The Sluttification of Halloween

"Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total
slut and no other girls can say anything about it."
- Line from Mean Girls (2004)

[FYI: I don't particularly like the term "slut", due to its obvious sexist connotations and implications of a double standard between men and women regarding sexual promiscuity, but due to its prevalence in popular discourse and the fact that women probably use it more than men, I thought it an appropriate term to use for the title of this post.]

A couple of days ago I went shopping for Halloween costumes with my significant other. As I perused the store's offerings, a discernible pattern quickly emerged among the female costumes. Specifically, almost all of them included tiny microskirts, revealing cleavage, and - in case we didn't get the idea from the bustier - accessories such as a badge that read "Officer Naughty." Of course, if a woman didn't want to dress in such revealing attire, there was always the choice of going as an outhouse, or a giant whoopee cushion, i.e. no choice at all unless she wanted to socially ostracize herself by going to the other extreme with a patently ridiculous joke costume.

Now, I'm no prude, but this whole phenomenon resulted in mixed emotions for me. On the one hand, as a heterosexual male, of course I'll be slow to object to any holiday tradition that results in an increased number of scantily-clad women. On the other hand, I've read far too much feminist literature to dismiss the larger societal implications of this, perhaps best summed up in another line from Mean Girls, which isn't even a movie I like all that much.

Karen: Why are you dressed so scary?
Cady: It's Halloween.

Basically, if every single costume available for women is a variant on sexy cop, sexy nurse, sexy witch, sexy nun, the range of possible female costumes becomes much more limited. If a woman feels that she doesn't want to dress in a revealing, sexy costume, perhaps because she's self-conscious or simply doesn't want to come off as some kind of sex object, then it's that much harder for her to find something she likes. Beyond that, when the celebration of Halloween virtually obliges women to dress in skimpy clothing, the whole world becomes one giant Playboy Mansion. Again, while that can be a good thing for straight men looking for eye candy, it ultimately objectifies women in the same manner as Hugh Hefner's lad rag.

Of course, I could be completely out of my league here. I'm sure that at this point in history, plenty of women would tell me that they have no problem with this trend, that they agree 100% with the quote at the beginning of this post, that it's "empowering" to be able to dress as sexy as they want on Halloween and have nobody say anything about it. Leaving aside for a second the implications of people criticizing them for dressing sexy on the other 364 days of the year, there is the possibility that they are merely confirming Ariel Levy's thesis in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture - i.e., when popular culture dusts off old sexist stereotypes like the Playboy bunny and reframes them as edgy and "empowering", women are merely buying into a cartoonish, consumerized version of sexuality perpetuated mainly for its greater commercial potential. It sends the message to other people that they are comfortable flaunting their sexuality, in a Maxim culture that demands women do this.

These are just random thoughts and for now I'll have to leave the issue unresolved, but there are scads of female writers who can address these topics far better than I. For now I'll point you to an incisive article by Stacie Adams in which she lays waste to some sacred cows in our popular discourse - words that have been largely drained of all meaning by overuse. Among them:

Feminism – Feminism is about equality, unless it’s about empowering women.
It can also empower men, but that usually involves being falsely accused of rape
or losing custody of your children. Feminism is about embracing your womanhood, but sometimes it’s about rejecting that womanhood as a society imposed gender constraint. Feminism is also about sisterhood, unless you disagree with some aspect of the ideology, then it is about lambasting your sisters for daring to
question hallowed mama feminism.

Thoughtless ladies have tried to use feminism to justify every behavior
imaginable. Everything from icy celibacy to wild nymphomania has been held up as typifying feminism. There simply is no consensus, which is why you have people
like Sarah Palin using the term as a means of garnering support. Since it’s been
so loosely defined for so long, it is essentially up for grabs.

Empower – Women today think wearing high heels with jeans or sport balling
a pro surfer count as empowerment. Well, why shouldn’t they? Empower is a trite
and over used word indicating that some powerless segment of society can fortify
itself through meaningless maneuvers and trends. The only real way to empower
oneself is financial. The people holding power in society are not necessarily occupying their positions because they are white or men, as there are scads of
white men living in slums right along side us women and various
minorities.