Tuesday, October 30, 2007

On the marriage of racism and sexism at Halloween


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I have always had a hard time digesting the hypersexualized costumes that so many women don for Halloween. Could all of these women really be sitting around in their everyday clothing just dying to take it all off at first opportunity? What kind of sick male fantasy is that? And why are women so eagerly complicit in this?

These are questions that I have had for a long time but the bloggers over at racialicious brought a whole new level of analysis to this discussion that was very much needed. I strongly encourage you all to read it.

4 comments:

notemily said...

I think it's really just that women get more social rewards for "taking it all off" than they do for, say, thinking of an imaginative costume idea. which is sad, but it makes sense.

Anonymous said...

I can't speak for other women but I always thought a reason why some women chose to do this is because it is allowed or rather, expected and accepted. And because it is expected and accepted it is okay. "Well I can dress like this because it is just pretend and I don't normally do this." Some women I think like being seen as sexaul objects for whatever reason and can do so thru costumes because to them there is still that distinction between self and other.

Cortney said...

That is a fantastic point Erika. Oddly I hadn't really thought of that self/other dichotomy. "Of course I am a good girl 364 days a year so on Halloween I can pretend to be 'bad!'" Which makes the racialized costumes even more hideously ethnocentric.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I know, I want to!