October 27, 2010 • 20 mins
These days, "sexy" female costumes for women are all the rage, but has this trend gone too far? And is it demeaning to women or empowering? In this Halloween-themed episode, Molly and Cristen discuss the gender implications of the "sexy" costume craze.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told
you from House top Works dot com. Hi, and welcome
to the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristin. Kristin.
Today is our Halloween episode. And you know we've already
(00:23):
gotten one costume from a listener. Our listener Bailey wrote
us after the Guerrilla Girls podcast and said she was
going to be free to call o, which I think
is pretty cool. That's a good one. That's a good one.
I think it'd be cool to be a gorilla girl
for Halloween. Yeah, you could just wear a gorilla monce.
It would be I think, a lot of explaining to people,
you know, not explaining, Molly, educating, educating, that's true. What
(00:44):
are you gonna be for Halloy? I'm going to be
President taft. I will be rolled around all night in
a bathtub and it'll be great. It sounds like you
get to use a lot of pillows for that costume,
which I think would be fun because then we just
get tired at a party. I'm just gonna call up Amy, said,
let her ask her if I can borrow her fat
suit nice, and then I'm going to get Yeah, you know,
(01:06):
call up a buddy with a with a monocle. Yes,
my my friend Jim who wears a monocle everywhere and
a top hat and a top hat. Yes, monocle Jim,
That's what I call him. Now. I think that the
inevitable question for a lady around Halloween time is if
you said to me I'm going to be president Taft,
I'd make a joke and be like, how are you
gonna be sexy president Taft? Yeah? Is there any unsexy
(01:29):
president Taft? Is what I would respond, Molly. And that's
because the topic of today's podcasts related to Halloween, as
requested on Facebook, is sexy and racy Halloween costumes for women?
Why are women always expected to wear a sexy costume? Yeah?
And we gotta go ahead and just throwout this term
because even the New York Times has used this slut aween,
(01:54):
And that's the only time we're gonna say it. Yeah,
because Molly and I are big fans of the words slot.
But it comes up a lot around Halloween because if
you go into a costume shop or go online and
you look at women's costumes, we all know this. This
is an old, old media story. We're talking about folks
everyone knows about you know, Oh, do you want to
be sexy pirate, sexy nurse, sexy farmer, sexy astronaut, everything
(02:19):
is sexy? Can I can we go through a few
of the of the costumes because it's just they're so funny,
Like I just I do think that there's an element
of humor and some of these are so are so
ridiculous because it's such a stretch. Sexy SpongeBob. Oh yeah,
sexy Nemo, Sexy Nemo. Now, listen, people, Nemo is a
clownfish and he changes sex biological sex, uh frequently. That
(02:43):
was not exploring the Disney movie, but I've done a
little research on clownfish. So just throughout that factory. If
you're gonna be sexy Nemo, all right, this is my favorite, Kristen.
And if we decided to do you know, a duo costume,
I kind of want you to be the sexy Michelangelo
to my sexy Leonard. That's right. There are sexy teenage
mutant ninja turtle costumes. Oh um, racy robin Hood. Yeah,
(03:10):
and you know, you know what I like about this
list of sexy costumes is these are all male characters too,
that's true. Well, here's another thing that kind of struck me,
Christian is there's a lot of sexy police officers, sexy firefighters, um,
sexy soldiers, and I think that these are professions that
we typically think of as male dominating. Yeah, when it
comes to Halloween, were perfectly fine having women be soldiers.
(03:32):
We can't have them be soldiers the rest of the year.
We still won't let them serve an active duty. But
if they're willing to be sexy when they're soldiers, maybe, yeah,
maybe if they started wearing sexy or uniforms. Hey, I think,
I think I just don't want to go find Yeah,
I want you at your congress person with that. Um,
there are some there are some female ones too, and
even the most unsexy females can be made into uh
(03:55):
to sexy Hallowen costumes. Here sexy Wednesday Adams. Okay, we
see Adam once Adams. I don't think was ever going
for Obviously, French maid. That's a big one. Pirate Wench.
