By Iulia Padeanu, News Editor -
Not sure at what point in the last few decades the idea of dressing up for Halloween transitioned from ghosts, monsters, and witches, to “naughty” (insert any profession/character/female role here). A day that looks to scare and terrify now does so with the indecent amount of skin and skimpy outfits.
Last year, a few friends and I took a trip down to the Garment District. While I didn’t have a particular costume in mind, I was sure that inspiration lay just around the corner. From what I had heard, this place was truly the Mecca of costume seekers.
So with an open – and perhaps naïve – mind, I set out on my costume mission. Surely, something in this “district” would give me an idea for a clever getup. To my surprise, half way through the door, I was met with an abundance of costumes, all offering the opportunity to be more and more scantily clad. It was impossible to choose! On this fine Halloween evening, would I chose to be “slutty nurse,” “slutty cop,” or “slutty Red Riding Hood?” So many choices, so little time (so little fabric)! If only every weekend provided a fabricated reason to wear underwear in public!
It makes me wonder, have women today no artistic visions? Have women on campus truly lost the creativity and inspiration that got them into Boston College? Can we, as a gender, really not come up with anything more exciting than adding the word “slutty” to the beginning of various careers and popular movie characters? Or is it simply that we have lost respect for ourselves?
Don’t get me wrong – I am all for dressing up. Come Friday night, I will be the girl wearing the high heels, make up, and cute dress. But there is a big difference between trying to look nice for a night out and about, and stripping down to my absolute bare essentials to trick-or-treat.
Is it not enough that we have already made the top of the fittest campuses list? So many of us head to the gym each day, run around the reservoir, and line up at Addie’s to keep ourselves in great shape – but do we really need to participate in a Halloween exhibition to show it off? By all means, wear a cute dress but don’t let society tell you that, on the night of Oct. 31, you must join a campus-wide competition for the least amount of fabric worn.
This has become more that just a personal pet peeve. To me, it is a wake up call. How blind have young women become to society’s demands? How is it that the girl who chooses to cover up, to be unique, to go a little spooky on Halloween stands out?
I’m not trying to sound too “Cady Heron,” taking out my annoyances on a group of plastic girls who stole my boyfriend. I just need to know that girls on our campus have not lost their individuality. No one should feel the need to follow a trend that represents a perversion of a once innocent holiday.
Therefore, I urge you to take a stand this year. Try something different. My friend, a computer design major at an arts school in the Midwest, is putting up her pretty blond hair, stealing her mom’s pearls and is going for the Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s look. Sure, it’s not scary, but at least it doesn’t have the word “naughty” before it. Last year, a couple of my best friends wore all black, and went as dominos. I’m sure there are minds out there more creative than that, and given how much time and effort every one of us puts into dressing each weekend, I’m confident we can put in a little more to find a creative way to celebrate this Halloween.
So I hope that, this year, at least a few of you, will dig into the back of your closets and your hearts, and finally take Halloween for what it is: a fun, silly night on which you can express a different side of yourself. If I can’t convince you, then I can only hope that the weather will stay cold enough to do it for me.
Bravo, Ms. Padeanu.
You are not alone. My daughter and her friend (students at the Tisch School of the Arts/NYU) came home last weekend and enlisted the help of my husband in making their exceptionally creative costumes, neither of which involves the slutty prefix. I will send you a photo.
You know, I wore a lot of mannish, bland suits in the 1980s in my first job out of college so that I would be judged by my work, not my cute factor. Sure seems to me that some of my generation’s work has been undone–in today’s workplaces, the attire of some women causes me to think they inadvertently forgot their poles.
Continuing my stream-of-consciousness rant, I would like to point out that no woman in high levels of administration at Johns Hopkins Hospital would ever dress like “Dr. Lisa Cuddy” on “House.”
Thank you for writing this, you sensible smart person.
Hmmm…interesting article to say the least, let me see if I have your points in order before I begin addressing them
1. Women today are perverting themselves by dressing up as sluts
2. More traditional costumes would better benefit the female gender.
OK, so after summarizing your wordiness in two sentences lets take a look at some of the issues that arise from your beautifully worded discourse.
1. Your a model. The end. Your subject position (look it up) on the ideology of femininity is, at it’s heart, contradictory to your entire argument. Call it “modeling” call it “halloween”. Its’ all slutty, Your not even debating semantics, your spin on what is and what isint acceptable (or, slutty, as you call it) Is invalid.
2. You probably take free drinks when guys offer them to you. Right? Let’s be honest journalists here, most women do. Why? cus you “will be the girl wearing the high heels, make up, and cute dress” wont you? Wy do you wear that dress? some girls can’t, you can. You look better, you get the boy, the drink, and the ya know.
3. Don;t make public statements and expect not to get slammed. Illogical fallacy’s stand in your way, and people should and will point them out.
Thank you for writing this article. Every Halloween I feel like the skirts just get shorter and shorter, the fabric skimpier and skimpier. And every year when I see one of these scantily-clad women I think to myself: How are you not aware that you look like a cheap prostitute right now…and for that matter, how are you not cold wearing barely more than lingerie in late October?
And then women wonder why the media is so focused on sexualizing the female body for the benefit of male viewers. Well, it obviously works if you’re buying into it too even if its only briefly for Halloween. The theme of Halloween is “scary stuff” not “slutty stuff”. And while it is an excuse to show an unseen side, I can safely say I have never felt tempted to show off that much of my skin unless I’m on the beach in summer. Perhaps that’s just me, but why should showing a slutty side ever be a desirable thing for a woman? And it’s not even creative, just cheap (in every sense).
Thanks again for writing a much-needed article.
Is John serious? Has he not heard this before? Is he really arguing that it’s fine for girls to dress and act like sluts for attention?
I don’t know why he calls you a model, but even if you are, why does that contradict anything you said? I’m also not sure what “Your not even debating semantics, your spin on what is and what isint acceptable (or, slutty, as you call it) Is invalid” and a lot of his other points mean, because this is about costumes, not semantics. I think you said everything quite well, but either way, it doesn’t matter how you phrased it- it’s true.
Maybe John enjoys the fact that girls are wearing increasingly less to go out, but what it comes down to is the idea that is ingrained in girls’ minds every day: slutty/sexual/provocative/hot equals attention. We crave attention, and flashing as much skin as will turn heads does the trick. By day, we may study, participate in class, get good grades, and have our career path down, but by night, and not just halloween night, we want to feel sexy and wanted. And to our generation, the meaning of “sexy” has become “sexual,” and on halloween, it becomes “naked.”
I certainly agree with the article, but I think it even doesn’t go far enough. It’s not just the amount of skin that girls show- it’s the “naughty” implications of the costumes, and that the little fabric that IS barely there mimics that of porn stars and strippers. Look out for the thigh-highs, booty shorts, micro skirts, body jewelry, chin-high cleavage, glitter, 6-inch heels, etc. this weekend. The costumes are all the exact same design, save for colors and cute props. It’s not just that we’ve lost our individuality or creativity; we’ve lost our self-respect, and we aspire to look like prostitutes. I could even argue that this is prostitution- we use our bodies to get something–attention, sex, drinks, a name–in return. Good thing we scored high on SATs, did volunteer work, went to church, and got that BC education, right?
I agree with you and wish girls would find their class and dignity and finally put it before their hunger for attention. But I think the sad truth is that as long as they are rewarded with what they were aiming for by dressing and acting like sluts, girls will continue to do so because they see that it works. I think all we can do is hold onto our own class, and hope that those girls wise up someday to realize that they can get attention for what’s inside instead, and much more rewarding attention at that.