Dan DaranciangPlastic-wrapped costumes line the walls of Rag-O-Rama, carrying titles like “Naughty French Maid” and “Sexy Witch.”
They are the most popular Halloween costumes for women across the country, and one need only consult a handful of female friends to understand that such costumes are embraced on the Washington University campus as well.
Before even attending their first Bauhaus party, freshmen are well-schooled in what to expect: not just drunkenness and loud music, but also scores of women wearing anything from one of those skimpy, pleather costumes to, well, latex paint.
Such traditions raise this question: what provokes college-aged women to dress in next to nothing on a freezing cold night in late October?
Some answers may lie in history, says Susan Stiritz, a professor of women’s studies.
“From the beginnings of Greek culture, women were given two choices: either to be the good girl, which meant following patriarchal rules for their sexuality…or to be the bad girl,” said Stiritz. “You can just go through history and see that these two choices have been given to us.”
Obviously, society has changed since ancient Greece-American women are no longer forced to hold solely reproductive roles-but they are still judged on their exteriors. Because women on our campus don’t want to be immediately labeled “tramp” or “slut,” dressing provocatively for one night allows them to express their sexuality in ways that would not be acceptable on a typical day, according to Stiritz.
“Halloween is a time in which we’re supposed to reverse roles,” said Stiritz. “Children can demand treats from us. So what do women want? We want to be sluts. And on Halloween, it’s okay.”
Halloween costumes weren’t always as readily available as they are today, and so promiscuous costumes weren’t always a staple of a college Halloween.
“We would not have [dressed promiscuously] 30 years ago-we would have dressed up as hippies or hobos,” said Stiritz. But today, “you go into a costume store and [sexy costumes] are what is available. Younger and younger, women are being sexualized, and I think that’s part of it, too,” she said.
Professor Stiritz informally polled students in her Social Construction of Female Sexuality class on why they feel college-aged women tend to dress provocatively for Halloween, and the answers seemed to fall into three categories.
Many students believe dressing in skimpy costumes attracts desired attention-both from men and other women.
“The media has showed us that sexiness, nakedness and sluttiness attract attention from both sexes,” one student wrote. “Many women are secretly envious of the attraction slutty women receive from men but don’t want to be seen as slutty.”
Other students saw Halloween as the one occasion each year for women to express their sexuality in a more overt manner than usual.
“When girls dress up to go out on a normal weekend night, they constantly ask their friends if their jeans are too tight or if they’re showing too much cleavage,” said one student. “But on Halloween, if their clothes are too tight or their breasts or stomachs are showing, they don’t have to defend it.”
“At other times of the year, I don’t think a girl could dress slutty without some sort of social punishment, such as getting labeled ‘slutty’ or treated as a ‘slut,'” wrote another student, “treatment which most girls view as negative and undesirable.”
Yet another group of respondents saw an element of peer pressure in the decision to choose sexy Halloween costumes.
“For me, I never really wanted to dress slutty,” said a student. “But if you want to get noticed, and everyone else is half-naked, you have to be half-naked too (or more).”
It’s probably safe to say that the University’s female population won’t be covering up for Halloween anytime soon.
The jury’s still out, however, on exactly what showing off one night a year means for each individual woman and the student body as a whole.
“I guess you could ask the question, is this primarily a woman-centric campus or is this more a male-centric campus?” said Stiritz. “Are women doing this to please men, or get their attention? Or are they doing it for their own selves for fun? You have to decide for yourself-are things here mainly for guys, or for women?”