Halloween. A holiday no matter what day of the week it is, that will always lead to extravagant costumes and children spent eating candy until they fall asleep in their trick or treat bags.
2020 is no exception.
With Halloween on a Saturday this year, there was cause for celebration, because children around the United States would be able to dress up and go out all day looking for candy or fun places to show off their costumes (Chipotle/Chick-fil-A perhaps?)
However, the pandemic may have put a damper on these plans, because places around the U.S. cancelled their Halloween parades, trick or treating, or any social events around their neighborhoods due to COVID-19.
People everywhere were worried about what this would mean for Halloween. Would they still get candy? Would we still be able to wear a costume? These questions could be answered with a simple yes.
Although the U.S. had to modify what Halloween would look like this year, fun was still had.
My Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook etc. was filled with pictures and videos of my friends/family dressing up and practicing safe social distancing guidelines while celebrating Halloween.
However, one thing that was not absent this year, though I wish was, were the comments on posts of my female friends and what they were wearing. There were people commenting very explicit things, as well as sexualizing these girls, regardless if they knew them or not.
This should not be the case.
Women, of any race, body type, ethnicity, the list goes on, should not be “catcalled” in any situation (online or in-person) because of their choice of costume (as well as what they wear daily, but that is another story.)
No one should be told that what they are wearing is a “slutty” costume, or that it is too revealing/any of the other words that people like to ostracize each other with. We, as a society, should feel free to wear whatever we want to wear, so long as we are comfortable in what we are wearing.
If we look at costumes from years past, we see that a lot of female costumes are more cinched at the waist, as well as having a lower neckline. This is typical of women’s fashion and is replicated in Halloween attire.
However, it is cited in a famous line from a movie I know far too well, “Mean Girls”, that “Halloween is the one time a year that a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girl can say anything about it.” (As cited from Rotten Tomatoes)
Why should women feel like a “slut” for wearing something that they like to wear? Does it bring satisfaction to those that make those comments, to bring other people down?
We need to do a better job of lifting people up, instead of bringing others down. Women, or anyone for that matter, should not have sexualized comments about their clothing, or their body. Something that deserves to be normalized is the complimenting process that just involves telling someone something that you like about them. So, instead of going up to someone and saying “dang girl, your a** is fat” (which is something I was graciously “complimented” with a few weeks ago) try and say things like “you look really nice in that color” or, in the spirit of Halloween, telling them things like “those bat wings make you look fierce,” or that their SFX makeup looks spectacular.
Don’t make it about the clothes, make the compliments about the person, regardless of what they are wearing and how they look in it.