards women in costumes stores? If we want this, we must make our costumes ourselves, which can often be extremely time consuming and costly.
I like to be funny and I want my Halloween costumes to reflect that.
Oh, and letโs not even get started on the atrocious prices that youโre paying for synthetic fabrics, frail materials, and fowl-smelling โpleatherโ.
In previous years I have admittedly coughed up $60 or more for a boring โfairy woodsโ costume that I wore once and felt extremely uncomfortable the entire time.ย Thatโs a costly expenditure for a last-minute decision. And if Iโm going to be investing in something I at least want to leave the evening with a few compliments in my ears.
But, hey, this rant isnโt necessarily about me.
This is about the $6 billion Halloween industry in North America that starts off being just about candy and turns into something thatโs extremely superficial and shallow.
This is about how young girls feel obligated to join in this ridiculous phenomenon once high school hits; for the girls who feel genuinely uncomfortable dressing โdownโ each year; for the girls who have come to dread the holiday because their costume options are not reflective of their interests.
Women are smart. Women are funny. Women are creative. We are more than our bodies and our sexuality and itโs about damn time that we are given the opportunity to express this.
So, this Halloween Iโll be looking out for those women who are something unique, different, hilarious or clever. If I find you, Iโll be sure to buy you a big โthank youโ shot.
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