Sexy Bernie Sanders, sexy It clown, sexy chicken sandwich ...
Halloween is becoming increasingly sexualized. Here’s why some people are pushing back.
Halloween is becoming increasingly sexualized. Here’s why some people are pushing back.
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00:00In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut,
00:04and no other girls can say anything about it. In girl world, Halloween is the one night a year
00:08when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it.
00:20I think in that particular movie, I think it does a great job of showing how it's like the
00:27double bind. It doesn't matter if you wear a costume that's not sexy,
00:30if you wear a costume that's sexy, you will be judged either way.
00:45Oftentimes, women's costumes are intended to display as opposed to disguise. With costumes
00:51marketed to boys and men, oftentimes you see far more opportunity for disguise,
00:56far more full body coverage, lots of elements like humor and gore,
01:02superheroes, you see lots of sort of agency being displayed.
01:14In terms of how we were identifying what was perceived as sexy,
01:18some of that came down to costume markers related to amount of skin display,
01:23tightness of the clothing. But we also looked at other elements, and we looked
01:28particularly at two sort of subsets of objectification. So these two subsets of
01:34objectification are infantilization and sexualization. Infantilization tends to be
01:39associated with innocence, pigtails, little circles on the cheeks, bows, pastel pink
01:46colors and polka dots. Things like, it's called the bashful knee, toes turned in or one knee
01:52turned in, this sort of like coy posing, right? Covering the mouth, hugging yourself.
01:59They're really passive poses where the body's sort of closed off. As opposed to costumes marketed
02:04to boys and men, where often we would see postures like sort of strong stance, fists up, legs apart
02:11and solidly on both feet. And the ways that we coded for sexiness or sexualization were related
02:18to elements of extreme glamour, corsets, accentuated cleavage, as well as the postures
02:26of the models, which might look like chest sticking out or eyelids half closed, mouth open,
02:32hands on the hips.
02:43What we saw in adult women's costumes was predominantly sexualization. The most
02:49concerning result we had was the greatest combination of infantilization and sexualization
02:56happens with costumes marketed to teen and tween girls. The costume has a corset, but the corset
03:02has polka dots, right? The costume has fishnet leggings, but they're pink.
03:17I don't believe that anyone should be told how to dress. I believe you should be allowed to wear
03:22what you want. It's about having the options and having knowledge of the options. Because if you
03:26don't know, and the only thing you see are people wearing a particular type of costume, then you may
03:32not know that there are other options and ways of being. And so I really think it's not about not
03:38being sexy. It's about what does sexy mean to you? Those pervasive messages can result in some of the
03:44most common mental health concerns that we see in girls and women, eating disorders and eating
03:49disorder behavior, which are two different things. Body monitoring, self-esteem issues,
03:55this can end up relating to issues of depression and anxiety.
04:06I would say these costumes are a symptom of the culture. It's not really the other way around. So
04:10I'm not trying to make the claim that somehow if we change the way that costumes look, we're
04:17going to change the way the culture is. It's more complicated than that.
04:20If you are someone who tends toward the costumes marketed to women and girls, what would it be like
04:27to look at what's on the other side of that aisle, to expand possibilities, to create your own
04:33costume? If you're unsatisfied with the options that you see, to reach out to the companies
04:38providing those options and let them know that there's a demand.