The end of August brings many things… cooler nights, the start of school, and many, many Halloween catalogues to our mailbox. I’ve made my thoughts on these catalogues – and more importantly, the costumes held within them – abundantly clear in one of the 1st posts in my Bitch Magazine series, Mom & Pop Culture last year. This year is no different. We arrived home from a weeklong vacation to a plethora of costume catalogues. My son sees them as his “magazines” and can spend almost an hour pouring through them, flipping back and forth between his favorite costumes and thinking aloud about some of them.

Yesterday, as I was making dinner, he quietly scanned the pages of one particular catalogue, until he came across something that seemed to bother him. We talked about it for a few seconds, before I put dinner on hold, wanting to record these questions and thoughts he was struggling with:

And yes. Batgirl has a bubble above her that says “I’ll be the cutest girl in Gotham.” sigh. In addition to her outfit not being very Superhero-friendly, the words suggest she’s more interested in looking cute than saving the day. Add to that they sexy poses (which you’ll never see a male superhero do) and it’s just a big ball of *ugh* that is obvious to pretty much anyone.

I mean, if a 5.5 year old grasps that there’s something inherently wrong with the types of costumes and the way they’re marketed towards girls, don’t you think that says something?