Bethlee Swanson
Nov 2 · 1 min read

Commenters saying that nobody is forcing women to wear sexy costumes clearly know nothing about the relationship between women and the clothing industry. This may come as a shock to some, but we are expected to tailor ourselves to the clothing that they offer to us, not the other way around. Like, you don’t actually think that “plus size" women just love to wear ugly shapeless sack clothes with big floral patterns like a depressed grandma in a nursing home, right? That was basically all that was offered to us until fairly recently, and that was if you could even find your size at all (and believe me, that’s still a problem). So when you go to a costume store, it can be nigh impossible to find a costume that isn’t sexy, sassy, flirty, or whatever other code words they use for “cost effectively sparse on material”. Now granted, recently enough demands have come in for companies to supply non-skimpy costumes for your preteen (not to mention every other female person) that things have finally improved somewhat, even though many offerings (like Rivetting Rosie) still seem intentionally tone deaf. But clothing marketed toward women and girls has always been more about what we’re pressured, expected, and allowed to wear, and not what we might actually want to wear. And don’t get me started on the manufacturing cheapness factor…

Bethlee Swanson

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