Pirate Wench very common. So um oll, here's one sexy
Amelia Earhart oh Man, really yes, she was. I saw
(04:17):
the costumes she's wearing just kind of like booty shorts
and thigh high boots and then just like a bra
Aviators style, and the got goals. Obviously that makes me
kind of said, well, it's kind of funny, just because
I think at the end of this costume, we're going
to try and think of some more women friendly, empowering costumes,
and I think Amelia Earhart is one that a lot
of people would have thrown out. But someone's are sexied
(04:40):
her up. Yeah, well, everything at this point basically has
been sexied up. And by now it's established fact that
Halloween is dominated by the sexy parade of costumes, granted,
and it sets the blogs all a flutter. Everyone's got
to weigh in on this, this concept of whether it's
(05:00):
good for women, bad for women, good for girls, bad
for girls. And you know, there's a line of mean
girls where she goes, um, Halloween is the one night
we can dress up as a slut and no other
girls can say anything about it. You can't be judged
for because it's Halloween. And that's just not true anymore,
because it seems like everyone has some sort of opinion
on it. You have sites like Maxim saying, yeah, this
(05:20):
is awesome. I love this Halloween every day, and then
you have sites like Jezebel saying, oh mg, ladies, what
are we doing? Even though as well, let's say it
way cool or that, but you know, it's like, it's
still kind of u Catch twenty two for women because yeah,
I would I would say that mean girls does have
(05:42):
it right, because it is at this point pretty accepted
for women to bear all on Halloween. But it still comes,
I think, with some judgment. But my big question is
when we were talking about doing this podcast, was is
there some way to figure out when all of this
came about? When did we just start cutting the middrifts
out of costumes and parading around in booty shorts? I mean,
(06:05):
because it's cold on Halloween. My goal, by the way,
when I think of Halloween costumes is not really appearance
so much as warmth, which is which is why taft
is an excellent join, which is what have you ever
worn a fat suit? They are warm? It would be
very handy for your trick or treating. Well. There was
a two thousand six articles in the New York Times
(06:25):
and one lady who deals in costumes. Her theory as
to why we why we have this sexy market is
because of baby boomers. That you know, Halloween us to
be very much this homemade holiday for children, and all
they did was trick or treat and that was that
was it for Halloween. You waited for the Great Pumpkin
if you were in a Charlie Bown Brown Cat cartoon.
But that's it. But she claims that as these baby
(06:46):
boomers grew up, they did not want to let go
of Halloween and it became a time to throw parties
for adults and it became less about kids. And you know,
I don't know if I agree with that, but that's one.
That's one theory. Yeah, I think that Halloween has definitely
become an adult holiday. Of course, we love to see
the little kitties parading around in their adorable costumes, and
then we want them to go to bed. But we
(07:06):
want them to go to bed so we can drink
some adult beverages. We can drink spike cider and um
and eat candy. And so is that okay? Are you kidding?
Probably not? If you're wearing skin revealing costume, even better,
I say, But but I still like the candy part
of Halloween. Now, of course, in true stuff Mom Never
told You Style, we did find a scholarly article on
(07:31):
gender and Halloween costumes people, And I believe she writes
in the intro that this is the only study she
knows of that is about gender and Halloween costumes. The
title of said paper is the Pink Dragon is female
Halloween costumes and gender markers. And the reason that this comes,
the reason this is gonna be relevance because you know,
(07:52):
it's one thing. I think if adult women want to
choose to wear something that's revealing, you know that sort of.
I think the essence of feminism is you can choose
you want to do with your body. If you want
to be a sexy firefighter, do it. If you want
to be a fully clothed firefighter, do it. That's that's
probably not the issue. And there are a lot of
women who who enjoy just like that nightive exhibitionism. Sure,
(08:14):
you don't normally wear sexy, you know, firefighter outfits the
rest of the year, So if you're really into that,
do it. And also, I will say the one thing,
if you you know, if you choose to wear a
scandalous Halloween costume, you might be able to get more
of a past because you're surrounded by people and scandalous
Halloween costumes, so it's not like you're just gonna be
(08:34):
standing out in the crowd. So it is a nice
time for people who want to explore that side of themselves.
Some flesh, show us some flesh. So there you'll find
just as many rationales like that on the Internet as
you'll find the oh my gosh, what is what is
feminism done to us? But I think it gets more
troubling when you look at what the little children are doing.
Because the Washington Post had this article that basically followed
(08:55):
around eleven year olds and their moms through a party
city and they could not find anything that was not
sexied up for a little eleven year old to wear. Yeah,
and specifically eleven year old girls, because the boys are
gonna be superheroes, gonna Spiderman, they're going to be the
fully clothed firefighter, they're gonna be power Rangers if those
(09:16):
are still cool. Yeah, I was gonna say, I think
you're now you're naming costumes, but I'm dating myself and
uh today though, for girls, the whole kind of slut
oween idea has trickled down to the kid's market, and
that's I think that's what really bothers people. Yeah, I
think you can't get like a really cool like Eminem
(09:36):
costume when you're eleven. I think there's something wrong with
em sexy Cat. But that and that was the point
of this Washington Post article where all of these horrified
parents following their daughters around who wanted to be French
Mate and sexy bo Pete. But even to be like
a rock star you had to buy like a bare
middriff outfit and like this by high Boots. I mean
(09:58):
it's it's just every costume that could just be cool
becomes sexy. And that's why we're going to turn to
this paper. The Pink Dragon is Female by eighty Nelson
because she argues that we are the ones setting our
kids up for this. Yeah, and she claims that this
has really been we've kind of been leading up to
this point because of gender markers in children's Halloween costumes.
