Halloween is the time of the year that children look forward to in order to play dress up. During this time, they can be anyone they want to be. They can be a fairy, princess, super hero or even scary monsters. Parents also play a very important role in choosing their costumes. An article in Knox News said that one parent was very frustrated about it and took it to a different level while venting it out.
John Marcotte has 2 daughters who wanted to dress up as super heroes this year. However, while they were looking for these costumes they were presented with options like princesses and fairies and if superhero costumes were available it included unnecessary things like wands and tutus. He said that boys are given a whole lot of options that make them feel that they can be anything they want to be. They could choose to be heroic, or brilliant and even scary. However, if you go through the girls costumes, they are usually only fairies and princesses, which tell them that society only values their appearance and nothing more.
He runs an organization called Heroic Girls. This organization aims to wants to empower young girls by showing them strong role models. They also work hard to make women more involved in creating tools that can increase assertiveness and make their self-esteem higher like comic books.
In an effort to make other parents aware of it, he began the hashtag #MoreThanCute. This is to make sure that other parents like him can start "thinking out of the princess box" during this season. His aim for this campaign is to encourage parents to think outside of the box and use their imagination for their little girls. He asked them to post the pictures of their girls in heroic costumes in social media with the hashtag #MoreThanCute.
The hashtag gained immediate attention as parents told him that in order for their girls to be heroines, they had to look for their costumes in the boys section and try to improvise because in the girls section they can only find skirts and other limited choices. They are thankful for this campaign.
This only proves that through social media, hashtags like #MoreThanCute can be a valuable stimulant for change. This doesn't only inspire retailers to make girls dream big, but it can also bring a lot of benefits to the whole society.
