Want Your Daughter to Look Sexy for Halloween? Try a Superhero Costume.
My son is four and into superheroes. I’m not at all crafty—his costumes are all going to be store-bought—so I clicked over to Amazon to see what’s available for a preschooler in the various superhero franchises. One of my big concerns is the weather for trick-or-treating—I don’t want him to be cold, and he doesn’t want to ruin the look of his costume with a coat. So I was searching for something under which he could wear long underwear.
For boys there are plenty of choices: Batman and Superman costumes have long pants and padded chests and even helmets. They can go out for Halloween fully covered. But I noticed, in my clicking around, that the girls have, literally, slimmer pickings for warm, full-coverage costumes. Here’s a boy’s Batman costume:
…and here’s a girl’s Batman costume:
Here are Amazon’s suggestions for a boy’s Batman costume and a girl’s Batman costume.
Or what if my son wanted to go as Superman? This is a typical costume:
And here are typical girls’ Supergirl and Wonder Woman costumes:
Here are Amazon’s suggestions for a boy’s Superman costume and a girl’s Supergirl costume.
Or let’s say my son wanted to go as the Green Lantern.
Here’s an Amazon Green Lantern costume for a boy, and here’s one for a girl.
So if you want your daughter to be a superhero for Halloween…well, not only are female superheroes underrepresented, but the costumes are skimpy and rather sexy. Here are Captain America for a boy and for a girl, Robin for a boy and for a girl, and Spiderman for a boy and for a girl.
I guess for the boys, Halloween is supposed to be about pretending you’re something powerful, but for the girls it’s about shivering in miniskirts and knee-high boots. The way we dress kids is an instruction: We want the boys to have fun. But we want the girls to both have fun and be cute (which in this case is synonymous with sexy).
As for my son, he’s decided he’s going to be Weed Whacker Man, which sounds like a superhero out of a Carl Hiaasen novel. Fortunately, Weed Whacker Man wears mostly his own, warm, clothes.
Cover photo: flickr/JD Hancock
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