(10:20):
So get ready to look at every children's Halloween costume
with a with a just a disgusted look, because what
she does is she looks at four sixty nine children's
Halloween costumes. Sounds kind of fun. I would have been
in this study. We always have about the studies you
wouldn't do, I do this one, do this one. So
she looks at all these Halloween costumes and she basically
identifies them as aim towards girls based on whether there's
(10:43):
a girl in the picture, the costume is pink or
another traditional girl color, or whether it is you know,
just like a dress. It's obviously aimed for girls. She
does the same for what the ones that are aimed
at the boys, and then she does gender neutral and
gender neutral. She kind of identifies as you can't see
the kids shoes or if I mean you can, but
it's not like high heels or ballet flats, or there's
(11:05):
a picture of both a boy and a girl wearing
the costume. Things like food that can't be turned into
a cookie, gender Pepperoni pizza. She names the Pepperoni pizza
costume like four times in this paper, and I am
on the lookout for that costume. But as you might guess,
no gender neutral costumes really exist. Very few. Yeah. Out
(11:25):
of the giant pool of costumes, she found hundred masculine costumes,
two three, feminine costumes, not only forty one gender neutral costumes.
And I think it's important to point out that these
are not just also not just like the packages of
costume you can just buy, ready, mate, she just looks
at patterns at craft store, So you would think that those,
you know, I would think they'd be a little bit
(11:47):
more just sort of neutral, Like here's a eminem you
can make, but I mean it shows on the pattern
EXMP for example, the girl wearing the green eminem who's feminine,
and the commercials and the boys wearing like the red
and yellow at and ms, which are male in the commercial. Sure,
because a little boy might not be too jazzed about
the prospect of his mom or dad making a costume
(12:08):
with a little girl on the pattern. Right, So even
in just you know, the ones you make yourself that
you can put your own stamp on, those are also
very commonly recognized by the gender they're meant for. Nelson
then classifies these costumes in terms of whether it's a
hero of villain or a fool, because obviously a lot
(12:29):
of kids costumes are superheroes, evil witches, things like that,
And she makes the point that a lot of the descriptors.
For the boys costumes, both hero and villain are powerful words.
You know, your strong men's superhero king, whereas the girl's
(12:49):
costumes are usually described with more diminutive adjectives or almost
erotic adjectives. Yeah, a beautiful bride, Yes, lovely witch. Even
the witches have to be lovely, Yeah, pretty little witch, cute, cuddly, bewitched,
little skull girl, midnight madness, you know, like, yeah, you
(13:10):
you have this little kid who wants to be a
skull girl, but you're a little school girl girl, whereas
obviously I have a guy. If a little boy wants
to be skullboy, uh, you know, it's going to be
like wicked skull boy, scary skullboy. So you know. Nelson
makes this argument that from the time kids are toddlers.
(13:31):
Toddlers is when she starts seeing these patterns emerged. Infant
costumes are pretty gender neutral, but by the time kids
are toddlers, that's when they start getting these descriptions of
um descriptions attached to their costumes, which put them in
these boxes pretty early on. And she says, you know,
despite the fact that she found for more feminine costumes,
there are fewer types of feminine costumes than there are
(13:54):
male costumes. The men, you know, just goes on and
on forever in terms of monsters and superheroes, ups and
clowns and animals, whereas I mean, they're pretty much five
groups for girls. Princess, beauty, queen, bride, cheerleader, dancer. Yeah,
that's it. So she says pretty early on, we're teaching
women and little girls that Halloween is about looking beautiful
(14:17):
and looking the way a stereotypical every single you know,
gender norm attached to a woman looks. And so Nelson's
theory about this whole idea of adult sexy costumes is
that it starts with the kids, and it's also partially
the Halloween industries fault and our I guess our fault
(14:38):
for buying them, because as all the costume makers said,
Adamant leaves like, there are biggest selling. Yeah, they're the
most popular. That's the thing we're gonna you know, a
lot of a lot of us will disparage this slew
of sexy costumes and how impossible it can be to find,
not find an unsexy costume if you're a woman. But
(14:58):
they're putting all of them out there because they sell. Yeah,
we're buying them. Someone's buying them. Someone's buying them. So
I guess the question is, is it really a bad
thing if all of if so many women are dressing
up in sexy costumes. I mean, I want to hear
from listeners male and female on on this issue, because
I'm honestly a little bit torn. You know, my knee
(15:20):
jerk feminist reaction is cover up. Can we please get
some more Susan b. Anthony's out here, somebody for dance.
