If you’re looking to buy a costume for Halloween, you notice very quickly that there are some pretty big differences between the costumes available for the different genders, starting very early. Some examples:

 

Things for teens and adults get, if anything, worse:

This is just a small sampling of the costumes out there. Why is it so hard for girls to find a costume at Halloween at isn’t frilly, lacy, and hyper-girly? Or isn’t more like an adult costume in child size? Why are there such ridiculous differences betwen costumes for men and women? And why are the sheer number of options for costumes so much wider for boys & men? Costumes for boys and men are scarier, frequently feature muscles, weapons, and other traditional signs of masculinity, and actually have costumes like cop, firefighter & superhero that don’t come with heels and a mini-skirt. You might say, “well, just don’t buy those costumes”, but the fact that they exist and are being marketed so heavily means girls and women, like it or not, are getting the message that this is how they’re supposed to dress, and that there is something wrong with them if they don’t.

What is a parent (or girl, or woman) to do? Take back Halloween with these ideas!

• Need a reminder that things weren’t always like this? The Huffington Post has compiled a list of Halloween costumes for girls, then and now.

• Get creative! Let’s bring back home-made costumes that rely on being interesting, not skin-tight. .

• This Pinterest Board from the National Women’s History Museum has costume ideas to help you dress up as a leader of change instead of a naked fish or princess-cat.

• Want some inspiration for truly spooky costumes? Check out these scary homemade costumes from a century ago.

• The website Take Back Halloween has more ideas for dressing like a notable woman from history.

This Halloween, let’s not just have fun- let’s take a stand against the sexualization of women and girls!

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How we celebrate Halloween tells us a lot about who we are as a society: what we’re worried about, what we value, which famous people loom largest in our collective pop-cultural imagination. The holiday has evolved a great deal over the past few decades, with costumes going from primarily homemade to being mostly mass-produced (for an idea of just how much things have changed, here are some spooky homemade costumes from the last century). Halloween is a modern day Carnival, a time when people can safely look and act like someone entirely different than themselves. But more and more, the costumes aimed at women seemingly exist for the primary purpose of being as revealing as possible (sexy unicorn, anyone?) . Even more troubling is that this trend has migrated to costumes for teens and young girls.

 

A visit to any costume shop or department store will show not only costumes for young girls that are inappropriately sexualized, but also a marked difference between the costumes marketed to boys vs. girls. For boys, there are zombies, superheroes, and firemen. For girls, there’s “Sailor Sweetie”, “Fairy Princess” and “Cowboy Diva.” And the costumes that do exist for both boys and girls are often very different:

 

What message does it send to girls when they go to look for a doctor costume and all they can find is a nurse? Why should girls have to settle for being a fairy when they wanted to be a superhero? For kids, Halloween is a time to be anyone they want, and so as we celebrate we need to consider: what are we as a society telling girls about what they can and should aspire to be?

 

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