Halloween is just around the corner, and kids are looking for costumes to wear when they go trick-or-treating. A mother in Victoria, British Columbia is upset over “sexy” girls’ costumes being sold at her local thrift store, Value Village. The CBC reports that “Raina Delisle, whose daughter will soon turn four, said that when she checked out the costumes at her local Value Village store, she found gender-specific firefighter outfits — and she thought the difference between them was appalling.” While the boy’s version “has a hardhat, a jacket and even an axe,” the girl’s version “looks absolutely nothing like a firefighter. It’s a skin-tight, black, shiny dress. It doesn’t even have a helmet. It has a fascinator instead in place of a helmet.” Delisle was disturbed at the message the costume was telling children. “What those costumes tell me is that the boys can wear the real thing. They can be a real firefighter. The girls, on the other hand can’t. They can dress up pretty and pretend to be a firefighter, but they could never aspire to be the real thing.” After investigating other costumes and discovering similar discrepancies, Delisle contacted Value Village: the company has so far not responded.
Delisle wants the company to stop selling child-size sexy costumes. “By selling those costumes, they are in effect promoting the sexualization of young girls,” she said. “A little girl cannot even be a pumpkin without having a lace-up corset-like outfit. It’s absolutely disgusting.”