I'm gonna be a sexy suffraget, Kristen a sexy suffraget. Yeah,
or perhaps maybe I will, you know, be a sexy cop.
And yet it would be an ironic sexy cop. That's
(15:40):
what they're on. The feminine mystique in my tool belt.
And so the New York Times argues is that you
can do it with some sort of camp or humor,
that that up up ends all these gender stereotypes. But
I don't think you want to be the person at
the Halloween party going around saying yeah, this is ironic.
Is totally ironic. But there was a blog that we
found say sing that we need to stop disparaging, you know,
(16:04):
like I said, all these sexy female costumes, And she
points to a lot of the feminist blogs that every
every year around this time put up their photo galleries
of horror of all of these terrible, demeaning women's costumes.
But she says, you know what, in terms of sex
positive feminism, we should own this holiday to yeah, show
(16:27):
it off if we want to show it off. What's
wrong with that? So that's what we want your feedback on.
The second thing, as promise, we're gonna end with some
ideas that have been on the internet for feminists costumes. Yeah,
and also, I don't think you're getting out of this
episode scott free without sharing your costume idea. I'm not
sure yet. I really do kind of like the sexy
suffrag jet idea, right, can't can't that be ironic? If
(16:49):
I go around and get fun facts about how women
got the vote? Or if you can't think of anything,
you can help me by pushing around my bathtub on wheels,
that'd be fine. I could be your vice president. Um,
hear a few things this This first list is from Animator,
who writes for the St. Louis Examiner. Her ideas are
Rosie the Riveter, Wonder Woman, which can be kind of
(17:09):
sex step unfortunately, Um, Cleopatra joan of arc familiar air Heart,
which unfortunately know it can be sexed up. Um, how
about a little more current. How about you know Justice
Kagan carry around a baseball bat or softball bat. Yeah,
I mean that's I think one of her most identified
biable features. Yeah, I think so do Mayor Kagan judicial rope.
(17:32):
There we don't. Don't try and be a sexy Supreme
Court judge. I just think there's so much wrong with that. Um.
She throws out octo mom. So you could do some
pop culture gals. I've seen a few funny octave moms
in Halloween's Pass. I think that's a little I think
that's a little up. You played out two thousand nine,
if you ask me, Carmen san Diego, I've seen some
(17:53):
good Carmen san Diego as an excellent, pretty classic. Um.
And then we have another list, Gloria Steinham. And then
if you do want to be sexy, you can be
Glorious stein And when she went undercover at Playboy, see
there we go. So if you're gonna be a Playboy bunny,
please be the glorious skin Ellen Ripley from Alien that
would be fun, empowering Jim and the Holograms. I've wanted
(18:14):
to be Jim for a long time. So those are
a few of the ideas out there on the internet
for feminist costumes. We'd love to hear yours or just
hear about the cool, funny, uh spooky things you're gonna
be for Halloween. And the email address to send all
that too, and pictures if you feel like it, Mom
stuff at have stuff works dot com. And let's read
a few emails. I have one from the Adra and
(18:39):
this is from the boy Why boys don't play the
harp of the podcast so gender musical instruments, And this
one caught my eye Kristen because the subject line was
called no farts in the flute section? WHOA, She writes.
Our school band was huge in high school. We had
three separate bands, with the smallest being maybe fifty and
the largest easily one hundred. In the four years I
was there, there was always at least all gender diversity,
(19:01):
a boy or two in the flute and clarinet section,
a couple of girls in the trombone section, and lots
of girls scattered throughout the percussion of brass. I don't
think there was a lot of overt prejudice against students
playing opposite gendered instruments, but there were a few jokes
squaring around because about the boys being effeminate. I honestly
think it's a little more difficult for the girls, though,
if only because they were stuck sitting next to boys who,
in high school are so immature and annoying. It took
(19:23):
a certain kind of girl to sit surrounded by guys
and their guy humor for what could be hours at
a time. I liked hanging out with them, but I
was always happy to go back to my section. You
can only handle so many pans, jokes and spitballs. Well.
If you have thoughts to share with us, you can
email us at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can also share it on Facebook. You can follow
(19:43):
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Mom Never Told You, and you can find it at
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(20:09):
you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told
you from House top Works dot com. Hi, and welcome
to the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristin. Kristin.
