How do parents and strangers react when children wear Halloween costumes typically worn by the opposite gender?
It’s that time of year again when kids dress up in Halloween costumes to go trick or treating in their neighborhoods. Even though it may be subconsciously, parents often use this holiday to ingrain gender stereotypes into the minds of their children. For example, boys are typically traditionally masculine characters like princes, firefighters, or army men, while girls are typically traditionally feminine characters like princesses, and dolls.
Even if a girl wants to dress up as something normal, like a police officer, costumes are typically gender sensualized. Just look at the costume below, which basically says girls can’t be police officers unless they are unnecessarily overly sexualized police officers. Because all women police officers fight crime in a mini skirt and go-go boots?
Image via jet.com
Paul Henson is breaking stereotypes by letting his 3-year-old son dress as Elsa from “Frozen.”
“Anyone that knows us, knows we generally let Caiden make his own choices, to an extent,” he said in a Facebook post that has since gone viral with almost 30,000 shares. “Well, he has decided on a Halloween costume. He wants to be Elsa. He also wants me to be Anna. Game on.”
Image via facebook
As for people who object to him allowing his son dress as a princess for Halloween, he had this to say, “Keep your masculine bullshit and slutty kids costumes, Halloween is about children pretending to be their favorite characters. Just so happens, this week his is a princess.â€
Amid the attacks, Henson has been getting tons of praise for supporting his son.
ABC’s What Would You Do? did an episode a few years ago to see how strangers would react to children choosing Halloween costumes typically worn by the opposite gender. The short clip below is definitely worth watching.Â
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Cover image screenshot via YouTube/ABC News