Halloween is almost here. That means that the season is changing from the balmy sunny days to the foggy, chillier ones. The leaves are turning colors. And of course, that means one very important thing - costumes.
Children will soon take to the streets clad in their costume of choice and gather candy from strangers. There will be hordes of pirates, superheroes, policemen, princesses and witches. Costumes, playing dress-up or Halloween, let children exercise their vivid imaginations and pretend to be someone different than they usually are.
What if boys want to be princesses?
Answer: It's the end of the world.
Paul Henson, of Chesapeake, V.A., posted a picture of his three-year-old son in the Halloween costume of his choice. Elsa. Not only that, but the boy wants daddy to dress up with him, too. As Anna.
Henson posted a picture of his son in the costume with the caption:
"Anyone that knows us, knows we generally let Caiden make his own choices, to an extent. Well, he has decided on a Halloween costume. He wants to be Elsa. He also wants me to be Anna. Game on. Keep your masculine bulls***t and slutty kids costumes, Halloween is about children pretending to be their favorite characters. Just so happens, this week his is a princess."
This is a wonderful example of not only understanding and compassionate parenting, but of a confident child. Unfortunately, not everyone sees this as fantastic child rearing. They see it as something wrong and for some, downright disgusting.
One commenter said on babycenter.com, "No. He is a boy, he needs to wear boy clothes."
The double standard surrounding boys in society is captured perfectly in this ignorant sentence. For example. Does this person's daughter wear pants? Does she, herself? It's almost certain that she does. Pants is traditionally a "man's garment." Yet, girls and women of all ages can waltz around in many different degrees of pants and no one will notices, let along comments on it. A boy wants to wear a dress and suddenly he's strange, weird and, in the extreme viewers' eyes, sick.
The costume industry does not help this stigma. The difference between the "girl's" spiderman costume and the "boy's" spiderman costume is astounding. The girl's costume comes with a short blue and red tutu dress with a black spider on the chest and a thin black mask. The boy's costume comes with a blue and red coverall that looks like Spidey's suit and a full facial mask.
Even for toddlers, costumes deemed "female" are over sexualized. Not only that, but there are less options for girls than boys. Party City's website offers 58 career costume options for toddler boys and only 49 (over sexualized) for girls.
The double standards for children is not limited to costumes. Every day language is used to force children into their gender roles. This is especially the case for boys. Things like, "man up," "boys don't cry," and "toughness equals manliness," makes boys think that they aren't allowed to show emotion and need to handle everything themselves with no help from their peers or parents.
These values are only reinforced by the gender-specific toys, bedding and clothes. Something as simple as a color is controversial. If a boy shows favoritism toward a "girl's color" like purple he is instantly corrected and it is explained that purple is a "girl's color." It is more likely that the boy likes the color purple because it's bright and stimulating.
Society is wrapped up in labeling and fear. The little boy in V.A. wants to dress up as Elsa for Halloween. Good for him for being confident enough to wear it! It doesn't mean he's gay, or a cross dresser, or that he identifies himself as a girl. It means that he has a healthy, active imagination and he feels like being Elsa for Halloween.
Who are we to squash that amazing confidence and individuality?
