Stop Calling Us Sluts At Halloween

I know Halloween is almost over, and most of the big parties happened over the weekend, but I want to get an early start on next year when I want newspaper editors to declare a moratorium on using Halloween as an excuse to call women sluts. Excuse me, I mean to say they “dress like sluts.”

It’s just like the movie Mean Girls said, Halloween is the one time of year you can dress like slut and no one can say anything. Except it’s the one time of year when columnists feel free to brand every Halloween-celebrating woman a slut and no one calls them on it. (Oh wait, that’s what it’s like every day).

Look we get it. You saw Mean Girls five years ago and now, in a pique of moralizing, you’ve decided that its something new to comment “hey those Halloween outfits are a little trashy.” I’m so tired of reading the same “joke” over and over again of the type Joel Stein makes: “It makes sense that once a year I get to peek into your psyche and find out whether you think of yourself as a whore nurse, a whore pirate, a whore angel or a whore whore.”

You are oh-so-clever that you just noticed the plethora of costumes that use the modifier “sexy” in front of non-sexy occupations. Good job noticing things. By the way have you also recently come to the realization that Christmas has become way too commercialized and that St. Patrick’s Day is just an excuse to drink?

And I know that blows people’s mind that a holiday can be fun for kids and adults, and parents and non-parents alike. What a holiday with something for everyone? What a concept!

And even if adult women (and men) just happen to enjoy costume parties there is also a huge marketing industry that pushes the “sexy” costumes, which, by the way, not every woman wears. Do women dress up for Halloween and sometimes down? Sure, but I also think the stamp of “slutty” is painted over practically every woman who wears a costume. You’re now practically a slut if you decide to dress as anything other than yourself.

For the record, its neither feminist nor not-feminist to dress provocatively on Halloween. But its completely sexist to preemptively call women who dress provocatively “sluts” and “whores.” Columnists want to use a patronizing tone -- “ladies, cover yourself, have some dignity please!” -- to judge adult women about how they want to act. As if the future of suffrage is hanging in the balance of every single woman in America’s Halloween costume choice. Better not dress as a Sexy Nurse ladies or they may take away our right to vote. Sorry, ladies! We lost the right to sue for pay discrimination last year because Mary Sue of Topeka dressed like a sexy pirate.

I know it’s so much fun to judge women on how they dress. It’s easy and its fun. It makes you feel better about yourself (especially if you’re a guy). But its not actually a sin to put on a costume. Nor does dressing a little provocatively actually make you a slut. But calling someone a slut because of how they dress on Halloween does make you a judgmental asshole.

(hat tip to Ann at Feministing for Stein's column)