Today is our Halloween episode. And you know we've already
(00:23):
gotten one costume from a listener. Our listener Bailey wrote
us after the Guerrilla Girls podcast and said she was
going to be free to call o, which I think
is pretty cool. That's a good one. That's a good one.
I think it'd be cool to be a gorilla girl
for Halloween. Yeah, you could just wear a gorilla monce.
It would be I think, a lot of explaining to people,
you know, not explaining, Molly, educating, educating, that's true. What
(00:44):
are you gonna be for Halloy? I'm going to be
President taft. I will be rolled around all night in
a bathtub and it'll be great. It sounds like you
get to use a lot of pillows for that costume,
which I think would be fun because then we just
get tired at a party. I'm just gonna call up Amy, said,
let her ask her if I can borrow her fat
suit nice, and then I'm going to get Yeah, you know,
(01:06):
call up a buddy with a with a monocle. Yes,
my my friend Jim who wears a monocle everywhere and
a top hat and a top hat. Yes, monocle Jim,
That's what I call him. Now. I think that the
inevitable question for a lady around Halloween time is if
you said to me I'm going to be president Taft,
I'd make a joke and be like, how are you
gonna be sexy president Taft? Yeah? Is there any unsexy
(01:29):
president Taft? Is what I would respond, Molly. And that's
because the topic of today's podcasts related to Halloween, as
requested on Facebook, is sexy and racy Halloween costumes for women?
Why are women always expected to wear a sexy costume? Yeah?
And we gotta go ahead and just throwout this term
because even the New York Times has used this slut aween,
(01:54):
And that's the only time we're gonna say it. Yeah,
because Molly and I are big fans of the words slot.
But it comes up a lot around Halloween because if
you go into a costume shop or go online and
you look at women's costumes, we all know this. This
is an old, old media story. We're talking about folks
everyone knows about you know, Oh, do you want to
be sexy pirate, sexy nurse, sexy farmer, sexy astronaut, everything
(02:19):
is sexy? Can I can we go through a few
of the of the costumes because it's just they're so funny,
Like I just I do think that there's an element
of humor and some of these are so are so
ridiculous because it's such a stretch. Sexy SpongeBob. Oh yeah,
sexy Nemo, Sexy Nemo. Now, listen, people, Nemo is a
clownfish and he changes sex biological sex, uh frequently. That
(02:43):
was not exploring the Disney movie, but I've done a
little research on clownfish. So just throughout that factory. If
you're gonna be sexy Nemo, all right, this is my favorite, Kristen.
And if we decided to do you know, a duo costume,
I kind of want you to be the sexy Michelangelo
to my sexy Leonard. That's right. There are sexy teenage
mutant ninja turtle costumes. Oh um, racy robin Hood. Yeah,
(03:10):
and you know, you know what I like about this
list of sexy costumes is these are all male characters too,
that's true. Well, here's another thing that kind of struck me,
Christian is there's a lot of sexy police officers, sexy firefighters, um,
sexy soldiers, and I think that these are professions that
we typically think of as male dominating. Yeah, when it
comes to Halloween, were perfectly fine having women be soldiers.
(03:32):
We can't have them be soldiers the rest of the year.
We still won't let them serve an active duty. But
if they're willing to be sexy when they're soldiers, maybe, yeah,
maybe if they started wearing sexy or uniforms. Hey, I think,
I think I just don't want to go find Yeah,
I want you at your congress person with that. Um,
there are some there are some female ones too, and
even the most unsexy females can be made into uh
(03:55):
to sexy Hallowen costumes. Here sexy Wednesday Adams. Okay, we
see Adam once Adams. I don't think was ever going
for Obviously, French maid. That's a big one. Pirate Wench.
