With Halloweekend rapidly approaching the beautiful city of Madison, it seems appropriate to talk about some what you all will be donning as your costumes. The interwebs are chock full of potential costume ideas and critiques on cultural appropriation and the degradation of women during this glorious holiday. Halloween can be a tricky thing for college-aged women to navigate due to pressures to dress in as few clothes as possible and call it a costume. Of course, many of us fall prey to those sexy wiles at some time or another, cutting off the midriff and pants of a costume and putting the word “slutty” in front of it.
Part of it is fun – almost empowering: there’s something intriguing about being the center of sexual attention for a weekend, to have the “all eyes on you” feeling. Once women get to college and are on their own, Halloween is a symbol of separation from parents, home, high school. Young women dress in sexy costumes to declare their individuality and sexuality (among other things).
But why is it that those slutty costumes are such a major mark of independence in our culture? Why isn’t the female symbol of maturity at Halloween a costume based off of REAL women doing REAL independent, awesome, courageous things?
Halloween has come to be less about the fun and excitement of costumes and candy. It has instead morphed into a procession of patriarchy. Young women dress up in scantily clad costumes (usually) not because they actually want to, but instead because they are told it is what they should do and they have accepted that fate since they were young.
This phenomenon self-perpetuates when women go along with it: women are convinced by cultural cues that they need to wear a sexy costume, companies sell them those costumes, and the vicious cycle continues year after year. Halloween is like the bikini season of autumn: the more skin (and the thinner the body under that skin) the better. Everyone is anxious to see those bodies that have been hidden under sweaters and jeans for the past month. This furthers that sexy = skinny concept, but that’s an entire issue in itself.
Women rarely get to dress up as characters, either. Men can dress up as Dracula, but women can only be a sultry vampire woman. Part of this is because women are under-represented in cinema, writing, and media in general. However, there are many awesome and interesting options to choose from that we just don’t see on the sale racks at Party City. Annie Hall, for example, would be a flippin’ sweet (not to mention warm, comfortable, etc.) costume! But finding that costume would require digging through ten-cent bins at Goodwill while hot, sexy costumes are pre-packaged for the convenience of female shoppers. Arguably, this factor contributes to the phenomenon because the pre-packaged costumes make women think that the majority of other women are buying those costumes too. It’s much easier to accept a pre-made costume as “normal” than it is to create an original costume.
A recent example of pre-packaged goodness is the “Naughty Leopard” costume that was on sale at WalMart this season. Using the term “naughty” for any Halloween costume almost always implies a sexy, risqué version of whatever neutral object the costume company has “naughty-fied.” So this “Naughty Leopard” costume is essentially a sexy kitten costume, we can assume. The catch: it is a CHILDREN’S costume. More specifically, a GIRLS’ CHILDREN’S costume. What are we telling young girls by selling these kinds of options? Arguably, we are saying that girls cannot just dress as a simple leopard. No, no, it has to be a naughty leopard. We are also saying that there are probably lots of other little girls buying the same costume, so it much be okay. By selling and promoting these options, this mentality is normalized in young girls and boys and transfers into adolescence when female teens dress as sexy (fill in the blank).
So this Halloween, we encourage you to get creative! Think of some of your favorite female characters from your favorite book or movie (*cough *cough Khaleesi *cough *cough) and just go for it! Think about why you might have picked that character: is she funny, smart, beautiful, powerful, badass? Whatever it is, rock that shit. If the “slutty” costume is your mantra that’s fine too! No slut shaming here. But please, please, please at least try to be inventive. Halloween should be FUN! So be safe this weekend. Stay warm, don’t die, all that good stuff. And even though we’re way past the acceptable trick-or-treating age, buy yourself a treat at Walgreens or something. The spirit of Halloween must never die!!
Leave any comments below or on our Facebook post. Let us know what you’re being for Halloween and (if you can explain) why you chose to be that.
Campus Women's Center 