When I was growing up, a Halloween costume wasn’t something you bought. You had to make it yourself.
Scanning through my photo albums, you will find me in homemade costumes resembling a martian, a clown, a doctor, an undertaker, a ghost, a nurse, a vampire and the Lone Ranger. Yeah that’s me in October 1979.
But here we are in 2013 and Halloween costumes are big business. But something is missing when it comes to girl costumes. Something very, very important.
Do you know what it is?
Last year, I went on a rant about the Halloween costume choices for girls in a popular post titled “Mommy, I want to be sexy for Halloween“.
My main point wasn’t about the skimpiness of the costumes (that’s a whole other issue), but the discrepancy between the boys and the girls costumes. I was hoping for a different turn out this year, but no such luck.
Usually I go out to my local stores and snap pictures of these marketing disasters, but I am too busy this year to make the trip. Fortunately, a quick visit to Target’s web site makes this a super easy task. They’ve done all the discrimination work for me!
Let’s play a game from Sesame Street (which was still being played on the show in 1979) called….
One of these things is not like the others!
From the two screen shots below, see if you can spot the difference between the boy costume choices (top row) and the girl costume choices (bottom row). Can you tell which thing is not like the others?
Figure it out yet?
Do you see which category the girls DON’T get to choose from?
That’s right. Career.
What message does this send?
Girls can’t have a career.
Halloween is about dress up and make believe, right? So why can’t she fantasize about being a firefighter or an astronaut or a brain surgeon? Why are there no career costumes for girls?
Girls can’t even pretend to have a career.
Sesame Street would not have made such a ghastly mistake (sorry if that came off a little punny).
Surely you’re not serious, are you?
Yes, I am. And just to be sure I wasn’t overlooking things, I used the sidebar to filter by theme.
This is what I found:
Still no career costumes for girls. Boys get “Uniformed occupation,” but no such corresponding category appears on the girls side.
But hey if your daughter wants to be a sexy fairy, she has plenty of costume ideas to choose from in the storybook and fairy tale section.
Another Halloween fail. Maybe next year, right?
I feel like Linus, sitting in the Great Pumpkin Patch… waiting for nothing.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Post your own costume frustrations below.
5 comments
gretchen
I saw a vet and a doctor costume when I dug deeper, but only the vet costume shows up under the filter of “tv and movies” which still makes ZERO sense. I’m sure they do that intentionally because if they only have 2-3 career costumes then they won’t make a category for them. It still shows that there is a lack of career costumes for girls.
Selena
They do- They have nurse and doctor outfits…
Anon
Realize that in retail the idea is to make money. They appeal to the largest customers they can find. Little girls, a LOT want to be fairies or princesses.
Little boys, a LOT want to be soldiers and zombies and stuff.
Retail companies care not for equality, and care not for sexism. They simply care about making a profit, and making a profit means selling products that appeal to a majority.
As a male, I’m all for anyone’s equality, but retail is all about the money. And that’s where I work: retail.
If you want a doctor’s costume, get a doctor’s costume. Does it matter if it says it is for boys? Buy it for your girl or whatever.
Skirts are designed for girls but I love to wear them. I care not if it says “womens clothing”.
Kristina
It is extremely frustrating! I looked at Party City’s website, only to find their career section for girls consists of cheerleaders and pop stars. Seriously, thats it. Don’t even get me started on the teen costumes.
Chloe Robbert
This is horrible.I wanted to be a doctor a few years ago.I had to wear my brother’s costume because all I could find were princesses and fairies.The edgiest thing I found was a vampire countess.I believe there was a military costume for boys. Women are in the military,why can’t girls pretend to be?This needs to change and change fast.