Just a little observational something on gender and Halloween costumes having to do with actually wearing them on Halloween:
I decided to be a wearer of a bloody lab coat. I wound up buying a large children's costume because the adult lab/doctor coat was enormous, designed for a very tall, very broad-chested man. The children's coat had a little cross on it, so... Doctor, not evil scientist. Close enough. I went nuts with the paint and was ready to go.
It's interesting how some people seemed to not be sure whether or not to call me "Doctor" or "Nurse" or whether I was a killer or the victim. Why would the wearer of the white lab coat be the victim anyway? I suppose bloody handprints to suggest struggle didn't come out as clearly as I'd hoped, but I'd have thought the copious amounts on the sleeves near the hands would have given a hint. I tried to pull a little crazy murderer act ("Costume? What costume?" "I hope you're not.... stealing.") on my store's undercover person and he didn't get it and accused me of racial profiling. A little too deadpan, I guess?
Later, I attended an event where a certain little boy was struggling to figure out what I was (seated at a table, low lighting). "Wait, I see the cross! You're a doctor!"
And then he gave it a second of thought and corrected himself. "Nurse! You're a nurse!"
"'Nurse?'" I said, shamelessly appropriating a movie quote, "I didn't go to Evil Medical School to be a Nurse!"
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It always pissed me off how, I guess you would call them "medical field" costumes...the female costume is always the "sexy nurse" and the male costume is always the "doctor" or the "surgeon"...It's like female doctors don't exist? What about male nurses? WTF?!
*flips through costume catalog*
Sexy nurse,
sexy cop,
sexy teacher,
sexy firewoman,
sexy pirate,
sexy school-girl,
sexy cheerleader,
sexy bunny,
...
Anyone noticing a theme?
Evil Medical School. lol!
That was a great comeback.
Though the legions of nurses out there might understandably take offense...
Yeah, I appreciate the message...but as a nursing student, it makes me a little sad that people still think of nurses as less than a doctor.
/Sadface.
Well, considering that I still thought of myself as a "mad scientist," the cross being the only thing that made me an evil medical doctor, I felt that "nurse" was a considerable demotion.
Doctors and nurses in real life look about the same nowadays, but we still have this big visual distinction in the public consciousness.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was only one plain coat, and the other adult coats had stuff on them that denoted the wearer as a gynecologist or something genital related.