Jennifer Siebel Newsom comments on trends in Halloween costumes and makes a call-to-action…
Last week, while browsing Walgreen’s pharmacy, I happened upon the Halloween section and spent some time looking around at what costumes were available for my children (both under two).
Like in so many other areas of society, the options were extremely limiting. The girl’s outfits were almost all centered on beauty and sexuality, while the boys were either professional (i.e. doctor) or violent (a majority of the boy’s outfits included some kind of weapon).
A few of our interns look for Halloween costumes at a local pharmacy
I started to think about the impact of young girls being encouraged to dress up as sexy kittens while young boys are pushed towards hyper-masculinity and aggression.
Halloween seems to amplify our cultural trend of women being raised to manipulate their bodies and boys being taught to master their environments. With these costumes, are we again teaching girls to value themselves only for their beauty and boys to glorify violence? When are we going to provide a wider array of opportunities for our girls to portray characters that aren’t easily objectified or sexualized? Where are the costumes for my daughter that actually represent power or authority?
It’s not just about our children either. On PartyCity.com the Halloween page features a “Sexy Costumes” section. There are only women’s costumes in this section. There’s a clear imbalance here: is Halloween now for girls to dress sexy for men? The way we adults approach this holiday has a direct effect on how our kids view it. And with more and more of us participating in Halloween each year, it becomes critically important for us to think about that effect.
This Halloween I urge you to consider carefully how you dress yourself and your young ones. But since the costume stores aren’t displaying much creativity, we have to help each other come up with interesting and inspiring outfits.
We’re starting a campaign to collect positive and non-gendered Halloween costumes online. Post pictures or videos of your outfits on our Tumblr page and leave a sentence about why you chose it! Together we can start new trends and make Halloween a little less disconcerting for parents.
Jennifer Siebel Newsom is the writer, director and producer of Miss Representation and the Founder and CEO of MissRepresentation.org
When I was a little girl my grandma made all my halloween costumes, and my favourite was my little ‘camouflaged hunter’ complete with bow and arrow and face paint. You see, I wanted to be just like my dad!
That’s one of the reasons I have always made my daughters costumes (and because it’s a fun activity to do together). I’ll post some photos on Tumblr, but costumes included Tigger (ok, we bought that one, but it was awesome), a turtle, Frodo, half angel-half devil (non-sexy), liar, liar pants on fire, and a mermaid.
In my day (heh heh), kids had to MAKE their costumes out of whatever they could find in the house! And we used pillowcases for treat bags .
My 13 yr old daughter wants to be Wednesday Addams. We just watched the movie and thought it to be a cool idea. Wednesday wears a long black dress, with the sleeves down to the wrists. I looked on-line to see if there were any Wednesday Addam’s costumes out there. Found some. Alot of them. They were ALL of the sexy variety. They shortened the length o f her dress. Instead of the collar coming right up under the chin, you guessed it, it is a very revealing neck-line. A “sexy” Wednesday. My God! In the movie, she was a pre-teen. In the old t.v. shows, she was always young. It is just horrendous.
My daughter went as Wednesday a couple of years a go. We made the costume ourselves with a hounds tooth check dress she had, a black, braided wig and sacrifice of one of her dolss who went headless.the
I had a friend who just told me her son wanted to hot glue Smarties onto a pair of pants so he can be a “Smarty Pants.” Let kids be creative and come up with their own costume ideas…they can come up with some good ones!
I love that idea!
Kids are so creative…
Yeah, one of my favorite creative costumes was a teenager who wore a sweater and jeans with about 20 kitchen sponges taped to her body. She was….self absorbed!
Over the past several years I have been increasingly disappointed in the “sexifying” of Halloween and Halloween costumes. It’s one thing to see a sexy kitten costume. But a sexy police officer? Or a sexy im=nmate? They have taken every single costume option and made it into sexy version. I even saw one for a sexy nun!
This brings back the memory of my daughter’s second grade Halloween party when one of the moms actually wore her husband’s police officer shirt tied into a halter, black mini-skirt, and stilletos to the elementary school!
Yuk. That parent should have been “sent home” for the day.
As has been mentioned by most of the rest of the posters, if you do not like what is available, make your own. Growing up, everyone made their own costumes.
