hel GOTUre

Kelley Ware
Finance Manager

Herren is upon us and it is just
about time for everyone to get
dressed up and become something
they are not for a night. For children, it
is more the candy and less the costume
that is important. For adults, costumes
are the integral part of Halloween.
Outside of classic horror movies,
costumes are what Halloween is truly
about. However: there is a dark side to
this tradition. This dark side is not about
the blood, fear, and horror that come
with Halloween. It is about the “sexy”
costumes and the associated problems
that may come with these costumes.

For women, the process of buying

or creating costumes is a little more
complicated and comes with less
options than their male counterparts
experience. For a man, it is simply a
matter of finding something or creating
something that they would like to
wear. The world is open to them and
they are full of options. Unless they
decide on obnoxiously phallic-themed
costumes, there will be absolutely

no problems for them on Halloween.
For women, however, the issue is a
little more complicated. The creation
option is still very much open to them,
but there is a definite change in the
store-bought options. For the women
picking up a pre-packaged costume,
options are either incredibly revealing
or comically oversized--likely

as a

Buzzfeed

Skin & Guts: Objectification, Rape Culture,
and Slut-Shaming on Halloween

backlash against the former. There

is little middle ground, and the sheer
volume of the former grossly over-
weighs that of the latter. Chances
are, if a woman picks a store-bought
costume, she will show up fo any
party or event in one of these “sexy”
costumes.

The movie Mean Girls has the line:
“Halloween is the one day a year
when a girl can dress up like a total
slut and no other girls can say anything
about it.” Sexy and slutty Halloween
costumes have been accepted as
fact. It is just what happens. Everyone
does it, so there should be no problem.
There is even a historical precedent
for this. Halloween is seen as a time
to break loose of societal bonds for a
night. As Jenny Brock on the website
Policy Mic writes “The historical
precedent would be the sexy costumes
at masquerade balls, which were
wildly popular from the 18th and 19th
century on.. Respectable women would
wear pantaloons or short skirts and
milkmaid outfits when they went to
costume parties. At the masquerade
parties in London, you had costumes
with a degree of body exposure.
You also had artists’ balls — in Paris
especially— where you had revealing
costumes and some nudity, so this
trend is nothing new.’ Despite it being
historical tradition, many still see this as
problematic for several
reasons.

There are many
that argue that
society has a
tendency to
objectify women.
This can be seen in
| film, music, television,
and advertisement.

Halloween is no different. Looking at
the differences between male and
female costumes makes this point
glaringly obvious. The Tumblr blog,
with a mouthful of a name, F*™* No
Sexist Halloween Costumes reveals
this double-standard quite well. On
this blog male and female versions

of the same costume are placed side
by side. Picture after picture a man is
shown fully dressed in some type of
costume and the woman is shown in a
sexified version. The most alarming one
was a Scooby Doo that has the man
in a hooded onesie while the woman
wears a short, cut-out dress with paws
on it; a mummy costume is shown

that had the man in a horror-themed
costume, complete with a scary mask,
next fo a woman with a bandaged
strapless outfit (which could barely be
classified as a dress) with bandage
stockings to match; there is a tiger-
theme which lets the man get away
with a Tony the Tiger costume while the
woman has little more than furry booty
shorts with a tail attached, a furry bra,
and cat ears.

Another aspect of this double standard
is when men decide they do want

to show some skin themselves. For a
man, if they decide to do something
overly revealing it is usually considered
humorous; like it is nothing more

than a joke. When
the film Borat
came out,

there were

guys who
dressed
up in the
infamous

green
mankini.
In this

case, even though it is clearly a
revealing costume, no one takes it as
overtly sexual. There is also the case
of skin-tight spandex costumes. They
leave nothing to the imagination, yet
when it is on a man it is deemed
acceptable. For a man, it is little more
than a funny joke while a woman in a
skin-tight suit would be seen as overtly
sexual. | am not going fo argue that
men do not get objectitied by society
at all; that is clearly not true. However,
they are not objectified to the degree
that women are, especially in the
case of Halloween costumes. The only
type of costume that men may want
to avoid is the previously mentioned
“phallic themed” costumes. These are
the costumes such as a Breathalyzer
Test costume with a “Blow Here” sign
conveniently at crotch level. Costumes
such as these are seen as obnoxious
and even offensive by some people,
but there is still debate concerning
them. Some would argue that it is a
type of costume that really should be
avoided while others would argue it
is nothing more than harmless fun. It is
important to note as well that, while
a debate exists around whether or
not it is appropriate for men to wear
these types of costumes, little discussion
goes on about how these costumes
devalue women, implying they
are little more than blow job
machines.

On Halloween,
while men can