Women's Halloween Costumes Scare Me For The Wrong Reasons

This post, written by Amanda Marcotte, originally appeared on Pandagon

Ah, Halloween--for many, a time to have little ghoulish humor or glamor with the costuming. For others, an opportunity to indulge sexism they might conceal during less drunken revelry-oriented times. I've gotten a few emails about this costume:

It's called "Sexy Anna Rexia", because nothing attracts the boys like broadcasting your indulgent attitudes towards a mental illness that strikes mostly women and is often fatal.

I went costume shopping today, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw this:

(click for larger version)

Just another unpleasant reminder that people think it's cute and funny that so many men hold women in bondage to be raped repeatedly for money. Now women can get in on the action of playing at being criminals who make a living selling women's bodies to sick, evil men and pocketing the profits. Usually the pimp costumes are for men and have no straightforward reference to the victims of pimps, but this costume is part of set where the women that pimps threaten, beat, control, and subject to rape are at least remembered: