Women’s Halloween costumes are often portrayed as sexy and are designed to show a lot of skin. But why is it that while men have a realistic looking firefighter costume, in the women’s section the costume has to become “firehouse hottie”?

Manufacturers assume women are looking to show more skin on Halloween, but they should be able to wear what they want. Where are the sexy costumes for men? Shouldn’t Halloween allow an equal opportunity for both genders to display their bodies? Most women’s Halloween costumes out there are made to objectify woman; characters who could easily be created the same for men and women are created so that the female version over-sexualizes the women and takes away from the reality of what they are supposed to be. For example, a Luigi Halloween costume for men is changed into sexy sidekick for the women.  These costumes are usually the only costumes available for women commercially and now are targeting younger ages, such as a sexy devil costume that says it is approximately for ages 8 to 14 years old.

Some may say that women can wear the men’s costumes or make their own as a solution. But, that doesn’t change the fact that those costumes are still out there. People also may bring up the fact that maybe a women wants to wear costumes such as these because they enjoy showing a little more skin on Halloween. There definitely isn’t anything wrong with that, dress as you want, but there is a big difference from adults choosing these costumes and manufacturers creating only over sexualized costumes and beginning to target younger and younger girls.

There is definitely an expectation society has on what types of Halloween costumes women should be wearing but people should realize these sexual Halloween costumes shouldn’t be over sexualizing women in the way they are. Women deserve more than these Halloween costumes and should be able to wear what they want not what everyone expects them to.