Pirate Wench very common. So um oll, here's one sexy
Amelia Earhart oh Man, really yes, she was. I saw
(04:17):
the costumes she's wearing just kind of like booty shorts
and thigh high boots and then just like a bra
Aviators style, and the got goals. Obviously that makes me
kind of said, well, it's kind of funny, just because
I think at the end of this costume, we're going
to try and think of some more women friendly, empowering costumes,
and I think Amelia Earhart is one that a lot
of people would have thrown out. But someone's are sexied
(04:40):
her up. Yeah, well, everything at this point basically has
been sexied up. And by now it's established fact that
Halloween is dominated by the sexy parade of costumes, granted,
and it sets the blogs all a flutter. Everyone's got
to weigh in on this, this concept of whether it's
(05:00):
good for women, bad for women, good for girls, bad
for girls. And you know, there's a line of mean
girls where she goes, um, Halloween is the one night
we can dress up as a slut and no other
girls can say anything about it. You can't be judged
for because it's Halloween. And that's just not true anymore,
because it seems like everyone has some sort of opinion
on it. You have sites like Maxim saying, yeah, this
(05:20):
is awesome. I love this Halloween every day, and then
you have sites like Jezebel saying, oh mg, ladies, what
are we doing? Even though as well, let's say it
way cool or that, but you know, it's like, it's
still kind of u Catch twenty two for women because yeah,
I would I would say that mean girls does have
(05:42):
it right, because it is at this point pretty accepted
for women to bear all on Halloween. But it still comes,
I think, with some judgment. But my big question is
when we were talking about doing this podcast, was is
there some way to figure out when all of this
came about? When did we just start cutting the middrifts
out of costumes and parading around in booty shorts? I mean,
(06:05):
because it's cold on Halloween. My goal, by the way,
when I think of Halloween costumes is not really appearance
so much as warmth, which is which is why taft
is an excellent join, which is what have you ever
worn a fat suit? They are warm? It would be
very handy for your trick or treating. Well. There was
a two thousand six articles in the New York Times
(06:25):
and one lady who deals in costumes. Her theory as
to why we why we have this sexy market is
because of baby boomers. That you know, Halloween us to
be very much this homemade holiday for children, and all
they did was trick or treat and that was that
was it for Halloween. You waited for the Great Pumpkin
if you were in a Charlie Bown Brown Cat cartoon.
But that's it. But she claims that as these baby
(06:46):
boomers grew up, they did not want to let go
of Halloween and it became a time to throw parties
for adults and it became less about kids. And you know,
I don't know if I agree with that, but that's one.
That's one theory. Yeah, I think that Halloween has definitely
become an adult holiday. Of course, we love to see
the little kitties parading around in their adorable costumes, and
then we want them to go to bed. But we
(07:06):
want them to go to bed so we can drink
some adult beverages. We can drink spike cider and um
and eat candy. And so is that okay? Are you kidding?
Probably not? If you're wearing skin revealing costume, even better,
I say, But but I still like the candy part
of Halloween. Now, of course, in true stuff Mom Never
told You Style, we did find a scholarly article on
(07:31):
gender and Halloween costumes people, And I believe she writes
in the intro that this is the only study she
knows of that is about gender and Halloween costumes. The
title of said paper is the Pink Dragon is female
Halloween costumes and gender markers. And the reason that this comes,
the reason this is gonna be relevance because you know,
(07:52):
it's one thing. I think if adult women want to
choose to wear something that's revealing, you know that sort of.
I think the essence of feminism is you can choose
you want to do with your body. If you want
to be a sexy firefighter, do it. If you want
to be a fully clothed firefighter, do it. That's that's
probably not the issue. And there are a lot of
women who who enjoy just like that nightive exhibitionism. Sure,
(08:14):
you don't normally wear sexy, you know, firefighter outfits the
rest of the year, So if you're really into that,
do it. And also, I will say the one thing,
if you you know, if you choose to wear a
scandalous Halloween costume, you might be able to get more
of a past because you're surrounded by people and scandalous
Halloween costumes, so it's not like you're just gonna be
(08:34):
standing out in the crowd. So it is a nice
time for people who want to explore that side of themselves.
Some flesh, show us some flesh. So there you'll find
just as many rationales like that on the Internet as
you'll find the oh my gosh, what is what is
feminism done to us? But I think it gets more
troubling when you look at what the little children are doing.
Because the Washington Post had this article that basically followed
(08:55):
around eleven year olds and their moms through a party
city and they could not find anything that was not
sexied up for a little eleven year old to wear. Yeah,
and specifically eleven year old girls, because the boys are
gonna be superheroes, gonna Spiderman, they're going to be the
fully clothed firefighter, they're gonna be power Rangers if those
(09:16):
are still cool. Yeah, I was gonna say, I think
you're now you're naming costumes, but I'm dating myself and
uh today though, for girls, the whole kind of slut
oween idea has trickled down to the kid's market, and
that's I think that's what really bothers people. Yeah, I
think you can't get like a really cool like Eminem
(09:36):
costume when you're eleven. I think there's something wrong with
em sexy Cat. But that and that was the point
of this Washington Post article where all of these horrified
parents following their daughters around who wanted to be French
Mate and sexy bo Pete. But even to be like
a rock star you had to buy like a bare
middriff outfit and like this by high Boots. I mean
(09:58):
it's it's just every costume that could just be cool
becomes sexy. And that's why we're going to turn to
this paper. The Pink Dragon is Female by eighty Nelson
because she argues that we are the ones setting our
kids up for this. Yeah, and she claims that this
has really been we've kind of been leading up to
this point because of gender markers in children's Halloween costumes.
