October 6, 2018 • 23 mins
A sexy Handmaid's Tale costume caused quite the controversy recently, but when did costumes for women get the sexy treatment? We look into in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff Mom
never told you. A lot of you have written in
lately asking about this whole sexy Halloween costume debate. Why
(00:31):
is it so common among female costumes costumes for women?
And this is a question that roared it's sexy head
when a couple of weeks ago, online retailer Yandy removed
a quote brave red Maiden costume after a lot of
public pushback. If the name isn't clear, it was a
(00:52):
sexy handmade s Taiale costume. The description read in upsetting
Dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a
s have her We say, be bold and speak your mind.
And this brave red maiden costume featuring a red mini
dress matching cloak with attached hood and a white bonnet headpiece.
Pantyhose not included. So it was the super skimpy, sexy
(01:17):
handmaid's tail costume and like if you to avoid copyright issues,
they don't call it that, but from the first line
and upsetting Dystopian future, it has emerged where women no
longer have a say. A lot of people read that
as also they were just used, they were raped and
just used to carry children, but we say be bold
(01:39):
and speak your mind. So Um, there was a lot
of backlash, as you might guess, um, considering the subject
matter of the show. A lot of people pointed out
that it was at best tone deaf, or, as one
Twitter user put it, I can't decide if this misses
the point of the Handmaid's tail or encapsulates it completely.
(02:00):
And yes. Some people defended the costume as pretty much
the Handmaid's Tale taken to its ultimate conclusion, or that
it took something about repressing women and turned it into
something empowering. Um. Still others said, well, there's sexy none costumes.
I don't see why you're getting so upset about sexy
Handmaid's Tale costumes. Um. A lot of you wrote in
(02:24):
and said that that it was mostly men making those
kinds of comments. Um. The company pulled the costume with
this statement. Over the last few hours, is become obvious
that our yandy, brave red Maiden costume is being seen
as a symbol of women's oppression rather than expression of
women's empowerment. This is unfortunate, as it was not our
(02:44):
intention on any level. They said they got the inspiration
from protesters surrounding Brett Kavanaugh, which is a very interesting
place to get your inspiration for a sexy Halloween costume.
As as Halloween fast approaches and as a lot of
you have questions surrounding these sexy Halloween costumes, we thought
(03:07):
that we would rerun this classic episode to hopefully clarify
some things we hope you enjoy. Welcome to stuff Mom
never told you from housetop works dot com. Hi, and
(03:27):
welcome to podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen.
Today is our Halloween episode. And you know we've already
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 oh, 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 nose.
(03:47):
It would be I think a lot of explaining to people,
you know, not explaining, Molley, educating, educating, that's true. What
are you going to be for Halloween? I'm going to
be President Taft. I will be rolled around owned all
night in a bathtub and it'll be great. It sounds
like you would get to use a lot of pillows
for that costume, which I think would be fun because
let me just get tired at a party. I'm just
(04:09):
gonna call up Amy Sadaries, let her ask her fucking
borrow her fat suit? Nice, and then I'm going to
get yeah, you know, 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
(04:31):
is if you said to me, I'm going to be
president Taft, I'd make a joke and be like, how
are you going to be sexy President Taft? Yeah? Is
there any unsexy president Taft? Is what I would respond, Molly.
And that's because the topic of today's podcast related to Halloween,
as requested on Facebook, is sexy and racy Halloween costumes
(04:51):
for women? Why are women always expected to wear a
sexy costume? Yeah? And we gotta go ahead and just
throw out this term because even the New York Times
has used this slut Owen. And that's the only time
I'm going to say it. Yeah, because Mob and I
are big fans of the word slot. But it comes
up a lot around Halloween because if you go into
(05:13):
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 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
(05:36):
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 as a clownfish and
he changes sex biological sex frequently. That was not exploring
in the Disney movie. But I've done a little research
on clownfish. So just throughout the factory, if you're gonna
(06:00):
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 Leonardo. That's right. There are sexy teenage mutant,
ninja turtle costumes. Oh wow, um, racy Robin Hood. Yeah.
