Your carefree Halloween nights that ended in hobbling down the street in four-inch heels are over. You’re an adult now, and your Halloween costume is the perfect platform for broadcasting your new grown-up morals and beliefs. Before you buy that sexy pizza rat costume, take a moment to consider a respectable Halloween costume that will say, “I have principles and a sense of my own value, and it’s not as much fun as it looks; not one bit.”
Marie Curie
You are Marie Curie, the Polish physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. Curie is a celebrated woman in science—unlike that cute ladybug you were going to be. Unfortunately, ladybugs don’t contribute to science (no matter how cute they are), and you have the societal pressures of being an exemplary feminist 24/7, so Marie Curie it is!
Fun Level: Minimal to No Fun
The Bechdel Test
This is a super respectable costume for Halloween, and it’s interactive, too! Every time you converse with a woman while in costume, you may NOT discuss a man. You will feel so much more empowered dressed as the Bechdel test than as some meaningless lollabout like Cinderella. She’s a fictional character you thought you loved, but she’s from a movie that certainly does not pass the Bechdel test. No one will think you’re fun or want to be around you, but you can rest assured that your sexual ethics are in check!
Fun Level: Not the Least Bit Fun
Louisa May Alcott
Sure petticoats are heavy, but it will be worth it when you roll up to a party dressed up as 17th-century American novelist Louisa May Alcott. Skip the sexualization of young women this year, because H’Ween 2015 is all about values. Louisa May Alcott wrote stories filled with strong female characters….unlike your former favorite book, Fifty Shades of Grey. Jo March is a rebellious female writer, and reading Little Women is totally satisfying even though Jo never gets fucked. Not even once.
Fun Level: Zero Fun
Malala Yousafzi
Malala is a pioneering 18-year-old Pakistani activist for girls’ education. She is also the world’s youngest Nobel Prize Laureate. You won’t have a good time, but you will know that you are better than everyone else at this Halloween party. That will provide you with some solace as you sit alone in the corner while everyone is dancing and having fun dressed up like naughty superheroes and saying something about “it’s offensive to wear other people’s culture as a costume, Danielle.”
Fun Level: Not Fun but Super Respectable
#FreeTheNipple
Okay, so you’re walking around topless but it is NOT what it looks like. You are using Halloween to bring awareness to the Free The Nipple campaign—a movement that points out the hypocrisy in censorship laws when it comes to male and female nipples. So if you see us at a party this Halloween, we are NOT slutting it up. We are bringing LIGHT to a VERY important issue and taking the STIGMA off our titties! Titties are only okay if they are hardcore politicized beyond the point of enjoyability. If you’re too shy to show your own nips, ask a male friend to cut his off and put them over your own. What do you have to say to THAT, Instagram?!?
Fun Level: Pretty Fun
This Halloween will be absolutely no fun, but you will get the chance to not-so-subtly lord your recently adopted second-wave feminism over people who are just trying to have a good time. So grab some sensible shoes and try one of these no-fun-yet-historically-relevant disguises! Have a decent Halloween!
