As Halloween night approaches, the difficult task of choosing a costume follows closely behind. Although costume stores start popping up in mid-September, most people select their costume at the last minute. This proves easy for children, as most decide to dress up as their favorite character or the standard pirate/princess/fairy. As one grows older, however, this task develops into one much more difficult.

While women find the task of choosing the perfect Halloween costume difficult, men find one with ease. Stores offer a variety of simple, funny, and appropriate costumes for men, such as the classic banana, popular trendy superhero, police officer… the list goes on. However, for women, the options remain slim. The search for a costume lacking the label of “sexy,” “sassy,” “flirty,” or “hot,” proves practically impossible, forcing women to either fit the norm of wearing revealing Halloween costumes or to search endlessly for a more modest option.

Make no mistake, I am not saying I disapprove of such costumes. My belief stands that each person has the right to wear any costume of his or her choosing. The issue at hand remains that stores offer solely this limited category for women, setting up the expectation that women must wear this type of costume. To make it even worse, society shames them for dressing this way. Just what everyone needs: time for more women’s objectification!

Most male costumes offer a women’s counterpart, creating the illusion of equality, while actually achieving quite the opposite. When asked if choosing a Halloween costume proved a challenge, a few guys I spoke with said they easily found one and put almost no thought into the act. Interested in a Batman costume? One quick search in the men’s section, and a costume with pants, a full shirt, a cape, and sensible shoes pops up. For the women’s section? When searched for Batman, the website offered two choices: a short skirt/ low-cut tank top duo, and a skin tight latex bodysuit, worn with thigh-high boots. Both versions exemplify Batman, but the sole difference between the two remains that the women’s is sexualized.

The expectation that women need to dress this way on Halloween in order to fit societal norms needs to end. Next season, how about stores apply the same level of diversity found in the men’s section to the women’s? Demonstrating this would even further reiterate the fact that women can make their own choices, and that they are people too.