And you know, you know what I like about this
(06:22):
list of sexy costumes is these are all male characters too.
That's true. Well, here's another thing that kind of struck me,
Christen 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.
(06:42):
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 mind. Yeah,
I want you write 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
(07:06):
to sexy Halloween costumes. Here sexy Wednesday Adams. When sty
Adam Wednesday Adams, I don't think was ever going for
obviously French maid. Yeah, that's a big one. Pirate Wench,
Pirate Wench very common. So um oh, here's one sexy
Amelia Earhart. Oh man, really, yes she was. I saw
(07:27):
the costume she's wearing, just kind of like booty shorts
and thigh high boots and then just like a bra aviator.
It's its style. Well 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
(07:50):
sarry sexied 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
(08:10):
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's 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 is awesome.
(08:32):
I love this Halloween every day, and then you have
sites like Jezebel saying, oh mg, ladies, what are we doing?
Even though Asbell would say, it way cooler than that,
but you know, it's like it's still kind of um
Catch twenty two for women, because yeah, I would I
would say that Mean Girls does have it right because
(08:53):
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, because
(09:16):
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 as
an excellent joint, 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 and
(09:36):
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 used 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 Bount Brown Cat cartoon. But
that's it. But she claims that as these baby boomers
(09:56):
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 it's one theory. Yeah, I think that Halloween has
definitely become an adult holiday. Of course, we love to
see the little kiddies parading around in their adorable costumes,
and then we want them to go to bed, but
(10:17):
we want them to go to bed so we can
drink some adult beverage. We can drink spike cider and
um and eat candy. And so is that okay? Are
you kidding? Probably not? If you're wearing a skin revealing costume,
even better, I say, But but I still like the
candy part of Halloween now. Of course, in true stuff,
Mo'm never told you style. We did find a scholarly
(10:40):
article on 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
(11:00):
this comes, the reason this is gonna be relevance because
you know, it's one thing. I think if adult women
want to choose to wear something that's revealing, you know,
that's sort of I think the essence of feminism is
you can choose what you want to do with your body.
If you want to be a sexy firefighter, and 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.
(11:25):
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 going to
be standing out in the crowd. So it is a
(11:47):
nice time for people who want to explore that side
of themselves, want to show up some flesh, show ups
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 around eleven year
(12:07):
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, Spiderman,
they're going to be the fully closed Firefighter, they're gonna
be power Rangers if those are still cool. Yeah, I
(12:28):
was going to say, I think you're now you're naming
costumes from 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, if you can't get
like a really cool like Eminem costume when you're eleven,
(12:48):
I think there's something 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 made and sexy bo Pete, But even
to be like a rock star you had to buy
like a bare middrift outfit and like the thigh high boots.
(13:09):
I mean 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
eight 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
(13:30):
Halloween costumes. So get ready to let's look at every
children's Halloween costume with a with a just a disgusted look.
