Strolling down the isles of stores or scrolling down a the page of a site that sells Halloween costumes for girls is both comical and horrifying. Now, I’m not even fazed when I see companies tack on “sexy” and take off fabric to what before used to be considered a normal Halloween costume. This on a small scale isn’t a problem; if women want to dress on the sexier side for Halloween, that’s fine. But this has moved beyond that, and now, with the help of the media, it is an expectation for women to put on tight clothes and show off some skin.
Movies like Mean Girls promote the idea that women need to take the opportunity to “dress up like a total slut and not get called out for it” each Halloween. Not only is this slut shaming, which is a huge issue in our society, but the media narrows down what type of costumes companies should sell, making the over sexualization of Halloween costumes the only option for most women.
And now, over-sexualization is not only a problem for women but also a problem for young girls. Because of the media’s influence and pressure on women, young girls grow up thinking that their costumes need to fulfill this standard. This point is further proved when costumes aged under thirteen are purposefully altered to show more skin, if not not also outrightly stating it by a prefix of “slutty” or “sexy.”
These companies have gone even further, almost to the point where it feels like they are mocking us, by selling costumes that they make as sexy, when in fact they are the exact opposite as sexy. When I think of “sexy,” certain things like strawberries or Luigi from Mario Kart never come to mind, however both these things have been made into costumes for girls or women but however, ditch the traditional form of the v