come as you aren't - but think about it first

on my morning walk i discovered two new graveyards in my neighborhood.  before you, my wilderness awareness friends, get on my case for not noticing them, please know that when i say 'new' graveyard, that is exactly what i mean.  ghosts, skeletons, witches, blow-up giant spiders.  yes, we are talking about the wonderful world of Halloween decor.

i like halloween.  i always have.  when i was a kid i used to angst over what i wanted to be because the costume had to be - just - right.  i remember one year when it was supposed to snow during trick-or-treating that i pitched a fit when my mom made me add layers to my costume.  as an adult i don't take it nearly as seriously, but i do love being able to deck out in something creative and let loose.  this has led me to some interesting situations such as the one (and hopefully only) time that i punched someone, the time i spent my evening being stalked by bender, and the year that a gay man told me i had the best breasts he'd ever seen.  monsters and mischief.

another thing i like - google Images - though i like it not because of its fun-inducing potential...quite the contrary.  i have found that google images has become for me a window into what is wrong with people in the world - or at least a chance to produce some kind of evidence of it.  what i mean by this, is that in using the google images site i can see what other people think about certain things.  since the search engine works by looking at the words people put with pictures, one can quickly get a look at a large number of word associations and images that reflect a dominant view on whatever one types in.

i started thinking about this when i was working on a presentation on women and athletics for a conference on women's confidence.  all i wanted was to get some stock photos for my powerpoint presentation, but when i typed in 'female athlete' i started realizing the paradigm-revealing potential of google images.  sexualized and often not photographed doing their sports (instead in swimsuits or tight dresses), i was faced with a screen full of images that run right up against bettis' assertions about strength and beauty (love you pam!).  i shifted to a search of male athletes and i found a lot of the same.  i then started to play around a bit.  a search of the word 'leader' got me clip art, but 'leaders' became images of white men in power suits, 'bisexual' got me lots of girl-on-girl kissing as did 'lesbian.'  mind you, i am not saying that any of this surprised me - it was just interesting to see stereotypes and paradigms played out so visually for me.

yeah, so back to halloween.  one thing i don't really like about halloween is how it reenforces gender stereotypes.  just go to any place selling costumes and you will see what i mean - pink and blue aisles filled with kids costumes that tell little girls to be princesses and little boys to be superheroes or athletes.  the only time i have seen gender become fluid on halloween is when i lived in northampton, ma (home of smith college and lots and lots of gay people) and i went out to the local gay club for the night (cue story about the gay man and my breasts).  at one point i danced with a person who was biologically female dressed as eminem, and a person who was biologically male dressed as cleopatra.

when i have worn costumes that are gender-bending i have generally been met with mixed reactions.  one year in high school i threw together a last-minute costume for a party out of things around my house.  the only theme i could come up with that had enough congruent items was to dress in outdoors gear.  i decided to go full out with flannel shirt, boots, backpack, wooly hat, and axe.  my own perceptions of gender and this costume led me to commit to the idea that i was a 'mountain man' (apologies to my sister bmw's out there - i know better now) and went full out by tucking up my hair and painting on a beard.  no one at the party initially recognized me, and i think because of that i won the costume contest.  that said, people spent the whole time asking me why i chose my costume with a tone in their voices that indicated that there was something wrong with it.  i remember returning home afterward having decided my costume next year would be more girly.

so i put 'girl's halloween costumes' into a google images search.  go ahead, try it.  i'll wait.

yeah so here we go.  this page of images just backs any and all thoughts about gender and costumes i could come up with.  first off, what i see is not just girl's costumes - some of these are women.  my continual pet peeve around women being belittled by categorizing them as 'girls' comes into play right away.  the other thing i can't help but notice as that unless i am pulling up the full photos, i am seeing that i can't always tell if the pics are of women or of girls. just now i pulled up what i thought was a woman, but instead looks to be an 11 year old in a sexy mermaid costume.  i shudder at the extreme sexualiztaion of women and girls that runs rampant across the page.  tina fey and rosalind wiseman come to mind with their 'queen bees and wanna be's'/'mean girls' analysis that says, tongue in cheek, that halloween is the time that women and girls can dress like sluts and no one can say anything about it.  sexy nurse, sexy pirate, sexy doctor - the ridiculousness is rampant.  the creators of 'how i met your mother' hit it on the nose when they introduced the 'slutty pumpkin' costume into dialogue.  what shall we see this year - 'sexy wall st. occupier.' 'sexy terrorist,'?

of course, i too have worn some version of the 'sexy whatever' costume.  i can understand wanting to deck out and feel hot and wanted.  i like the joss whedon 'come as your aren't' conceptualization of halloween.  the year the gay man told me he liked my breasts it was because i had strapped them into a corset - a corset that has come out many many halloweens since.  i wonder sometimes whether consciousness is enough, and there are times when i say no, times i say yes, and times i say 'screw it' and do whatever the hell i feel like doing.  as i look at my calendar and see functions to attend in two weekends i am starting to think about my costume for this year.

slutty blogger perhaps?