Because what she does is she looks at four and
sixty nine children's Halloween costumes. I would have been in
this study. We always have how the studies you wouldn't do,
I do this, We can do this one. So she
looks at all these Halloween costumes and she basically identifies
(13:50):
them as aim towards girls based on whether there's 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
(14:12):
like high heels or ballet flats, or there's a picture
of both the 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 of
(14:37):
the giant pool of costumes, she found hundred masculine costumes,
two three feminine costumes, and 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 made. She also looks
at patterns at craft store, So you would think that those,
you know, I would think they'd be a little bit
(14:58):
more just sort of neutral, Like here's a eminem you
can make, but I mean it shows on the pattern examp,
for example, the girl wearing the green eminem who's feminine
in the commercials, and the boys wearing like the red
and yellow eminem's, which are male in the commercials. Sure,
because a little boy might not be too jazzed about
the prospect of his mom or dad making a costume
(15:19):
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
(15:40):
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, you're strong men's superhero king, whereas
the girls costumes are usually described with more diminutive adjectives
(16:05):
or almost erotic adjectives. 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, like, yeah, you have this
little kid who wants to be a skull girl, but
you're a little schoolgirl, tiny skull girl. Whereas obviously if
(16:29):
a guy, if a little boy wants to be skullboy, uh,
you know it's going to be like wicked skull boy,
like scary skullboy. So you know. Nelson makes this argument
that from the time kids are toddlers. 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
(16:54):
to their costumes, which put them in these boxes pretty
early on. And she says, you know, despite the fact
that she found more feminine costumes, there are fewer types
of feminine costumes than there are male costumes. The men,
you know, just goes on and on forever in terms
of monsters and superheroess and clowns and animals, whereas I mean,
(17:14):
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
and looking the way a stereotypical every single you know,
gender norm attached to it woman looks. And so Nelson's
(17:36):
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
for buying them, because as all the costume makers said,
Adamant leaves like there are biggest sellers, they're the most popular.
That's the thing we're gonna you know, a lot of
a lot of us will disparage the slew of sexy
(18:00):
costumes and how impossible it can be to find, not
find an unsexy costume if you're a woman. But 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
(18:22):
up in sexy costumes. I mean, I want to hear
from listeners, male and female on on this issue because
I'm I'm honestly a little bit torn. You know, my
knee jerk feminist reaction is cover up. Can we please
get some more Susan b. Anthony's out here, somebody for dance.
I'm going to be a sexy suffraget. Sexy suffraget. Yeah,
(18:44):
or perhaps maybe I will, you know, be a sexy cop.
And yet it would be an ironic sexy cop. Well
that's why, that's why they're on the feminine mystique in
my tool belt. That's what the New York Times argues
is that you can do it with some sort of
camp or humor. That the 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, oh, yeah,
(19:06):
this is ironic, This is totally ironic. But there was
a blog that we found saying that we need to
stop disparaging, you know, 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 of horror of all of
(19:27):
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 it off if we want to
show it off. What's wrong with that? So that's why
we want your feedback. On the second thing, as promise,
we're going to end with some ideas that have been
on the internet for feminists costumes. Yeah, and also, well,
(19:49):
I don't think you're getting out of this episode scot
free without sharing your costume idea. I'm not sure yet.
I really do kind of like the sexy suffraget idea.
All right, can't can't that be ironic? If 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. I'd be fine.
I can be your vice president. But here are a
(20:11):
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 sexed up, unfortunately, um,
Cleopatra joan of Arc familiar air Heart, which, unfortunately me
know it can be sexed up. Um, how about a
little more current. How about you know Justice Kagan carry
(20:35):
around a baseball bat or softball bat. I mean that's
I think one of her most identified biable features. Yeah,
I think so do Mayor Kagan judicial rope. 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 octomom. So you could do some pop
culture gals. I've seen a few funny octo moms in
(20:56):
Halloween's passed. I think that's a little I think that's
a little h lay it out little two thousand nine.
If you ask me. Carmen san Diego, I've seen some
good Carmen san Diego as an excellent pretty classic um.
And then we have another list Glorious Steinham. And then
if you do want to be sexy, you can be
Glorious Steinham when she went undercover at Playboy. See there
we go. So if you're gonna be a Playboy bunny,
(21:18):
please be the glorious Steinum Ellen Ripley from Alien. That
would be fun, empowering. Jim and the Holograms. I've wanted
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
(21:39):
that too, and pictures if you feel like it, mom
stuff at house stuff works dot com. And let's read
a few emails. I have one from the Adra and
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 flutes section. What whoa? She writes.
(22:02):
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 a little gender diversity,
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
(22:24):
wearing around because about the boys being effeminate. Honestly think
it was 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 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 penis jokes and spitballs. Well.
(22:45):
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
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 you, and you can find it
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
(23:06):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page.
