Remember when you were a child, and for Halloween you would dress up in costumes like a cheerleader, a witch, or a cat? Well, as you got older, you were still able to dress up as those characters, just with less fabric and more push-up bras.
Celebrating Halloween in the 21st century for a woman means that it is the one night of the year you can walk through the streets in skimpy lingerie and as long as you have animal ears or a nurse's hat on, you can say it's just a Halloween costume.
For women, Halloween costume options are seemingly endless. Halloween costume sites feature well over 700 different costume choices, all of which scarcely cover a person's body. Police costumes, nurse, bumblebee, sailor, school girl, and many more are options available on nearly every Halloween costume website in every size.
Why is it that on one day of the year, women find it more socially acceptable to bare their skin in a way they would regularly label badly?
In reality, many women aren't comfortable enough with their bodies to sport risqué clothing on a regular basis. Because of the ease in which society labels women "sluts" or "skanks", now more than ever, females are tip-toeing around what they do, say, and where in order to avoid the harsh stereotype.
However, on Halloween night it's become customary, almost expected, that women run around bars and parties, scantily clad in costumes that vaguely resemble animals or figures of authority. In the movie "Mean Girls", Lindsay Lohan's character Cady is unaware of the "sexy Halloween costume" rule, and shows up to a party dressed in a full Zombie Bride costume, complete with ugly fake teeth and a dress that covered most of her body. She was predictably out of place.
It's most likely that the trend of sexy Halloween costumes evolved from teenagers and young adults still wanting to celebrate Halloween, but in a more adult way. With the prominence of events such as lingerie themed parties and wet t-shirt contests, it seemed only fitting that Halloween be turned into a holiday to celebrate the near-naked female body.
It can feel empowering for a woman to wear a skimpy French Maid costume and be able to parade around confidently in it. On Halloween, women aren't judged on the clothes (or lack of) that they wear, and are instead applauded for accentuating their body confidently.
Halloween also allows some women to indulge in their fantasies of role-play or dressing sexy without fear of seeming strange or awkward.
Places like Yandy Costumes and Party City offer hundreds of different Halloween costume options for women, most of which seem less sexist than they do sexy. In general, sexy Halloween costumes have become more liberating for women rather than sexist or chauvinistic. It's possible that the trend of baring skin on holidays will help invigorate women to become more comfortable in their own bodies daily.
-Tegan Louise
http://www.yandy.com
http://www.yandy.com
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