Human rights, cultural appropriation & Hallowe'en
Hallowe'en can be a fun time of year. People dress up, kids 'trick or treat' and people have an all around good time in costume.
Hallowe'en costumes have been a hot topic in recent times. People have found themselves in 'hot water' by wearing costumes that are divisive, racist, culturally or racially offensive and stereotypical, perpetuating stigmas or ignoring harmful, historical situations of oppression. Many people dismiss the importance of wearing costumes that take into consideration human rights, but it is important in an inclusive and diverse society such as Canada, to consider whether your costume is appropriate or offensive.
Costumes could be perceived as harassing in nature or discriminatory if thought is not put into whether the outfit could be considered offensive or stereotypical to others. For example, dressing up as someone of a different race, religion or culture by painting your face black, wearing a hijab or dressing up as Pocahontas, for example, would be considered offensive and stereotypical by persons that identify with that particular race, religion or culture. Often times, people neglect to think about what they are wearing, and perhaps do not realize the highly offensive nature of their costume.
Susan Scafidi, author of Who Owns Culture? Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, has acknowledged the difficulty in defining cultural appropriation but offers the following definition: "Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or artifacts from someone else's culture without permission. [Including,] unauthorized use of another culture's dance, dress, music, language, folklore, cuisine, traditional medicine, religious symbols, etc.... [She highlights that it is] most likely to be harmful when the source community is a minority group that has been oppressed or exploited in other ways or when the object of appropriation is particularly sensitive, e.g. sacred objects."
It is important to consider whether your costume could be considered offensive by others. At work, for example, if you plan to dress up in costume, you could face a harassment or human rights complaint if you choose to wear something that offends another on the basis of a prohibited ground under the Human Rights Code.
Before you insult or discriminate against someone this year by dressing as a 'terrorist' or a klansman for example, ask yourself the following questions to see whether your costume is in fact, appropriate:
Are you perpetuating a stereotype or stigma associated with a particular race, religion, ethnicity, or culture?
Does your costume contain a sacred garment or symbol that is connected to a race, religion, or culture for which you do not belong?
Is your costume connected to a historical period of time where a race, culture or religion was enslaved or oppressed, which would now be considered offensive or serve to reinforce current power imbalances and harmful structures in society?
If you cannot say with certainty that your costume would not cause offence to a certain group on the basis of race, culture, religion or another protected ground, you should reconsider.
In recent times, there has been an unfortunate trend of sexualized costumes, whether that's a 'sexy nurse' or some other sexualized outfit. The well-known philosopher, Immanuel Kant defined objectification as a process that "involves the lowering of a person, a being with humanity, to the status of an object." When applied to the objectification and sexualization of women, in particular sexualized costumes, it reduces women to be seen only for their body, as oppose to being respected as an intelligent human being. Objectification is harmful to both the objectified and the objectifier. Therefore, it's important to consider whether your costume perpetuates the objectification of women, allowing the idea that women are objects for sexual gratification to continue or perpetuates unhealthy stereotypes of women. Equality is an important human right, enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and protected by the prohibited ground of sex in the Human Rights Code. Women are more often than not, considered objects for the sexual gratification of men in society, a practice that is currently being highlighted across modern society. Therefore, it's important to consider whether you want to be part of the trend that maintains the inequality of women in a patriarchal society when choosing a Hallowe'en costume this year.
This Hallowe'en, we hope you are safe, have fun and consider your costume through the lens of human rights!