The Halloween spirit seems to have gotten TOO sexy for young girls and is only getting worse. According to my research, the junior department for girls clothing and costumes is meant for ages 9-15. “Junior fit apparel is designed for teenage girls. It is meant to bridge the gab between youth sizes and misses’ sizes as teenagers’ bodies mature,” according to eHow.com.
Costume places, like Costume Kingdom are marketing outfits like this as “sweet and sassy,” to young girls.
I can I say with confidence that this is not appropriate to be marketing. Particularly, when you are marketing this type of scandalous costume to young, NOT legal young women. Not only does this promote children wearing these types of suggestive clothing, but also reinforces gendered stereotypes of women with ostentatiously revealing costumes.
I spoke with my eleven-year-old cousin last week about her ballet performance and her plans for Halloween. I then asked what she was dressing up as and she replied that her plan was to buy the “sexiest” costume to show off to all her friends. I don’t know about all of you, but I think an eleven-year-old trying to be “sexy” is really wrong. Now, I’m sure her conservative mother stopped her from buying one of these types of costumes, but regardless, these costumes are successfully marketed to many people and do effect perception and assumptions about women.
Society has not only over sexualized Halloween for adults and college students (which I’m sure we all saw this weekend), but now has also sexualized it for children? That’s outrageous to me. The most terrifying part of that conversation with my cousin was not that she wanted that costume, but that she didn’t even know the implication of the words she was saying. She wants to be “sexy” and “hot”, but doesn’t realize why those words are inappropriate because she doesn’t fundamentally know what they mean or suggest. In addition to stereotypes and sexualization of children, this probably makes it even more so unsafe for children in these costumes to trick-and-treat; it’s like a pedophilic field day. 😦
I honestly feel that its acceptable for adults to dress however they please because, hopefully, they understand the consequences of their actions and what they could possibly suggest with their clothing choices. Marketing “sexy” clothes should only be for adults, not children, particularly because children can’t legally have sex (which is the obvious implication of the word). This is like marketing condoms and cigarettes to middle schools, which logically seems inherently corrupt.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 
Hi Internationalcupcakebandit, this reminds me of what I used to wear as a kid. I once was a gypsy where subsequently my midriff showed, and looking back, wow was that scandalous. But your post brought up a thought in my head, child pornography. Halloween is now becoming an acceptable holiday for everyone, men cross dressing, women dressing ‘slutty,’ and now even children, as ‘sexy’ and ‘hot.’ However, the main difference, which you brought up, is that these are underaged children dressing provocative. So Halloween has becoming somewhat of a day for child pornography. Yes, is this response pushing it, of course it is, but at the same time, we must protect our cousins, brothers and sisters, and future children. There are unfortunately ugly people in the world, and to allow children dress this way and walk around trick or treating in front these ugly people, we need to look at potential consequences and implications.
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I completely agree, its a slippery slope to terrible and inappropriate representations. I think we have a responsibility to speak out against this, because goodness knows I didn’t know any better when I was that age!
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This reminds me of when I was in middle school and having so much frustration finding a Halloween costume that my mother would let me buy (Or one now that covers my crotch) … I’ll also never forget in 9th grade, I saw two 12-year-olds walking down the hallway at SCHOOL dressed up as playboy bunnies…leotards, fishnet tights, heels and all. While I think it’s fine for adult women who are familiar with their sexuality to wear these costumes, we should be given a wider array of choices (ones that don’t look like they belong in a porno) and they shouldn’t be marketed to young girls.
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