Maybe the group of people who buy costumes(too lazy?) for little girls are those who think it is cute to dress girls up as a sex kitten….have you seen Tots and Tiaras???
Remember, the costume companies are in business to make money, they make what they think will sell.
I remember my parents made my halloween costum themselves every year for the same reason you wrote this artice. I was a flower, fortune teller, a geisha in long kimono. And nothing of these things looked girly enough or was too “baggy” (not sexy? we were six) for the other kids. In first class we had this dance in which boys would come to girls and ask them for a dance. I was happy waitng with the other girls until boys came and started to make fun of me and until I cryed. And the teachers solution of this problem? Puting me aside while other kids continued to play.
Now, I’m one of few girls in my faculty (Mechanical Eingeneering and Naval Architecturure) and am still faced with discriminating comments. And a normal, average girl, only raised to believe in herself.
Horrible what the teacher did! I’m sure you don’t let discriminatory comments get to you. Good for you!
I just moved to US and wanted to celebrate my first halloween. When I looked at the options for women, I was horrified! Needless to say, I decided to sit in this year with hopes of putting together something ‘normal’ next year.
I love the idea that your parents were creative and made the costumes for their children. However, I would like to comment on the Geisha costume. Although beautiful, geishas by their very nature are related to sex.
when I was young we had to make our own costumes… when my kids (twin girls and a boy) were little I made theirs… the girls dressed up as The powerpuff girls, Hannible Lector, Freddie Kruger (this was the girls).. my son has gone as Two face, Spongebob, Ghoster, Ash from Pokemon… all sorts of different characters… and all made from home.. Now they are older 18 and 21, they still make their own costumes… that’s all part of the fun isnt it…
My 5 year old daughter is dressing up as Luke Skywalker. Lea did not speak to her as she isn’t nearly as cool!
I went to a big Halloween store recently and was appalled at the selection for girls vs. boys.
The boys section had a whole aisle called “Careers” including: Police, Fire Fighter, Doctor, and Astronaut. The other boy aisles were filled with a vast selection including: Super Hero, Race Car Driver, Athlete/Sports Star, Cowboy, Indian, Pirate, Etc…
The girls section had no “Career” aisle at all and the selection was limited to princesses, princesses, princesses, witches, and princesses. Many of the costumes were overly sexy (several little girl costumes had short skirts).
Shouldn’t girls be encouraged to dream of being Astronauts, Doctors, Police Officers, and Race Car Drivers too, or are we saving those professions for boys only? Why are we limiting girls imaginations about themselves and the roles they can play in society?
And if I hear/see ONE more statement about a woman thinking about her dress or planning her wedding day since she was a girl….
Our school organization, Woodland for Women Worldwide, is tackling this same issue. We began the GET REAL Campaign to educate girls in our community about how companies are marketing one-dimensional, objectifying costumes to them. Our students have done this very thing–gone into local stores and expressed their opinions about the inappropriate trend as exhibited by Halloween costumes available to girls. Check out a local news story that was done about the GET REAL Campaign: http://www.mycitizensnews.com/2011/10/woodland-womens-group-gets-real/
Reading the comments above I find that there is obviously a demand for nonsexy outfits for girls. Here is money to be made! Who of you will jump into this hole in the market and start a non-sexist halloween costume business? I think you could make a lot of money.
Stores like the Salvation Army are perfect for Halloween. One year my son went as Legolas and my daughter as the corpse bride, Other costumes included Doctor who with suit and trench coat (A tire pressure gauge for a sonic screwdriver, and Wednesday Addams.
This summer we have also used this resource for toher things. I made myslef a victorian swim suit I love to wear and feel comfortable in, I’m making my youngest one now in purple. All the fun without the self conscience obsession with our bodies.
Thankfully my 12 year old daughter recognized that all the costumes at Party City for older girls and women are to be a slut. I’m just glad she recognized that, not that it’s true.
Good for her, mine did too! We came home and she put together a Katniss Everdeen (the Hunger Games heroine) outfit that is awesome!
I remember making (or my Mom making) costumes of a cat, clown, gypsy, ghost, and a tree, none of which were sexy or skimpy! They were all things we could creatively put together with what we had around the house, and were fun and appropriate for a kid to wear.
Better yet, consider skipping Halloween entirely. With a combined focus on death, fear, and begging, this event is lean on positivity and is better replaced with a community or family event.
