RESEARCH ARTICLE
Female Disempowerment Disguised as a Halloween Costume
Jacqueline Sullivan1, Erin Hipple2, *, Lauri Hyers2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 9
First Page: 60
Last Page: 75
Publisher Id: TOFAMSJ-9-60
DOI: 10.2174/1874922401709010060
Article History:
Received Date: 17/01/2017Revision Received Date: 11/05/2017
Acceptance Date: 12/05/2017
Electronic publication date: 11/08/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Objective:
We explore the relationship between gender stereotypes and North American Halloween costumes.
Method (Study 1):
Extending Nelson's analysis of gender-markers in mass-produced children’s Halloween costumes, Study 1 explored gender-typing in children’s costumes (n = 428), also adding a sample of adult’s costumes (n = 428) from major retailers, coding for character archetypes (heroes, villains, and fools), active-masculinity/passive-femininity, and for degree of disguise.
Results (Study 1):
Compared to boys’/men’s costumes, girls’/women’s costumes represented more ornamental feminine-passivity.
Method (Study 2):
Ornamental feminine-passivity was explored in an additional sample of baby girls’ (n = 161), child girls’ (n = 189), teen girls’ (n = 167), and women’s (n = 301) costumes, coded for character archetypes and markers of infantilization and sexualization.
Results (Study 2):
In addition to age differences in character archetypes, women’s costumes were most likely to be sexualized (especially heroes), girls’ and teenage young women’s costumes were most likely to combine both infantilization and sexualization, and baby girls’ costumes were least likely to incorporate either gender-markers.
Conclusion:
Costumes reinforce gender stereotypes differentiating boys/men and girls/women and the ways in which girls/women are stereotyped varies across the lifespan. Patterns are discussed with regard to how gender stereotypes embedded in holiday traditions reinforce messages of disempowerment for women and girls.