Hi, this is Annie and you're listening to stuff Mom
never told you. A lot of you have written in
lately asking about this whole sexy Halloween costume debate. Why
(00:31):
is it so common among female costumes costumes for women?
And this is a question that roared it's sexy head
when a couple of weeks ago, online retailer Yandy removed
a quote brave red Maiden costume after a lot of
public pushback. If the name isn't clear, it was a
(00:52):
sexy handmade s Taiale costume. The description read in upsetting
Dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a
s have her We say, be bold and speak your mind.
And this brave red maiden costume featuring a red mini
dress matching cloak with attached hood and a white bonnet headpiece.
Pantyhose not included. So it was the super skimpy, sexy
(01:17):
handmaid's tail costume and like if you to avoid copyright issues,
they don't call it that, but from the first line
and upsetting Dystopian future, it has emerged where women no
longer have a say. A lot of people read that
as also they were just used, they were raped and
just used to carry children, but we say be bold
(01:39):
and speak your mind. So Um, there was a lot
of backlash, as you might guess, um, considering the subject
matter of the show. A lot of people pointed out
that it was at best tone deaf, or, as one
Twitter user put it, I can't decide if this misses
the point of the Handmaid's tail or encapsulates it completely.
(02:00):
And yes. Some people defended the costume as pretty much
the Handmaid's Tale taken to its ultimate conclusion, or that
it took something about repressing women and turned it into
something empowering. Um. Still others said, well, there's sexy none costumes.
I don't see why you're getting so upset about sexy
Handmaid's Tale costumes. Um. A lot of you wrote in
(02:24):
and said that that it was mostly men making those
kinds of comments. Um. The company pulled the costume with
this statement. Over the last few hours, is become obvious
that our yandy, brave red Maiden costume is being seen
as a symbol of women's oppression rather than expression of
women's empowerment. This is unfortunate, as it was not our
(02:44):
intention on any level. They said they got the inspiration
from protesters surrounding Brett Kavanaugh, which is a very interesting
place to get your inspiration for a sexy Halloween costume.
As as Halloween fast approaches and as a lot of
you have questions surrounding these sexy Halloween costumes, we thought
(03:07):
that we would rerun this classic episode to hopefully clarify
some things we hope you enjoy. Welcome to stuff Mom
never told you from housetop works dot com. Hi, and
(03:27):
welcome to podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen.
Today is our Halloween episode. And you know we've already
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 oh, 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 nose.
(03:47):
It would be I think a lot of explaining to people,
you know, not explaining, Molley, educating, educating, that's true. What
are you going to be for Halloween? I'm going to
be President Taft. I will be rolled around owned all
night in a bathtub and it'll be great. It sounds
like you would get to use a lot of pillows
for that costume, which I think would be fun because
let me just get tired at a party. I'm just
(04:09):
gonna call up Amy Sadaries, let her ask her fucking
borrow her fat suit? Nice, and then I'm going to
get yeah, you know, 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
(04:31):
is if you said to me, I'm going to be
president Taft, I'd make a joke and be like, how
are you going to be sexy President Taft? Yeah? Is
there any unsexy president Taft? Is what I would respond, Molly.
And that's because the topic of today's podcast related to Halloween,
as requested on Facebook, is sexy and racy Halloween costumes
(04:51):
for women? Why are women always expected to wear a
sexy costume? Yeah? And we gotta go ahead and just
throw out this term because even the New York Times
has used this slut Owen. And that's the only time
I'm going to say it. Yeah, because Mob and I
are big fans of the word slot. But it comes
up a lot around Halloween because if you go into
(05:13):
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 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
(05:36):
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 as a clownfish and
he changes sex biological sex frequently. That was not exploring
in the Disney movie. But I've done a little research
on clownfish. So just throughout the factory, if you're gonna
(06:00):
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 Leonardo. That's right. There are sexy teenage mutant,
ninja turtle costumes. Oh wow, um, racy Robin Hood. Yeah.