(10:20):
So get ready to look at every children's Halloween costume
with a with a just a disgusted look, because what
she does is she looks at four sixty nine children's
Halloween costumes. Sounds kind of fun. I would have been
in this study. We always have about the studies you
wouldn't do, I do this one, do this one. So
she looks at all these Halloween costumes and she basically
identifies them as aim towards girls based on whether there's
(10:43):
a girl in the picture, the costume is pink or
another traditional girl color, or whether it is you know,
just like a dress. It's obviously aimed for girls. She
does the same for what the ones that are aimed
at the boys, and then she does gender neutral and
gender neutral. She kind of identifies as you can't see
the kids shoes or if I mean you can, but
it's not like high heels or ballet flats, or there's
(11:05):
a picture of both a boy and a girl wearing
the costume. Things like food that can't be turned into
a cookie, gender Pepperoni pizza. She names the Pepperoni pizza
costume like four times in this paper, and I am
on the lookout for that costume. But as you might guess,
no gender neutral costumes really exist. Very few. Yeah. Out
(11:25):
of the giant pool of costumes, she found hundred masculine costumes,
two three, feminine costumes, not only forty one gender neutral costumes.
And I think it's important to point out that these
are not just also not just like the packages of
costume you can just buy, ready, mate, she just looks
at patterns at craft store, So you would think that those,
you know, I would think they'd be a little bit
(11:47):
more just sort of neutral, Like here's a eminem you
can make, but I mean it shows on the pattern
EXMP for example, the girl wearing the green eminem who's feminine,
and the commercials and the boys wearing like the red
and yellow at and ms, which are male in the commercial. Sure,
because a little boy might not be too jazzed about
the prospect of his mom or dad making a costume
(12:08):
with a little girl on the pattern. Right, So even
in just you know, the ones you make yourself that
you can put your own stamp on, those are also
very commonly recognized by the gender they're meant for. Nelson
then classifies these costumes in terms of whether it's a
hero of villain or a fool, because obviously a lot
(12:29):
of kids costumes are superheroes, evil witches, things like that,
And she makes the point that a lot of the descriptors.
For the boys costumes, both hero and villain are powerful words.
You know, your strong men's superhero king, whereas the girl's
(12:49):
costumes are usually described with more diminutive adjectives or almost
erotic adjectives. Yeah, a beautiful bride, Yes, lovely witch. Even
the witches have to be lovely, Yeah, pretty little witch, cute, cuddly, bewitched,
little skull girl, midnight madness, you know, like, yeah, you
(13:10):
you have this little kid who wants to be a
skull girl, but you're a little school girl girl, whereas
obviously I have a guy. If a little boy wants
to be skullboy, uh, you know, it's going to be
like wicked skull boy, scary skullboy. So you know. Nelson
makes this argument that from the time kids are toddlers.
(13:31):
Toddlers is when she starts seeing these patterns emerged. Infant
costumes are pretty gender neutral, but by the time kids
are toddlers, that's when they start getting these descriptions of
um descriptions attached to their costumes, which put them in
these boxes pretty early on. And she says, you know,
despite the fact that she found for more feminine costumes,
there are fewer types of feminine costumes than there are
(13:54):
male costumes. The men, you know, just goes on and
on forever in terms of monsters and superheroes, ups and
clowns and animals, whereas I mean, they're pretty much five
groups for girls. Princess, beauty, queen, bride, cheerleader, dancer. Yeah,
that's it. So she says pretty early on, we're teaching
women and little girls that Halloween is about looking beautiful
(14:17):
and looking the way a stereotypical every single you know,
gender norm attached to a woman looks. And so Nelson's
theory about this whole idea of adult sexy costumes is
that it starts with the kids, and it's also partially
the Halloween industries fault and our I guess our fault
(14:38):
for buying them, because as all the costume makers said,
Adamant leaves like, there are biggest selling. Yeah, they're the
most popular. That's the thing we're gonna you know, a
lot of a lot of us will disparage this slew
of sexy costumes and how impossible it can be to find,
not find an unsexy costume if you're a woman. But
(14:58):
they're putting all of them out there because they sell. Yeah,
we're buying them. Someone's buying them. Someone's buying them. So
I guess the question is, is it really a bad
thing if all of if so many women are dressing
up in sexy costumes. I mean, I want to hear
from listeners male and female on on this issue, because
I'm honestly a little bit torn. You know, my knee
(15:20):
jerk feminist reaction is cover up. Can we please get
some more Susan b. Anthony's out here, somebody for dance.
