Halloween is fast approaching with themed pop-up stores open and stocked, and kids everywhere planning their costumes. However, little girls may have trouble finding costumes, considering the limited options based on gendered costumes.
Lin Kramer, customer of Party City, recently wrote a letter to the company explaining her struggle to find a costume for her three-year-old daughter. The aftermath of the letter, however, has caused quite the uproar via Facebook this past week.
In her letter, Kramer made note of the fact that at Party City, costumes for boys included 53 assorted options from vampire to pirate, with 16 costumes related to possible occupations. Meanwhile, girls were offered 45 options, such as “vampire queen” and “precious pirate” with only three costumes related to occupations. She continued on to say, while there is nothing wrong with young girls choosing stereotypically “girly” costumes – Disney princesses or fairies – they should also have the option of career-related costumes. She ended her letter by saying:
“Please, Party City, open up your view of the world and redesign your marketing scheme to let kids be kids, without imposing on them antiquated views of gender roles.”
According to Lin Kramer, her letter was swiftly deleted from the Party City’s Facebook page, and her commenting privileges were revoked. The removal of her post garnered a great deal of attention, with Party City’s Facebook Page being flooded with comments in support of her view – asking Party City to rethink their gender-based costumes.
Ultimately, Kramer’s commenting privileges were reinstated, but Party City has made no statement in response.
This outrage in regards to gender based/sexist costumes is not new, and yet it continues to be a topic of discussion each Halloween season. At 19 years old, it is incredibly difficult to find an original costume without the words “sexy” in the title.
While some popular costume options this year include “Left Shark” – the famous backup dancer to Katy Perry’s Superbowl performance, to Emoji-themed outfits – some gendered costumes include “Sexy Donald Trump,” “Sexy Freddy Kruger” and the classic career-based costumes: “Sexy Teacher” and “Sexy Firefighter.” I hardly think a red tutu and crop top held together with suspenders would aid fire fighting in any way. In fact, tulle is probably considered a fire hazard.
While there is nothing wrong with dressing in a sexy costume, it is ridiculous that there are still few options for women and girls at costume stores, even despite public outcry, similar to the Party City controversy. It is especially surprising we have such a lack of options in our city, considering there is usually a layer of snow on the ground come Halloween.
Will a Sexy Freddy Kruger ensemble look complete when paired with a parka and Ugg boots? If left with no other options, I suppose I will find out.
Jennifer Hamilton is a local student and writer.