Who says that getting together and watching scary movies and doing other fun halloween activities can’t be positive? and you came to a blog post talking about halloween costumes to tell people to skip it altogether. Think about that.
I JUST posted yesterday on facebook “when did Halloween become slutty?” I was shopping for my 9 year-old daughter who ironically chose to be a male zombie pirate. But I was disgusted by the “sexy” little girl costumes!!!
[...] evening I got an email from Jennifer Siebel Newsom of Miss Representation that eloquently gave voice to that niggling feeling I felt the other day. [...]
I watched Missrepresentation the other night and was inspired to send the following letter Party City and Halloween City, Please take any part of it, add your comments and put your own name on it and send a letter to these companies! Party City Corporation
Suite 1
25 Green Pond Road
Rockaway, NJ 07866
October 20, 2011
To Whom It May Concern,
I am the mother of two young girls, a former customer of your stores, and a licensed social worker counseling girls and families, and I’m wondering if you are marketing your Halloween costumes to children or strippers? Do any of you in the corporate offices have daughters? Have you thought about the messages young girls and boys are getting from the sexualization of Halloween costumes? What message are you giving children by sexualizing such costumes as Big Bird, Elmo, and Hello Kitty? It would be laughable if it weren’t so disgusting. Nearly all of your costumes for teens look like something strippers or prostitutes would wear. Would you want your teenage girls wearing these? Nearly every one of them is disrespectful —some of the most offensive are the skimpy fire fighter and army girl. Even your girl wizard apparently requires a micro mini skirt. Do you want to continue to contribute to a world that more and more is telling children that girls are to be viewed as sexual objects? This shapes how girls see themselves in the world and damages girls’ self esteem.
It’s predictable that you may say, “These products are in demand, we make them because people buy them” or “It’s a free country, you can choose not to buy it or to ignore it.” I caution you to ask yourself: Who are your customers? Where do the overwhelming majority of your sales come from? Halloween costumes are more than a $2 billion business per year in this country. Mothers hold the buying power and we don’t like what you are selling to our girls.
There is a movement afoot to challenge the sexist portrayal of women and girls. You have an opportunity to wake up to this now, take responsibility for your part in the messages you give to children through the items you sell, and discontinue marketing these types of costumes to children. If you do not you may find that you have repercussions in your sales. More importantly, you will have missed an opportunity to do the right thing as a corporation.
Sincerely,
It would be SO great those of you reading this will step up and write some letters to these companies–could be a 2 sentence letter. Here is Party City’s disappointing, predictable response to my letter. Thanks for writing to express your concern about our Halloween costumes. We are sorry to hear that you found our assortment of costumes are unacceptable and assure you that nothing we sell is meant to be offensive. While both children and adults love Halloween, there is demand for a wide variety of Halloween costumes. We strive to provide products that suit most every taste and provide costumes customers seek to make their Halloween special. Please accept our apologies and we hope you will return again for all of your future celebrations.
Sincerely,
Party City
Sorry, I should have put the letter in quote marks “Thanks for writing….” Clearly Party City doesn’t care.
A friend wrote a letter to Party City Corporate Headquarters in NJ addressing her concerns about girls’ Halloween costumes. She suggested I write one as well. Below is the letter I wrote. Maybe some of you would consider doing the same.
To Whom It May Concern,
As a mother of two girls, and a teacher, I find it very disturbing that the vast majority of the Halloween costumes available for preadolescent and teenage girls in your store sexualize and objectify girls. Why must the skirts be so short and the shoulders be bare? Who came up with the idea of sexualizing a polar bear costume? Have you ever seen a female soldier dressed in sexy fatigues? How about a firefighter in a mini dress? I have a family full of nurses and they wear scrubs to work, not micro mini skirts. The message that girls are appreciated for their looks, not for their accomplishments, is being heard loud and clear by young boys and girls alike. As a result, boys learn to objectify women (ever hear of date rape?) and girls become disempowered and self-critical.
I suggest you take a look at the website missrepresentation.org and do your part to empower young girls, starting by offering appropriate costumes for sale. You have a choice. I hope you make the socially responsible one.
