Here you go, feministing wrong.

Cassidy really wanted to be Paulie Bleeker for Halloween this year but we could not find the costume locally and we waited till the last minute so didn’t have time to order anything online. On the way to a costume store I asked her if she couldn’t be Paulie Bleeker, what would she want to be instead.

Cassidy: A sexy nurse.

Don’t worry, she was kidding. My kid actually has a pretty great sense of humor.

Me: No.
Cassidy: Ummmmm.
Me: I will not buy you anything that a person would use “sexy” or “skanky” as a descriptive word.
Cassidy: Seems reasonable.
Me: But good news! In two years you can buy and wear whatever costume you want!
Cassidy: WOOHOO!

And I meant it. When she’s 18 if she wants to be a sexy nurse or a sexy dog poop bag or a sexy WHATEVER then she should be that thing.

In the last few weeks my Facebook feed has been INUNDATED with scathing articles about the trend of “sexy *insert thing here*” Halloween costumes and I don’t get it. Mostly because these pages (I’m looking at you HuffPo Women) spend a lot of time posting articles that empower women. They support the feminist movement with articles like why it’s wrong to catcall women no matter what they are wearing, saying that women should be able to dress however they want and not be judged… till Halloween comes around and suddenly their collective brains explode and they use it to slutty costume shame women for A MONTH STRAIGHT.

Huffington Post posted this article four times that I saw over the course of two days on it’s many different Facebook pages. At first I didn’t read the entire thing, just skimmed the first few paragraphs then looked at the costumes and shrugged because I really don’t see anything wrong with GROWN women wearing sexy costumes. Then, after seeing it in my feed for the fourth time, I actually read what the author had written and I was pretty appalled.

Because here’s the thing…

Women can wear whatever the fuck they want for Halloween and nobody should say anything about it other than, “Hey, cool costume!”

And the thing that bothers me the most is that women have a CHOICE. They can CHOOSE to wear these sexy costumes or they can CHOOSE to wear something more modest. Every single costume that she posted has a more modest alternative. I really hate the implication that women are being practically forced to either be sexy or nothing for Halloween.

WE HAVE BRAINS! We can think for ourselves! And guess what?! Sometimes we WANT and CHOOSE to be sexy! And for pretty much every single costume she posted, there is a non-sexy alternative out there. Here let me show you! Here are the costumes she posted (a lot of which were taken from yandy.com which is a lingerie site NOT a costume store) with some costumes I found easily with google that were all on actual costume store’s sites.

crayola 01 crayola 02

santa 01 santa 02

Leprachaun 01 leprechaun 02

sesamestreet 01 sesamestreet 02

The descriptions on these last two are what really got to me. On the hamburger costume she said:

I mean I love a good hamburger, but come on… do you really want some jerk following you around all night saying, “Nice buns!” No, you don’t. Or maybe you do. I don’t know, this is just a bad costume.

Because yeah, wearing a dress that looks like a hamburger totally means that men are allowed to make inappropriate sexual advances at you all night. OF COURSE IT DOES. And also, a guy would NEVER think to say that same thing (which yes, is wrong in BOTH CASES NO MATTER WHAT COSTUME YOU ARE WEARING) if you were wearing the second costume!

hamburger 01 hamburger 02

On the grease costume she said this:

The costume is actually called “Grease Good Sandy.” Now…if she’s good, then why is she slutty? And what have they done with “Grease Bad Sandy?” Jeez, she must be really bad.

Yes, she actually just said that you can not be “slutty” AND good a the same time. Thank you, author, for single-handedly setting the feminist movement back 100 years. And thank you HuffPo for undoing all that good you do by posting strong feminist pieces throughout the year. Here you go, feministing wrong.

grease 01 grease 02

I completely get not wanting your tweens or teens to wear the more sexy costumes. As a parent, that is your decision, much like it was mine for my 16 year old daughter. But when an adult woman wants to be sexy, nobody should be shaming her no matter what time of year it is. If a woman wants to be a crayon AND sexy THAT IS OKAY. That is not a reason to shame her.

And in the interest of being fair, there are actually quite a lot sexy costumes for men too. Take the banana costume that this author posted:

banana 01

Here is a more modest version for you:

banana 02

And here is a costume that I didn’t see a single person posting about on Facebook:

banana 03

Because who cares if a MAN is wearing a sexy costume. AMIRIGHT?

1 thought on “Here you go, feministing wrong.

  1. I don’t even see most of those as all that “slutty”. Sexy, sure, but what’s wrong with that? They are really no different or revealing than things that women might wear any night of the year to go out on the town. Just because it’s Halloween it’s not okay? I mean, I wouldn’t wear them, but that’s more about my insecurities than thinking they are inappropriate in any way.

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