Halloween is this week, and do you know what you are dressing like? Or maybe you are thinking about how little you are going to be wearing.
According to the National Retail Federation: for the ladies, we grow up wanting to be a princess and in our adulthood, we witch it up. For the men, you are either Batman or Batman. Although Halloween has the possibility to be spooky as hell, the truly scary part of the holiday is the possibility to be a backlash for women everywhere. To quote one of my favorite movies Mean Girls, “In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.” But what defines a slut exactly, and why is it okay for this one day for us to ignore the slut-shaming of costumes?
The most popular costumes this year, among couples, are currently are VMA Miley and VMA Robin, but that’s not shocking since we spent the other days of the year slut-shaming Miley. This our chance to be Miley! (I hope you could tell I was being sarcastic…) Although what we wear should not define who we are and what we want, as modern women we allow for our beliefs that women can dress however they want without being called a slut for this one day of the year to go away.
Did you know that Halloween is one of three days according to a survey in 2011 conducted by Professor James Alan Fox? Why would we forgo our safety for one night? Yes, we truly protest at the idea that what we wear does not mean consent, but here we are defining who we are with words like sexy and slutty on Halloween. If we allow for those words to exist on this one night, we also allow for others to call us those exact words. Then our safety goes along with it, because we blur our own lines with each other.
This Halloween be a witch or be sexy witch; it is your choice. But in the process, I urge you, to not allow your sexuality to be defined by the costume you wear. Also, be safe, and get a bunch of treats. You deserve it sexy witch!
Happy Halloween!