I think it can be said this weekend was a testament to how much young people  (we are young, I promise) love Halloween. Granted, we’re not that young, and on a college campus there certainly isn’t an excess of houses for trick-or-treating, and you’re likely to be wearing about half the costume you did when you were 11. Am I wrong? I’d say no.

I love halloween. I love candy (who doesn’t?) and how far people will go with their decorations and spending hours considering my options and eventually having my costume come into reality. I went costume shopping yesterday and was fairly disappointed  by what I saw. The store had no shortage of short skirts and “minimalist” get-ups, all designed for females. I’m sure this is nothing to new to most of you reading this, as it is not new to me either. In Political Science we have, despite a palpable hesitation, breached the topic of “feminism” in politics and political thought, and a large part of that is recognizing and actively rejecting sexism and its prescribed norms. See bell hooks’ Feminism is for Everyone if you feel this is unimportant.

In class last week, we examined how magazine articles cater to what they perceive as the engendered needs of men and women, but also work less explicitly to create the needs themselves. For instance, the Men’s Health website displays all manners of fast cars, fit guys, and articles that help you, as the reader, get there too. Now just a click away is the Esquire website, a women’s magazine that appears to focus more on pop culture, media, clothes, all things women are interested in, right?

Eeehhhhh. Not quite. Who says I can’t like fast cars or protein shakes? Who’s to say a “man” can’t enjoy advice about winter jackets or the Sexiest Woman Alive? Good question.

Now you’ve likely disregarded these differences until they were brought to classroom light because they correspond with a lot of your interests anyway, and because you likely assumed that a magazine for the opposite sex is irrelevant to those interests. I’ve never read a full Men’s Health GQ article either but what’s stopping me? MY OWN PRESCRIPTION OF GENDER RULES. I let myself believe I as a reader am disinterested with GQ while they simultaneously believe I as a female consumer would not be interested. This is a stretch, and very much based on my own tastes and experiences, please feel free to disagree. But to use magazines, there are differences that certain media outlets use to most effectively market their products based on sex.

Sorry I think this post was about Halloween costumes? It is. So I was browsing and ultimately came up empty because I don’t want to be a scantily-clad knockoff of a male superhero or immobilized by what the costume encourages I wear with it. It’s not news that revealing Halloween costumes are popular. I have no problem with them or the people who choose to wear them, why should I? That’s their business. What angers me is when I can’t connote Halloween as a young woman without the images of a sexy cat, or sexy bacon, or in this case, a sexy eating disorder.

I know, I know, take a minute. Who in their right mind would make such a purchase? I can’t imagine, but the fact that it exists speaks to the existence, or the perceived existence, of a desire to dress up like an implosive eating and mental illness. I don’t see any guy dressing up like obesity to match. I am horrified. Now it seems, that not only can I objectify myself, but I can trivialize, mock even, a disease that has taken the lives and happiness of people who are (I assume) exposed to the same engendered, objectifying media outlets that I am. No one person said this costume was OK by ANY means, but a collective figured they could get away with it because people would think it was funny, I think? I find nothing funny and everything sickening.

I’ll leave you with something to consider. Would you ever search a store, much less engage with the internet to find a costume so abrasively offensive and tasteless as this? Did you know it’s sold out?