Have Halloween Costumes Gone Too Far?

By Nicole Goodman

“In the regular world, Halloween is when children dress up in costumes and beg for candy. In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.”
—Cady from Mean Girls

Why is it that girls feel compelled to dress in some form of a scandalous costume? Whether it’s a slutty cat, a slutty nurse, a slutty bunny, a slutty cop, etc., most acceptable girl costumes start with the word slutty. I don’t believe this is something that has started recently; in fact, it goes back for generations, but why? I have been researching to see what other people think of this topic and I found a couple interesting observations:

1) “Because women would walk around like hookers all the time if they could. It’s the essence of their power over men. Halloween is the “socially acceptable” time to do that.” -Youtuber
This theory I think is interesting because they go on to talk about back in the day, when women had less rights, their body was what held their control over men…

2) “Because if girls show up in non-slutty outfits, they will be judged as prude.” -Youtuber

I think this theory is interesting because as I went through high school and college I saw this to be true.
What I don’t understand, is how some girls respect their bodies 364 days of the year but use this one day as an excuse. I get that it is now the social norm, but when has that stopped girls before? It is also a social norm that people should be courteous to one another, but MANY people don’t follow that. I think it has to do with transparency. It doesn’t make sense for girls to dress proper every other day of the year and then to blame it on the social norm. My personal belief is that girls compress the need to expose their body almost every day of the year and then explode on Halloween. I think it works the same way emotions do. If I stuff down my feelings and refuse to deal with them as they come up, you better believe I will completely explode at some point. I think girls need to be more transparent throughout the year and embrace their bodies, in their own way, so that everything isn’t up for grabs on Halloween.