As famously stated by Cady Heron in "Mean Girls," "Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it." However, only half of this statement rings true. For some reason, girls and guys alike have plenty to say about those who choose to show a little (or a lot) of skin on Halloween, and the majority of it isn't positive. This tendency for people to judge a woman based on "her real or presumed sexual activity, or for behaving in ways that someone thinks are associated with her real or presumed sexual activity," is more commonly referred to as "slut-shaming."
Unfortunately, slut-shaming is a pretty widespread phenomenon in our society today, yet it becomes even more prevalent when October 31st rolls around. For some, Halloween is a great time to dress up in a quirky costume, and for others it's all about feeling sexy in their own skin. And sexy doesn't have a singular definition, either. If a woman feels sexy in a slightly more revealing outfit than she normally wears and opts for that, good for her. If she wants to go all out in leather and fishnets, even better. Regardless of how much skin she is showing or how tight her outfit is, she deserves just as much respect as the girl in the foam banana costume. You cannot reduce someone's value to the type of clothing they are wearing (or lack thereof).
What a woman chooses to wear on Halloween has absolutely nothing to do with anybody else. It is 100% her business. To call a girl a slut or assume she's asking for you to hit on her based solely on her Playboy Bunny costume is, in a word, ludicrous. It also is incredibly insulting: No woman should feel as though she has to defend her choice to dress a certain way. It's 2015, people; this debate should honestly be way behind us at this point.
If dressing slutty for Halloween isn't your thing, that's obviously perfectly OK. However, it is not okay to pigeon-hole a woman who doesn't share that same viewpoint as you. I would think it would be relatively easy to cast away judgments about someone based on their outfit for one night out of the year. This year, we should all try to give huge props to the girls who are brave enough to don their most scandalous outfits on Halloween. For one, they probably look hot as hell. And secondly, it's definitely not easy for a woman to dress that way, especially when she's aware of the type of backlash she could receive from her peers. So here's to all of you sexy mermaids, cats, and vampires. You deserve a round of applause.
