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Halloween Costumes and Women
Traditionally people would dress up for Halloween as ghosts, witches and demons in hopes of evading evil spirits, who are said to cross into the world of the living at summer's end. The idea of wearing costumes for Halloween stuck around; although, today these costumes might attract more creeps than they deter.
If you're guessing this post is about highly revealing Halloween costumes for women, you are correct. Nowadays, we can expand our mundane Halloween dress-up options of zombies and pop culture icons to include sexy dirty cop, sexy prisoner, sexy bee, or even sexy gangster bunny costumes. As the names imply, most of these outfits look like a cheap version of Victoria's Secret lingerie, yet they cost the same amount of money. The costume industry was even thoughtful enough to create doggie versions of sexy Halloween getups, so now your pooch also has an opportunity to strut her stuff.
Guys can dress as Batman, Elvis or Freddy Kruger, but I have yet to see a male version of a sexy gangster bunny. If dogs can sex it up a notch, why can't dudes? "Nobody wants to see that," appears to be the most common objection to the idea, but it is a weak argument. While not everyone can get away with wearing a minimum amount of clothes, what is and isn't attractive is still a highly subjective matter of personal taste. Perhaps the underlining concern for men looking too sexy is the fear that one's masculinity might be called into question. How many men would be comfortable going as Dr. Frank-N-Furter (of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame) for Halloween, or being in a same room with a man dressed that way?
Once upon a time, sexual liberation was a big part of the women's movement, but now many can't help but wonder if our sexual emancipation has been turned against us, used as just another tool of oppression. Hyper-sexualizing everything to the nth degree is a trend in our society, but it is unfair to designate women as acceptable eye-candy and let men take the action costumes. Otherwise, Halloween fun turns into another reinforcement of the patriarchal worldview. Women are encouraged to dress provocatively, appealing to mainstream sexual depictions of women, while a man can become an object of derision if his choice of wardrobe crosses outside of heteronormative bounds.
And speaking of hyper-sexualization, what is up with all the tween costumes that are designed to make young girls look like Bratz Dolls? Grown-up women are in control of their sexuality and can decide how risqué they want to dress, but tweens lack the same understanding. Masquerading children as experienced adults is a disturbing practice, and the occasion of Halloween won't make it any less unsettling.
Of course, Halloween costumes aren't the real problem here. Like every other cultural practice, Halloween is a reflection of our society's attitudes and beliefs. So, it's not the otherworldly creatures we have to be concerned about.
"joke" e-mails daily with other men friends and two women friends.
99% of these have pictures of bare-breasted women in diferent states of undress and frankly, I don't see ANYTHING funny...
When I tell him it's not funny and is downright insulting to me, he gets irritated tells me I am crazy and says we just don't have the same sense of humor...
Please anyone, is this really just about a "different" sense of humor..
Adult women have the choice but we need to stop our materialistic society from oversexualizing children. Look at the poor girl who was gangraped at high school while 20+ people watched! I can't help but think that the current objectification of women and little girls was one of the causes...
I'm not saying I agree with women, especially teens or tweens, dressing this way. I certainly wouldn't let my daughter wear a stripper costume. But the fact is we live in a free society, and if there is a demand for something, industry will produce it.
I personally feel there are much more pressing matters to deal with in society than skimpy Halloween costumes.
I think the author of this post covers the "more pressing matters" issue when she writes:
"Of course, Halloween costumes aren't the real problem here. Like every other cultural practice, Halloween is a reflection of our society's attitudes and beliefs."
As a feminist, I'm not just trying to change the laws and the policy. I'm trying to change the culture that influences the people who craft the law and the policy
Or are you simply pushing for women to make the "smarter" choice of wearing more conservative costumes, the choice that just so happens to coincide with your own views?
If that's the case, what makes your viewpoint any more valid than the woman's who wants to dress like a stripper? Do you have some kind of higher capacity for decision making then they do? If you do what kind of evidence do you have to support your superiority in decisiveness?
I have no such notions of "superiority in decisiveness." Nor have I advocated for conservative costumes or said that such an idea would coincide with my viewpoints. Assume much?
The culture I'd like to see is one that doesn't hypersexualize young girls. Where adults have an array of Halloween costume choices: sexual, scary, quirky, and more conventional (and by conventional, I mean the costumes where no one has to ask what you are. Oh, of course you're a firefighter!).
I want a culture where these options are a part of the marketplace. The marketplace is not some fully rational entity that only creates what people wants. It creates what SOMEONE thinks people want. And then people tend to buy from what's among the available options, whether it's exactly what they'd like or not. Then what's out there becomes the "norm," and still more people buy it to fit within the norm. And it largerly starts with what someone thought people would want.
I'd like to see a diversity of opinion (more women and more minorities, for starters) driving that decision-making about what to create.
Thorn, I look foward to honest debate in these forums. Please don't create some strawman or strawwoman to attack. Or perhaps the questions you asked were genuine questions as opposed to baseless assumptions used to advance an argument? If such is the case, I truly apologize for MY assumptions about you.
