User:BrittneyMalloryL/Gender Differences in Halloween Costumes

Pretty In Pink
Girls’ Halloween costumes vary from those of boys. Most girls want to dress up like Disney Princesses or cute pink and purple fairies, cute little animals, or flowers. . The costumes for girls are usually passive and sweet, and not aggressive and dominant, like boys’ costumes are.

Girls have the options of dressing up as the lesser of the both, when there is a costume set. For example, in a doctor and nurse set, the girl is always on the package as the nurse, and the boy as the doctor. Boys are portrayed as the ones who can save the day, so they tend to be superheroes. If a girl is portraying a superwoman, the costumes are more “sexy” and revealing.

Girls’ costumes are more for look, and the end result of their appearance being what matters the most. Most girls featured on Halloween websites are covered in make-up, no matter how young they are. Their hair is done up elaborately, and their clothing is more risqué than it should be for their age. . Girls’ costumes set idealized beauty standards for young girls, because on the one day they can dress up as anything they want, they choose to be portrayed as “sex symbols”, even at such a young age. Halloween doesn’t give the chance for girls to be anything out of the norm, because all the costumes made for them are focused on their appearance. Girls don’t have the opportunity to be a handyman and carry around a tool belt, because those costumes are designed for boys. Overall, girls’ costumes focus more on beauty and their physical appearance, rather than letting go and having fun for a night!

Boys and Halloween Costumes.
Halloween is helping to create social gender norms in young children. With all of the gender packaging on costumes it is easy to see how companies try to deter the opposite sex from choosing a costume that is not gender appropriate. Little boys in particular have a much stricter list when it comes to what is acceptable for them to dress up as. Parents have the ultimate final say in what costume is purchased, and studies show that parents of daughters are much more lineant in allowing them to deviate from traditional gender appropriate costumes than parents of sons. The fact that it is okay for girls to aspire to be masculine, but not okay for boys to want to be feminine is evidence that femininity is constantly seen as "less than" masculinity. Even if the parents don't care about their sons choice of costume, once their little boy goes trick-or-treating in his pink tutu he is going to get weird looks and negative comments about his choice. This incident will discourage him from ever picking up a "girl costume", or anything girly, ever again for fear of social sanction. When a mother allowed her son to be Daphne from Scooby Doo, she figured no one would care since he was only 5 years old. She was wrong. Ironically, the children did not have a problem with it, but the other mothers did.

When you look at the costume choices for boys compared to girls, there are a lot more options that highlight success instead beauty. A blog written about Halloween Costumes explained that "Boys use their brains to make money by becoming Tycoons". Boys are encouraged to dress up as people who like to do things or who are successful, for example a doctor or a handyman. Boys costumes come with something they can use (a hammer) instead of an accessory (a tiara). This plays a role in boys growing up to be more active and successful, while women are told to focus on their looks.

The tradition of Halloween in American society is a night of fun and make-believe for both children and adults. In, "The Pink Dragon Is Female", Adie Nelson states that "Although the term "fantasy" implies a "play of the mind" or a "queer illusion" (Barnhart, 1967 p. 714), the marketing illustrations for children’s Halloween costumes suggest a flight of imagination that remains largely anchored in traditional gender roles Halloween comes off as a night where you can dress up and role play as anything you want to be, but that is not the case. Individuals must put limits on what they, or their children (specifically boys), can dress up as in order to avoid ridicule and social sanction. Halloween is a holiday celebrated by young kids and even babies, these children are learning stereotypes about gender that stick with them for the rest of their lives.