There’s nothing sexier than academic regalia!

If you receive a last-minute invitation to a Halloween costume tonight and you feel the need to find a “sexy” costume, remember that there is nothing sexier than academic regalia! Alternatively, you could print off the logo for your favorite Hogwarts house, grab a stick from the yard, and go as a wizard. If you own one of these expensive costumes you may as well wear it more than a few times a year!

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Men reinforce sexist Halloween costumes while pointing out how ridiculous they are

Time is running out to send your Halloween cards and get your Halloween costume. For women, the choices for pre-made costumes range from “sexy maid” to “sexy map.” (I was trying to be as ridiculous as possible with that last suggestion, but…) These costumes are universally ridiculous, but in order for men to realize this they apparently need to try them on. It is interesting that in their discussions of how ridiculous these “sexy” costumes are, the men in the video below still manage to make a number of approving comments about how women would look in them. Sort of like if comic book artists responded to the Hawkeye Initiative by thinking, “Hawkeye looks ridiculous in that pose! But if he had breasts…”

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How Target saved me from making a huge Halloween mistake

Stores in the United States often helpfully designate the items for sale as “for girls” or “for boys.” These designations are particularly helpful when the only difference is the color of the items, since in those cases color-blind people might make a mistake. Gift card sections are typically not much different, though the labels get a little redundant when there are also images of ponies or robots, since even color-blind people can recognize the difference between super-feminine ponies and super-masculine robots. Shopping in Target recently, I noticed a section of Halloween cards that were labeled not only “For Kids,” but “for “for a boy” and “for a girl.” You can see the cards below:

Since both cards appeared to feature the color orange, which is neither pink nor blue, I wondered about the distinction between the two and got them out to look more closely:

The card on the left is clearly a poorly-wrapped mummy (if it had been better-wrapped its skin may not have turned orange) while the card on the right is an orange owl (which is apparently possible). Based on its hat, the owl is possibly also a witch (or maybe a pilgrim). So maybe the mummy is for boys because it is a boy and the owl is for girls because it likes to wear pilgrim witch hats? Those don’t seem like strong reasons for gendering these cards, so let’s open them up and see if the inside of the “boys'” card is blue and the inside of the “girls'” card is pink:

Nope, just more orange. So the lesson Target has taught us this Halloween is that poorly-wrapped mummies are for boys who are “totally awesome” while owls wearing pilgrim witch hats are for girls who are “very special.” It is a good thing that Target labeled them for me because otherwise I may have thought that each was equally suited to both boys and girls, which would have been a huge mistake. Now I know how color-blind people feel (which explains why they get so upset about it).

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Halloween roundup

Happy Halloween, everybody. Here is a roundup of some of this year’s Halloween-themed posts:

• Sociological Images takes a look at changes in girls’ Halloween costumes over time, via the Huffington Post.
• Kristen Schaal also tackles the topic of sexy Halloween costumes on The Daily Show.
• Cyborgology tells people how to avoid being racist on Halloween.
• Tenured Radical does the same.
• The Society Pages discuss Halloween class assignments.
• For those who want to scare themselves with stories originating on the internet, the PBS Idea Channel discusses Slender Man, via Kotaku.
• And finally, Deadspin fights back against the ubiquity of pumpkin spice with a recipe for Apple Crumble.

I hope that the Great Pumpkin brings you lots of toys and candy. If not, there’s always next year!

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