It’s once again that time of year when stores fill up their racks with over sexualized women halloween costumes.

It’s not only women’s costumes, but young girl’s costumes are over sexualized as well. This past September, a mother criticized Party City over a sexy cop costume offered to girls.

A real life police officer uniform for women does not consist of a short dress and knee high boots. How hard is it to offer a realistic version of a costume to girls and women, you don’t see the sexy version offered to boys and men.

Most Halloween costumes for women consist of a short dress, short skirt, crop top or bikini top. That’s fine for some women, but if you’re like me, and are not comfortable showing a lot of skin, than these costumes are not an option. It’s meant to be sexy, but why does sexy have to involve everything being short or showing a bunch of cleavage?

Even career costumes have to be sexy. Nurses, police officers and teachers are all portrayed as sex symbols. When in real life do you even see a nurse wearing a short dress or a police officer wearing a crop top and a short skirt? It’s ridiculous and it seems like these types of costumes just insult the people working in those real careers.

I wish I could go into a Halloween store and not have to be appalled by the lack of normal and not over sexualized costumes offered for women. Having sexy costumes is fine for some women, but why can’t regular and simpler versions be offered as well? Why can’t I go into a Halloween store and find a normal Gryffindor uniform for women and not have to be content with the sexy Hermione Granger costume?

As a cosplayer, I’m also all about character accuracy and these over sexualized character costumes for women just make me cringe. It’s quite common in Disney costumes, especially the princess costumes. The floor length yellow ball gown that Belle wears in Beauty and the Beast has been changed to a short dress, to make it sexier.

Why can’t the costume be screen accurate and not be over sexualized? I’m so tired of seeing these great characters be ruined because for some reason it’s now the norm to create these sexy versions.

In real life, clothing for women comes in all sort of different shapes and sizes, so why do Halloween costumes have to be so drastically different?

It may only be once a year, but why don’t more women protest against these sexy Halloween costumes? These over sexualized costumes just create false stereotypes and make many women uncomfortable. They set bad examples for young girls and sexy career costumes insult the real life people who work the jobs.

Why is it so stereotypical to sexualize women’s costumes instead of creating normal versions like they do for men? I hope that in the future over sexualized costumes for women will become a thing of the past.