As Halloween approaches, the yearly discussion of culturally insensitive and appropriating costumes has returned in full force. The dialogue became very prevalent thanks to the website Yandy. Yandy is an online lingerie and costume store that has been in operation since 2007. The store features multiple costumes based on Native Americans, Japanese geisha and the Mexican holiday, El Dia De Los Muertos. This year, they featured a “Sexy Handmaid’s Tale” costume.
The costume sparked outcry across social media. The television series and book that the costume was loosely based on is meant to speak against rape culture. People on social media called the costume insensitive.
“We’re now beyond satire. ‘Sexy’ Handmaid’s Tale outfit. There’s nothing like fighting the patriarchy by sexualizing a show about misogyny and rape,” Zoe Margolis said on Twitter.
Yandy pulled the costume from the site soon after the issue blew up on social media. Many activists, however, were not satisfied with the removal of the costume, now turning and pointing out the variety of “Native American Seductress” style costumes. Yandy currently features 44 different sexualized costumes in the Native American category.
“Now that you’ve gotten the costume based on a fictional dystopia removed, can ya’ll muster up enough backlash to do something about the site’s entire ‘Indian Costumes’ section?” A Twitter user and UNC student named Lila said.
Activists were quick to point out that Native American women experience some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the country. Costumes like the “Native American Mistress Costume” featured on Yandy’s site only perpetuate the violence against these women.
Continued access to these costumes proves that people are still purchasing them. Culturally appropriating costumes of all types is still popular among college students and young adults. Many times, college students will face public ridicule and even academic consequences for wearing these types of costumes, but they still remain popular. No one benefits from the existence of these costumes, except for the retailer making money.
On the Winthrop campus, there have been a few instances when students have worn culturally appropriating costumes. These students have faced backlash from the Winthrop community. While it is comforting to know that the Winthrop community is, for the most part, aware of how damaging these types of costumes can be, it’s still shocking that some students are comfortable wearing these types of costumes.
Winthrop should be required to take action on this issue. There must be campus-wide education on why these costumes are unacceptable. Students should be made aware of the deep-rooted issues that websites like Yandy are perpetuating. If these costumes are worn by students, especially if the event is Winthrop–based, there must be repercussions for the offenders.
In 2018, it should simply be unacceptable for these types of costumes to exist. Individuals should no longer be purchasing them, and retailers should no longer be providing access to them.