Sincerely,
Keriann Linton
Thank you for keeping this going! I hope others will join us as mothers can have a strong voice if we all speak up! Just go to the “contact us” area of Partycity.com and halloweencity.com and paste your comments there, or send it regular mail to
Party City Corporation
Suite 1
25 Green Pond Road
Rockaway, NJ 07866
Your friend should have simply gone some place else. Its her right to go to a different store, but not her right to “choose” for others when her complaint could cause the costumes to be pulled so others (that arent so uptight) dont have the option to choose for themselves. As parents its our responsibility to teach our children the difference and guide them to be wholesome. It’s not your responsibility, to have stores pull items because YOU dont approve of them. Basically “Barbie” started this whole thing. is it time to write a letter to remove her?
…They want more options. If skimpy nurse is all that’s available for a LITTLE KID., that’s a problem. And no, she can not simply go someplace else because all of them do that. If the store in your area doesn’t then I congratulate you on your privilege. Also… what exactly would she be ruining if party city took her complaint to heart? The right to dress your kids as showgirls? think about what you’re defending.
Well…now that you mention it…
A really great website for non-sexual halloween costumes: http://takebackhalloween.org/
Enjoy!
I live in Las Vegas and around this time of year, there are many Halloween parties at various clubs all over the strip. the contests are always for sexiest costume (which is for women) and most creative costume (which is always dominated by men). I love a good sexy costume once in awhile but it really does send the message that Halloween is just about dressing sexy for men.
Me and two of my friends are going as Doctor Who characters, one real-life individual who is female-bodied but genderqueer is going as the 11th Doctor. My cisgender female friend is going as Amy Pond, whose outfits are not skimpy or “sexy”.
Something awesome is that one of the little girls that lives in my house is going as a zombie. I will do my best to take a picture of this and post it!
Personally, as someone who identifies as transqueer (but is read as male more often than not) I am going as something definitively non-violent in that hypermasculine sort of way that is problematic for society as a whole. Is this theme doctor Who event something that can be posted to show atypical costumes?
As an addendum to someone saying something to the effect of why don’t people just skip Halloween in general, I wish to add that for some people who identify as Wiccan or Pagan, October 31st is Samhain, a holy day essentially, and for me and at least a few others I know we incorporate some modern Halloween elements into our belief system.
Humorously, people have complained that Amy Pond’s skirts are ‘too short’, but they are definitely overreacting. Just a funny little aside.
We just have to remember that in our efforts to let girls and women be themselves we don’t send the message that a sexually empowered woman is bad. That message also permeates our culture and isn’t any better.
I love this “sexy Halloween” drawing. Especially “Sexy Dirty Sock.” It’s hilarious.
http://blog.jilliantamaki.com/2011/10/have-a-sexy-little-halloween/
We need to remember that as adults, kids will turn to us for the proper social cues. We too must partake in appropriate halloween costumes to send the right message to our daughters.
http://dr-carol.com
Absolutely. I went to pick up a bow and arrow for my daughter’s Artemis costume, and was disheartened by the swarms of young adults cruising the sexualized costumes. Also the rows of packaging and disposable costumes have an environmental effect. Though I think the subversive, carnivalesque energy of Halloween can be fun and positive, the expression of sexuality is tainted by the mass consumer culture’s perpetuation of limiting gender stereotypes, and these roles are being modeled for a generation of prematurely sexualized children.
I hear you Marlene. Why can’t women dress as Freida, Jackie O or Amelia?
I was linked to a cool website earlier today on Twitter called TakeBackHalloween.org! Lots of costumes of notable women throughout history.
And I’ve always made my own costumes by going to thrift stores.
One of my cousins was killed by a drunk driver on October 30th when I was little. Halloween is now one of highest risk nights of the year for drunk driving accidents. I’ve dressed up as a drunk driving victim with a shirt I made giving the most recent available halloween drunk driving fatality statitics. While it is a little morbid, it is also a reminder for people to act responsible.
I’m so sorry Lydia to hear of your lose. I also have great respect for you for promoting/reminding people to be safe on Halloween. If you are thinking that you shouldn’t drive then that’s the first, stay where you are and sleep it off.
I subscribe to the Vital Juice email list and got this in my inbox today! Nice job, Vital Juice for providing women with inspiration to be strong interesting women for Halloween, instead of trampy and degrading! http://vitaljuice.com/ecs/14976.htm?sid=351049
One of my favorite Halloween costumes: White turtleneck, (cheap) white suit, white shoes, briefcase I spray painted (you guessed it) white, halo purchased form a Halloween store. I was God’s Accountant. The entire thing cost me less than $15 of random thrift store finds and a little bit of creativity.
