Women’s Halloween costumes (such as the one pictured above) are often revealing and sexualized. Such costumes may negatively affect women’s self-image and make them more susceptible to poor mental health and possible eating disorders (Mirka23/ Creative commons).
The world always seems to burn a bit brighter in the fall. The trees are beautiful, the weather is perfect, the apple crop is perfectly ripe and pretty soon it will be a popular holiday: Halloween. But if one ventures into Spirit Halloween looking for the perfect Halloween costume, they may find themselves shocked.
On most of their displays, almost every single women’s Halloween costume consists of little more than a yard of fabric and a pair of fishnet stockings. From nurses to superheroes to princesses, every single costume is highly sexualized with words like ‘fashion’ and ‘flirty’ attached at the end as if that would explain why Dora The Explorer would be wearing a mini skirt.
It’s no secret that Halloween costumes for women tend to be sexualized. That feels as ingrained in the culture as carving Jack O’Lanterns or sorting out candy while watching a favorite horror movie. But it was taken too far last year when the website Yandy started selling a ‘brave red maiden’ costume which consisted of a short red dress, matching cape and a white bonnet made to resemble the costumes worn in The Handmaid’s Tale.
This rampant sexualization within the Halloween market, as well as the effects on the mental wellbeing of young girls, are unfathomable. From the time we are 13, our costumes started changing, the skirts rose higher and higher and the neck lines plunged lower and lower. Gone are the days of long, flowy dresses and plastic crowns—they are replaced with high cut tops and high heels.
Now I know you may be wondering, “couldn’t I just wear a non-sexualized costume?” to which I say, of course you can! The only problem is that when it comes to girls’ costumes there is a small amount of variation and “nearly always emphasize[d] physical attractiveness (e.g., beauty queens and princesses),” according to a study conducted by the American Psychological Association. That same study found that, among the few female villain costumes available, sexual eroticism is emphasized.
This obvious valuing of physical appearance above all else can be an extremely intense burden on young girls throughout their formative years. Intense sexualization can negatively impact the cognitive functioning of a person when it comes to mental and physical health, their beliefs and their sexuality as a whole. Outcomes of this could be an increased chance of mental disorders such as anxiety, depression and anorexia as well as an unhealthy relationship with their own body and self-worth.
No matter who you are or what you look like, you are amazing. There is no one size, one weight, one height, one shape, one look, one anything that you must fit into. So many radiant women doubt themselves when what they should be doubting is whoever told them that they are not enough. You are enough.
So, this year when you go out to the Halloween store to get yourself a new costume to wear, stop to wonder, “Is this a costume that I want to be in?” Not one that you feel exposed in or one that you don’t feel comfortable in, but one that you love. And if you find yourself saying that about a costume marked ‘flirty’ then flirt away. It is your body and it is your choice.