Op-ed: Issues with Halloween costumes

by Meghan Tarr

A big problem during Halloween is that women are expected to dress “sexy.”

Halloween is a time to celebrate and dress up, have candy, and go to spooky activities like haunted houses.

(Photo: Google)

In many Halloween stores a lot of costumes are low cut, short, and very provocative. This is an issue because women should be able to have the choice of how they want to dress. The Halloween stores and social media doesn’t help the ones who choose to not have a provocative costumes.

The issue isn’t that they choose to dress in a scandalous way, the issue is that they really only have one option. Almost everything is so revealing, which is not true in costumes for men. A more concerning side note is costumes geared to young teens. Thirteen year old girls have costumes that are low cut tight, etc. In my opinion, they are too young for these costumes. Most of them still can’t watch R rated movies, so why are they wearing these scandalous costumes?

Senior Sarah Heckman said, “I think for a guy who has a provocative costume it’s usually supposed to be funny. For girls and women it’s thought to be sexy.” 

To fix this issue Halloween stores can start offering a better variety of costumes. Social media also plays a big role in Halloween costumes. Instead of women/girl models posting inappropriate costumes, they could start posting more conservative costumes or a variety of costumes so young girls and women don’t think they have to dress a certain way. This could be difficult, but it could be a start to end how women/girls think they have to look for Halloween.