[...] with Halloween, how can we de-gender and -sexualise children’s costumes? [Miss [...]
Here’s an example of one very young girl who is saying no: http://hellogiggles.com/tricks-and-treats-return-to-innocence#comments
You think too much…clean your house or something
Dont think too much…it’s about fun and pretending…Kids usually get it (have an understanding) and grow up just fine with it not effecting them. It’s us as parents that should guide them and teach them this w/out having to go to the extent of pulling/excluding options for costumes. After all Halloween is just one day (a few hours) a year. I have a 3.5 year old (LadyBug) and a 5 yr old (Spiderman) and I’m fine w/ both. Children are all about “pretending” and if they dont understand the difference between pretend and reality, I’m sure that will come in time. Teach…..your children well, dont be so uptight about things. That may effect them worse than a simple silly halloween costume.
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After reading the NINETEEN YEAR OLDS blog…I rest my case (it was actually quite comical, the article) I still stand firm on my previous comment. Just because one/a few take offense does not make it right to take away the options for all others. It’s as SIMPLE AS THIS: If you don’t like it move on, choose another store/costume. This way takes much less effort and no time is wasted on concocting a silly blog or letter to “voice opinions” for approval (I’m a better mom, no I’m a better mom) This time could be much better spent nurturing, snuggling with and guiding your child(ren).
Last year my husband and I spend few hours just to choose a costume as a couple to participate in a party. I felt stressed out because everything in the store gave me the impression to be for either skinny or sexy women. I wanted to look fun and also comfortable. Anyways we become Hippies and even everybody found the costumes cute I also got some comments nor really nice from some women that mentioned to me that this is the “ones in a year” chance we “women” have to look sexy and hot!
This year, we are going to be as fun and cute as we feel like it. As parents of 3 boys we are definitely so worry because it seems like the only option we have for them is to get them something violent, with arms, or war motives or choose something that they do not find cool!
I’m a college student, and for this Halloween my friend and I decided to dress as Ketchup and Mustard, both very funny, non-sexual costumes. We went to a Halloween party on Friday. Seeing what girls were wearing was frankly upsetting. The worst part was that at one point in the night, as I was having fun and just dancing with my friends, a boy came up behind me and squeezed my butt. It is appalling to me to think that anyone would actually find that acceptable.
very happy halloween all
[...] today’s generally disappointing (and often infuriating) selection of overpriced costumes offered at major retailers and Halloween superstores, I find it [...]
To hear and see that they make “sexy” costumes for young girls just makes me mad. Isn’t making clothes not age appropriate already enough?
I agree and then I also ask why we are so outraged by costumes but when I go to the mall and see the stores that are geared towards children that are run by the companies that own The Limited, etc. we don’t question the approirateness of those clothes all year round!
Why don’t we let the costume stores know that we plan to sit outside their stores with signs rejecting their sexy costumes for girls. That will bring media attention and get the word out that the public won’t stand for it anymore.
Shoot, I grew up in New England and being sexy would have been ridiculous. I was a ghost in a sheet with a snow suit under it, probably more than one year!
Most of these posts are from parents with children, facing the issue of Halloween costumes. I am not a parent (nor a child) but still dress for Halloween. I am APPAULED at the costume selections for women, they’re ALL sexy costumes – what’s that got to do with Halloween? I asked a young gentlemen who worked in the costume store what he thought about the subject matter, he said he too was wondering why all the female costumes were sexy. I then asked a woman (who also worked at the costume store) – she didn’t have an opinion and treated me as if I were trying to sell her something, saying “all I do is work here”. Ladies: PAY ATTENTION, PARTICIPATE…I beg you!
I remember my Halloween costumes from when I was little I dressed up as Piglet from Winnie the Poo, a vampire, a pop star which was sewed by my mom, a demon, and many more that I do not remember. Yes, I wore nothing sexually, I believe; my childhood was pretty normal. For next year I’m already thinking about dressing up as either Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or Amelia Earhart
Agression in boys costumes is not this year only. A lot of comics heroes are aggresive characters, so small boys want to be those hereos.
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