And you know, you know what I like about this
(06:22):
list of sexy costumes is these are all male characters too.
That's true. Well, here's another thing that kind of struck me,
Christen 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.
(06:42):
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 mind. Yeah,
I want you write 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
(07:06):
to sexy Halloween costumes. Here sexy Wednesday Adams. When sty
Adam Wednesday Adams, I don't think was ever going for
obviously French maid. Yeah, that's a big one. Pirate Wench,
Pirate Wench very common. So um oh, here's one sexy
Amelia Earhart. Oh man, really, yes she was. I saw
(07:27):
the costume she's wearing, just kind of like booty shorts
and thigh high boots and then just like a bra aviator.
It's its style. Well 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
(07:50):
sarry sexied 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
(08:10):
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's 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 is awesome.
(08:32):
I love this Halloween every day, and then you have
sites like Jezebel saying, oh mg, ladies, what are we doing?
Even though Asbell would say, it way cooler than that,
but you know, it's like it's still kind of um
Catch twenty two for women, because yeah, I would I
would say that Mean Girls does have it right because
(08:53):
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, because
(09:16):
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 as
an excellent joint, 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 and
(09:36):
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 used 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 Bount Brown Cat cartoon. But
that's it. But she claims that as these baby boomers
(09:56):
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 it's one theory. Yeah, I think that Halloween has
definitely become an adult holiday. Of course, we love to
see the little kiddies parading around in their adorable costumes,
and then we want them to go to bed, but
(10:17):
we want them to go to bed so we can
drink some adult beverage. We can drink spike cider and
um and eat candy. And so is that okay? Are
you kidding? Probably not? If you're wearing a skin revealing costume,
even better, I say, But but I still like the
candy part of Halloween now. Of course, in true stuff,
Mo'm never told you style. We did find a scholarly
(10:40):
article on 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
(11:00):
this comes, the reason this is gonna be relevance because
you know, it's one thing. I think if adult women
want to choose to wear something that's revealing, you know,
that's sort of I think the essence of feminism is
you can choose what you want to do with your body.
If you want to be a sexy firefighter, and 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.
(11:25):
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 going to
be standing out in the crowd. So it is a
(11:47):
nice time for people who want to explore that side
of themselves, want to show up some flesh, show ups
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 around eleven year
(12:07):
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, Spiderman,
they're going to be the fully closed Firefighter, they're gonna
be power Rangers if those are still cool. Yeah, I
(12:28):
was going to say, I think you're now you're naming
costumes from 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, if you can't get
like a really cool like Eminem costume when you're eleven,
(12:48):
I think there's something 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 made and sexy bo Pete, But even
to be like a rock star you had to buy
like a bare middrift outfit and like the thigh high boots.
(13:09):
I mean 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
eight 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
(13:30):
Halloween costumes. So get ready to let's look at every
children's Halloween costume with a with a just a disgusted look.
Because what she does is she looks at four and
sixty nine children's Halloween costumes. I would have been in
this study. We always have how the studies you wouldn't do,
I do this, We can do this one. So she
looks at all these Halloween costumes and she basically identifies
(13:50):
them as aim towards girls based on whether there's 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
(14:12):
like high heels or ballet flats, or there's a picture
of both the 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 of
(14:37):
the giant pool of costumes, she found hundred masculine costumes,
two three feminine costumes, and 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 made. She also looks
at patterns at craft store, So you would think that those,
you know, I would think they'd be a little bit
(14:58):
more just sort of neutral, Like here's a eminem you
can make, but I mean it shows on the pattern examp,
for example, the girl wearing the green eminem who's feminine
in the commercials, and the boys wearing like the red
and yellow eminem's, which are male in the commercials. Sure,
because a little boy might not be too jazzed about
the prospect of his mom or dad making a costume
(15:19):
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
(15:40):
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, you're strong men's superhero king, whereas
the girls costumes are usually described with more diminutive adjectives
(16:05):
or almost erotic adjectives. 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, like, yeah, you have this
little kid who wants to be a skull girl, but
you're a little schoolgirl, tiny skull girl. Whereas obviously if
(16:29):
a guy, if a little boy wants to be skullboy, uh,
you know it's going to be like wicked skull boy,
like scary skullboy. So you know. Nelson makes this argument
that from the time kids are toddlers. 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
(16:54):
to their costumes, which put them in these boxes pretty
early on. And she says, you know, despite the fact
that she found more feminine costumes, there are fewer types
of feminine costumes than there are male costumes. The men,
you know, just goes on and on forever in terms
of monsters and superheroess and clowns and animals, whereas I mean,
(17:14):
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
and looking the way a stereotypical every single you know,
gender norm attached to it woman looks. And so Nelson's
(17:36):
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
for buying them, because as all the costume makers said,
Adamant leaves like there are biggest sellers, they're the most popular.