I'm gonna be a sexy suffraget, Kristen a sexy suffraget. Yeah,
or perhaps maybe I will, you know, be a sexy cop.
And yet it would be an ironic sexy cop. That's
(15:40):
what they're on. The feminine mystique in my tool belt.
And so the New York Times argues is that you
can do it with some sort of camp or humor,
that that up up ends all these gender stereotypes. But
I don't think you want to be the person at
the Halloween party going around saying yeah, this is ironic.
Is totally ironic. But there was a blog that we
found say sing that we need to stop disparaging, you know,
(16:04):
like I said, all these sexy female costumes, And she
points to a lot of the feminist blogs that every
every year around this time put up their photo galleries
of horror of all of these terrible, demeaning women's costumes.
But she says, you know what, in terms of sex
positive feminism, we should own this holiday to yeah, show
(16:27):
it off if we want to show it off. What's
wrong with that? So that's what we want your feedback on.
The second thing, as promise, we're gonna end with some
ideas that have been on the internet for feminists costumes. Yeah,
and also, I don't think you're getting out of this
episode scott free without sharing your costume idea. I'm not
sure yet. I really do kind of like the sexy
suffrag jet idea, right, can't can't that be ironic? If
(16:49):
I go around and get fun facts about how women
got the vote? Or if you can't think of anything,
you can help me by pushing around my bathtub on wheels,
that'd be fine. I could be your vice president. Um,
hear a few things this This first list is from Animator,
who writes for the St. Louis Examiner. Her ideas are
Rosie the Riveter, Wonder Woman, which can be kind of
(17:09):
sex step unfortunately, Um, Cleopatra joan of arc familiar air Heart,
which unfortunately know it can be sexed up. Um, how
about a little more current. How about you know Justice
Kagan carry around a baseball bat or softball bat. Yeah,
I mean that's I think one of her most identified
biable features. Yeah, I think so do Mayor Kagan judicial rope.
(17:32):
There we don't. Don't try and be a sexy Supreme
Court judge. I just think there's so much wrong with that. Um.
She throws out octo mom. So you could do some
pop culture gals. I've seen a few funny octave moms
in Halloween's Pass. I think that's a little I think
that's a little up. You played out two thousand nine,
if you ask me, Carmen san Diego, I've seen some
(17:53):
good Carmen san Diego as an excellent, pretty classic. Um.
And then we have another list, Gloria Steinham. And then
if you do want to be sexy, you can be
Glorious stein And when she went undercover at Playboy, see
there we go. So if you're gonna be a Playboy bunny,
please be the glorious skin Ellen Ripley from Alien that
would be fun, empowering Jim and the Holograms. I've wanted
(18:14):
to be Jim for a long time. So those are
a few of the ideas out there on the internet
for feminist costumes. We'd love to hear yours or just
hear about the cool, funny, uh spooky things you're gonna
be for Halloween. And the email address to send all
that too, and pictures if you feel like it, Mom
stuff at have stuff works dot com. And let's read
a few emails. I have one from the Adra and
(18:39):
this is from the boy Why boys don't play the
harp of the podcast so gender musical instruments, And this
one caught my eye Kristen because the subject line was
called no farts in the flute section? WHOA, She writes.
Our school band was huge in high school. We had
three separate bands, with the smallest being maybe fifty and
the largest easily one hundred. In the four years I
was there, there was always at least all gender diversity,
(19:01):
a boy or two in the flute and clarinet section,
a couple of girls in the trombone section, and lots
of girls scattered throughout the percussion of brass. I don't
think there was a lot of overt prejudice against students
playing opposite gendered instruments, but there were a few jokes
squaring around because about the boys being effeminate. I honestly
think it's a little more difficult for the girls, though,
if only because they were stuck sitting next to boys who,
in high school are so immature and annoying. It took
(19:23):
a certain kind of girl to sit surrounded by guys
and their guy humor for what could be hours at
a time. I liked hanging out with them, but I
was always happy to go back to my section. You
can only handle so many pans, jokes and spitballs. Well.
If you have thoughts to share with us, you can
email us at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can also share it on Facebook. You can follow
(19:43):
us on Twitter if you like, and of course you
can check out our blog during the week, It's stuff
Mom Never Told You, and you can find it at
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, does it how stuff works dot com.
Want more House staff works, check out our blogs on
the house stuff works dot com home page. Brought to
(20:09):
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