These two Halloween costumes in a mall display, snapped by Deeky (here and here, via Shakesville), make a joke of women working in masculine occupations by suggesting that they’re, essentially, sex workers.
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See our other Halloween-related posts: two extra-special costumes (the Anna Rexia costume and the Sexy Scholar), Max Weber jack o’lantern (by yours truly), Obama mask sold as terrorist mask, a Sarah Palin effigy, handling sex offenders on trick-o’-treat day, and costume catalog analyses (here and here).
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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Comments 29
aojjoa — October 28, 2009
I don't know. There are a whole lot of "sexy" costumes for traditionally feminine occupations, too. I think there is plenty of trivializing of working women going on, but I don't necessarily think that women in masculine occupations are being singled out that much more than others.
Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist — October 28, 2009
It really makes me angry when they do that. Halloween is about paganism, witches, goblins, ghosts, zombies, vampires, serial killers, etc... so can anyone please tell me what the hell does Halloween have to do with mocking ethnicity groups, races, and/or women?!!
Halloween WAS my favourite holiday but not anymore because of stupid shit like this.
John — October 28, 2009
Judging from the additional options for purchase in the window that display the labels of the Playboy bunny (in the top photo) and Hustler (in the bottom photo) seem to imply to me that if this were being sold in a mall, it's a mall that has a sex store/adult costume store in it. Now I haven't been in a mall in the US for some years, but I somehow doubt that this is a "normal" display that one would see at an average mall.
This begs the question of whether these sorts of costumes would be out-of-context as Halloween costumes being sold at a sex store/adult costume store.
mordicai — October 28, 2009
That isn't fair-- Halloween is the time of year to objectify ALL women!
Jillian C. York — October 28, 2009
I went costume shopping this weekend (for the first time in years - I usually make my costumes from scratch) and was disgusted by what I found. Row after row of "sexy" costumes for women, while men's costumes (or costumes picturing men anyway) were mostly silly (cow, banana, peanut). There were scary costumes, too, many of which said "unisex" but had men pictured on them. The scary "women's" costumes all showed cleavage.
Here's a small Flickr set of the worst of the worst (in my opinion): http://www.flickr.com/photos/jilliancyork/sets/72157622683058660/
I also spotted several editions of the illegal alien costume for sale, ugh (incidentally, I noticed that he has a green card - guess he's not *actually* illegal, is he?)
All Hallows’ Eve « Digital Marginalia — October 30, 2009
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[...] in our comments thread to this post, junequest observed: I also find it disturbing that many of the “sexy” costumes are highly [...]
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[...] in our comments thread to this post, junequest observed: I also find it disturbing that many of the “sexy” costumes are highly [...]
Bobby Doms — November 1, 2009
you're all mad cause you wouldn't look good in those sexy costumes...
Shana Stephen — December 30, 2009
Lots of good ideas here! There is a retail chain in New York called Ricky’s NYC that has a ton of fun costume ideas, including some you discussed here. You can check it out online at http://www.rickyshalloween.com or http://www.rickysnyc.com .