Value Village Pulls ‘Sexy’ Children’s Halloween Costumes From The Shelves

Value Village has agreed to pull some “sexy” girls’ costumes from their shelves after a mom’s blog post went viral.

Raina Delisle went to a Value Village in Victoria, B.C looking for a firefighter costume for her little 4-year-old girl. When she found one, she wasn’t impressed by how sexualized the girls’ costume was — a costume targeted for little girls aged 4-6 years old. When she compared it to the boys’ more realistic looking firefighter ensemble,  Delisle was outraged at the gender specific Halloween costumes.

The Victoria mom expressed her frustration on a blog post written for the Huffington Post that has now received national attention.

“There’s a girl’s version and a boy’s version. Now, the boy’s version looks like the real thing. The model on the package has a hardhat, a jacket and even an axe,” Delisle told the CBC. “”The girl’s version, on the other hand, 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.”

As Delisle continued looking through the store, she found a similar trend with the boys and girls’ police officer costumes.  The costume marketed towards young girls featured a mini-skirt and some knee-high boots. And when was the last time any of us saw a real female police officer wearing a mini skirt and high heel shoes to work? Never.

“What kind of message do these costumes send to our girls? While the boys have costumes that look like the real thing, girls are expected to dress up in spoof ensembles, thus suggesting they can’t, or shouldn’t, do the real job. The costumes are not only “sexy,” they’re also sexist,” Delisle wrote in her post.

After making several calls to Value Village (and a blog post gone viral), the company apologized and agreed to take the costumes off the shelves. “Every year, we select our Halloween inventory based on feedback and demand from shoppers. We’ve taken the recent comments surrounding certain Halloween costumes sold in our stores very seriously, and as such, are removing this merchandise from our sales floors,” Value Village said in a statement.

Now while many people applaud Delisle’s efforts to get these costumes off the shelves, others believe she’s reading too much into what are probably innocent costumes — costumes your child will wear probably once in their entire lives. And although that might be true, some of you might think this is one of many examples of how clothing these days sexualize our children, especially girls and it’s time that we talk about it.  Let us know where you fall on this debate the comments section below.