The fact is, the market place is a rational entity that (for the most part) only creates things people want. Do you honestly think that the vast array of products that we have available to us were all created on the whim of a few CEOs? Companies do market research, test products, surveys. They don't just come up with a random product or service, mass produce it, and just hope that people will buy it.
Admittedly, there are always entrepreneurs that try to run things this way. This is the reason most new businesses fail within their first year.
To illustrate this point, I remember when I first turned 18 and started going to adult Halloween parties. This was back before I ever saw a sexy nurse or sexy school girl costume in a store. I'm sure there were specialty shops and catalogs that sold them, but they didn't flood the market like they do today.
What I did see were some women wearing real lingerie, the kind you find at Victoria's Secret. Over the next few years is when all these "stripper" costumes started appearing.
It seems to me that you don't give your fellow consumers much credit. If there wasn't a market for these kinds of costumes, then they wouldn't sell. I know that if I went into a store to buy a Halloween costume and all they had were butt-less chaps or leather g-strings, I would shop somewhere else or make my own.
It's called finding a "Value Alternative" and that is exactly what prevents your hypothetical situation from happening. If women wanted different kinds of costumes, then a smart business owner would provide them.
As far as "hyper-sexualizing" young girls. If parents allow their children to dress that way, then that is their decision and it is not your responsibility to parent other peoples children. Do I agree with letting a child dress that way? That's a very emphatic No! Do I respect a parent's right to raise their children the way they see fit? Yes!
1. I said: "The marketplace is not some fully rational entity that only creates what people wants." Please note the use of the word "fully." And, frankly, the notion that market research only yields the most desirable products is a bit naive--which I say as someone with a business and marketing background.
2. I said: "The culture I'd like to see is one that doesn't hypersexualize young girls." Nowhere did I say I wanted to police any parent's costuming choices for their children.
Lastly, culture interplays with the market, policy and law. This isn't a matter of discounting people's abilities to thoughfully weigh their options and make their choices. However, cultural biases affect us in ways we don't always pick up on at a conscious level.
I'd also like to add that the intention of posts like this and any dialogue about cultural norms and gender roles are about how living in a patriarchal society affects our choices and perceptions. It's good for feminists to challenge what so many of us have simply come to expect.
This is not about shaming women for their choices or telling them what to do.
We seek to make people think about things differently, to look at them in new ways, to ask themselves questions like: Why are women and girls sexualized to such a great degree and what does that mean for them AND for men and boys?
We hope to change attitudes that contribute to sexism, discrimination, objectification, and so much more. Women are not yet fully equal, and we believe one of the reasons is because they have been viewed through a sexualized lens and thrust into stereotyped roles. We must challenge those limitations, those frameworks that keep us bound. It is an important part of what we do.
I find it a little funny that you defend your position by pointing out a single word that I apparently disregarded, while at the same time adding a few choice words of your own to my argument.
I never said that every product produced is the most desirable, in fact i specified that "for the most part" businesses desire to provide the most desirable products.
@Lisa Bennett, First of all I would like to thank you for not banning me. I have debated on a couple other feminist blogs over the years, and both banned me after one or two posts. As Communications Director I'm sure this is within your authority to do.
I find myself somewhat dumbfounded that feminists still claim will live in a patriarchal society. The president has created a council on Women and Girls which is basically going around to every government agency and making sure that they do more to help women. Our vice president is the very man who wrote the Violence Against Women Act. Not to mention there are more women holding cabinet positions than ever before.
I wonder how much more women-friendly this nation needs to get before finally shedding this label of "patriarchy"
"I wonder how much more women-friendly this nation needs to get before finally shedding this label of 'patriarchy'"
When we stop thinking of "this nation" as a place where the men in power need to be "friendly" to women and "finally" become a country of full participation of the sexes.
When the VAWA isn't needed quite as much.
To start with.
I'm not against sexy costumes, I get that being a genie or Poison Ivy will obviously be sexy. But having costumes for a woman police officer, race car driver, doctor, etc. that are all slutty versions while the male versions look like the real professionals seems dead wrong. I wonder how female police officers and service members feel about this.
And I'm totally with Jenni, we still have a large population of people who wouldn't vote for Hillary simply because they can't fathom a woman running the country. We're still in a patriarchal society because we haven't achieved equality.
On the other hand, women are more likely to strive for things that fulfill them personally. Jobs that make them happy, social or political statuses that coincide with their personal morals rather than the one with the most authority.
Personally, I'm with women on this one, I would much rather feel more fulfilled than more powerful.
I don't think of this nation as a place where men in power need to be friendly to women. Apparently you do. In my experience, women have just as many rights and opportunities as men do, in some ways they have more rights (family law, reproductive rights, and protection from domestic violence for example).
It seems to me that feminists want Equality of Outcome, not Equality of Opportunity. But you can't force someone to work in a certain job or run for an office if they don't want to.
@dawn, What basis do you have for this claim of people not voting for Hillary because she's a woman? I know plenty of people that wouldn't and didn't vote for her, myself included, and none of them have brought up what's between her legs or her second X chromosome.
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