By Maya Brown
Maya Brown is a sophomore at Waterville Senior High School in Waterville Maine. She enjoys music, technology, photography, and anything related to theater. She has been a part of the Girls Advisory Board at Hardy Girls Healthy Women for three years, and a part of Hardy Girls since the beginning (10 years ago). She believes in empowering girls and women to speak out against the media and thinks that all girls should know how beautiful they really are. Maya is a part of her school’s GSA, school newspaper, and has co-founded a theater program called Act Out at her local elementary school. She’s excited to help SPARK this movement!
I thought the holidays were about having a good time with your family, not getting frostbite. If you thought that we had until next Halloween to see more sexist costumes, think again. There are women dressed provocatively for most days of the year, and now they’ve intruded into the holiday season. You see it everywhere, ranging from the sexy female elves helping Santa Claus to the Rockettes during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The only way for us to market the holiday to older viewers is by cranking up the sex appeal? And what makes me especially angry is that the big man himself is always fully dressed. Here is a photo of Santa surrounding by the Rockettes, and honestly I can’t even tell what their costumes are. They look like a version of Santa, only without the pants. I’m all for dance-ability, but can’t they wear pants? Remember, these poor women are dancing outside during a winter parade for hours.
But not only are the Rockettes featured in the parade, they’re also a major part of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, “America’s favorite holiday show” claims the website. While the dancers do get to wear pants for the occasional wooden soldier routine, the majority of the show is spent showing off various revealing holiday related costumes.
Any sort of google search for Christmas costumes brings up similar results. Long gone is the motherly Mrs. Claus of the past; now for every picture on the left there are ten of the types on the right.
Elves and Santa’s helpers also no longer carry the innocence of the past. The male elves are as they always were, in cute red and green costumes. But in much larger numbers, there are now lots of sexy female elves. Santa’s helpers have turned into sex slaves that appear to do more than help.
There are also the totally random Christmas-themed costumes that appear to do nothing more than show off the wearer’s body. They take the form of snowflakes or sugar plum candies. As long as they sort of reflect what the holiday is about while objectifying women, we’re good to go!
Is it impossible to have a holiday that isn’t about objectifying women? Do we need to be dressed up in skimpy costumes in order for it to be considered a holiday? Who knows, maybe there’s some regulation saying whenever there’s a holiday, a certain percentage of costumes must promote the sexualization of women.
Next up, Valentines Day.
