EAT MEN LIKE AIR: Feminist Literary Halloween Costumes (Part 2)

Following Thursday’s post featuring old-timey literary women, here are ideas for costumes inspired by more recent feminist literature and art—including ideas for group costumes!

JANIE CRAWFORD
From Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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You’ll need: Delicate white flowers from the florist or corner deli, preferably on branches (you want them to look as much like pear blossoms as possible, but, uh, it’s October); a plastic bee; plastic toothed headband (clear or matching your skin or hair); choker necklace; comfortable denim overalls; thread or string; glue; optional hair extensions, if your hair is short.
(Note: This costume incorporates elements from the beginning and the ending of the novel, so if you’re a purist you might want to pick just one scene and recreate it.)

Prep Intensity: Medium. It will be pretty tricky to get the flowers in the right position, but once you’ve done that, the rest of the costume is pretty easy. Continue reading

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THIS YEAR, EAT MEN LIKE AIR: Your 2014 Guide to DIY Literary Feminist Halloween Costumes (Part 1)

Everybody knows that women shouldn’t just be a Sexy _____ for Halloween. Instead, you should be something empowering, like a cool empress or goddess or inventor from Take Back Halloween. Even if you feel amazing dressed up as a Slutty Bunch of Grapes (oh wait I picked that as a joke but it is a thing:

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BUT the girl in this photo is totally doing the costume wrong. Here are two ways to do Slutty Bunch of Grapes: you’re totally naked except for like seven purple balloons taped to your body, and your chosen Halloween lover gets to watch you pop them one by one as you do the Dance of the Seven Slutty Grapes, OR you’re totally naked except for SEVERAL HUNDRED real grapes glued to your body with some kind of special food-safe glue and your lover gets to eat them all off one by one and then zhe is TOO FULL to eat any of hir candy and YOU GET TO EAT IT ALL oh wait I was supposed to be telling you NOT to be a slutty bunch of grapes!) ANYWAY, even if you got a great idea for a Slutty Bunch of Grapes costume + sex game from the Internet, you shouldn’t be a Slutty Bunch of Grapes because of what Mean Girls taught us. You remember! “In Girl World, Halloween is the one day a year when a girl can dress up like a total slut and no other girls can say anything else about it.”

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So because Halloween is this weird carnival time of misrule, women and girls are encouraged, even required, to wear provocative outfits for which they would be mercilessly slut-shamed at any other time of year. And because Cady didn’t get the Girl World memo, she shows up in an amazing, totally transformative Zombie Bride costume and feels really uncomfortable and the boy she likes makes out with Regina George the Playboy Bunny.

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