Halloween Unmasked: A Socialist Feminist History of Halloween

I love Halloween. I love the color orange and the imagery of bats, pumpkins, black cats, spiders, and creepy things. I love wearing costumes, carving pumpkins, going to corn mazes, the brilliant hues of fall, pumpkin spice everything, scarecrows, migrating birds, gray skies, and empty fields. But, I also love socialism and feminism. I love the empowerment of workers and the quest for social justice. I love to think about how gender shapes and limits our lives. Thus, this analysis is the marriage of two great loves: Halloween and social justice. While Halloween is viewed as a liminal time between seasons and life and death, it is usually quite estranged from social justice considerations. Like any good activist, I want to pierce the veil between the superficial fun of celebration and the hidden realities of oppression. Behind the mask of every holiday is a hidden world of inequities.  Read more . . .