Halloween Gender Roles

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For my gender and halloween analysis, last friday I went to Spirit Halloween to study the differences between mens and womens costumes. The store was mostly comprised of young people and families shopping for costumes. The atmosphere was hectic and chaotic.
Gender was used as a strategy by placing two signs were strategically placed on opposite sides of the store to divide the young boys and girls costumes. On the boys side, there was a billboard with super heroes with authoritative postures popping out at the viewer. On the girls side, there was cinderella and two other princesses trapped in a castle. Cinderella was looking at her glass slipper while the others were giving something looks. playing with their hair performing no actions. For …show more content…

The key was how the costumes were gendered from males to females. Even though I knew the sexualization of female costumes has been a problem over recent years, I was in awe with the degree of objectification. One costume that stood out to me the most was a women and mens prisoner costume. For the men's, it was a baggy black and white costume that barely showed any skin whatsoever. On the flip side, the womens costume wasn’t even a third of the fabric covering the male costume. This theme carried thoguhout all of the costumes; a normal looking costume for men, and an exteme sexualization for the womens costume. The only costume I was able to find that had some coverage to the body was the Rosy the Riviter outfit, which gives me a slight glimmer of hope in the Halloween industry.
Growing up Halloween had always been an interesting experience for me. When I was younger I always bought princess outfits but as I grew older I wanted to dress as a harry potter himself or the grim reaper. My parents never cared what I wore as a transitioned from Halloween to Halloween, but it was in fact my two older brothers who gender policed me and told me I shouldn’t be wearing those costumes. I found myself wanting to step away from “girly” things and found myself being more interested in things that my brothers