With Halloween rapidly approaching, I realized this past weekend I didn’t have a costume or even any ideas for one. My journalistic tendency to put things off until the last minute allowed Halloween to creep up on me this year. I thought I was in luck when I trekked to a local party store and saw the walls lined with dozens of costumes.
Mile-High Attendant. Naughty Nurse. Racy Referee. Poca-hottie. Of course, each costume lining the wall had either a synonym for ‘sexy’ or a sexual pun in the name, featuring a nearly naked size-two blonde donning fishnets and missing enough fabric to make me considerably uncomfortable looking for a costume with my mother. Even Spongebob had been sexified to ‘Sponge-babe.’ An Internet
search revealed the most horrific costume aimed at young women – the traditional Halloween skeleton had taken a disturbing, oversexed twist with this season’s ‘Anna Rexia.’
Is this what American Halloween culture has come to – parading eating disorders? In preparation for the least clothed holiday, many of my own friends have dedicated themselves to unhealthy eating and exercise patterns, determined to be satisfied with their bodies in their skimpy outfit of choice. These are women who regularly make the Dean’s List, who hold officer positions in multiple campus organizations, who always work hard towards success.
I overheard one girl on campus even brag, “I’m anorexic for the week,” which led to cheers from her surrounding friends.
When I was a child, it was the overload of candy that made Halloween unhealthy. Today, it is the measures women take to alter their appearance that make Halloween a cause for concern. As someone who has battled self-esteem and eating issues my entire life, I cringe at the thought that action so obviously harmful to the health of young women is supported, even promoted, all for the sake of one Wiccan holiday.
This oversexed Halloween culture has become standard. Cady Heron in “Mean Girls” says it best; “In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress up like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
These ideals need to be re-evaluated. Every female donning a costume this Halloween should be reminded that there is no direct correlation between how much skin is shown and how much attention will be received. Intelligent, talented young women on college campuses have more to offer their male colleagues than their bodies. If the attention you’re receiving is based on your midriff-bearing costume, is that really the attention you deserve– or even want – anyway?
We are better than that. These standards we as young women are subjecting ourselves to are only causing harm to our bodies and the way we view ourselves.
I didn’t leave the party store empty handed. I purchased a white mushroom hat with red polka dots. If you’re roaming around Oswego this weekend, maybe you’ll spot Toad from Mario Kart zooming around in a cardboard car.