That's the thing we're gonna you know, a lot of
a lot of us will disparage the slew of sexy
(18:00):
costumes and how impossible it can be to find, not
find an unsexy costume if you're a woman. But 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
(18:22):
up in sexy costumes. I mean, I want to hear
from listeners, male and female on on this issue because
I'm I'm honestly a little bit torn. You know, my
knee jerk feminist reaction is cover up. Can we please
get some more Susan b. Anthony's out here, somebody for dance.
I'm going to be a sexy suffraget. Sexy suffraget. Yeah,
(18:44):
or perhaps maybe I will, you know, be a sexy cop.
And yet it would be an ironic sexy cop. Well
that's why, that's why they're on the feminine mystique in
my tool belt. That's what the New York Times argues
is that you can do it with some sort of
camp or humor. That the 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, oh, yeah,
(19:06):
this is ironic, This is totally ironic. But there was
a blog that we found saying that we need to
stop disparaging, you know, 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 of horror of all of
(19:27):
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 it off if we want to
show it off. What's wrong with that? So that's why
we want your feedback. On the second thing, as promise,
we're going to end with some ideas that have been
on the internet for feminists costumes. Yeah, and also, well,
(19:49):
I don't think you're getting out of this episode scot
free without sharing your costume idea. I'm not sure yet.
I really do kind of like the sexy suffraget idea.
All right, can't can't that be ironic? If 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. I'd be fine.
I can be your vice president. But here are a
(20:11):
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 sexed up, unfortunately, um,
Cleopatra joan of Arc familiar air Heart, which, unfortunately me
know it can be sexed up. Um, how about a
little more current. How about you know Justice Kagan carry
(20:35):
around a baseball bat or softball bat. I mean that's
I think one of her most identified biable features. Yeah,
I think so do Mayor Kagan judicial rope. 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 octomom. So you could do some pop
culture gals. I've seen a few funny octo moms in
(20:56):
Halloween's passed. I think that's a little I think that's
a little h lay it out little two thousand nine.
If you ask me. Carmen san Diego, I've seen some
good Carmen san Diego as an excellent pretty classic um.
And then we have another list Glorious Steinham. And then
if you do want to be sexy, you can be
Glorious Steinham when she went undercover at Playboy. See there
we go. So if you're gonna be a Playboy bunny,
(21:18):
please be the glorious Steinum Ellen Ripley from Alien. That
would be fun, empowering. Jim and the Holograms. I've wanted
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
(21:39):
that too, and pictures if you feel like it, mom
stuff at house stuff works dot com. And let's read
a few emails. I have one from the Adra and
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 flutes section. What whoa? She writes.
(22:02):
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 a little gender diversity,
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
(22:24):
wearing around because about the boys being effeminate. Honestly think
it was 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 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 penis jokes and spitballs. Well.
(22:45):
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
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 you, and you can find it
at how stuff works dot com. For more on this
(23:06):
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
the how stuff works dot com home page.
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