There’s nothing quite like a theme party: You get to dig into the depths of your closet, put on all your weird or otherwise embarrassing garments, and go out for the night as someone else. The best part is it doesn’t even need to be Halloween to have a theme party. That’s right folks, dressing up can happen 24/7, 365 days a year. Playing dress up is undoubtedly some of the most fun I’ve had...add a party and you’ve got the best night of your life in store.

But I’m being overly optimistic. Of course there are times when the theme party goes awry. There’s the unfortunate poorly executed theme party which is usually a result of laziness, or a theme so niche that execution was impossible (like not even the lady that did your Minor League Baseball-themed Bat-Mitzvah could pull it off). There’s the appropriation-of-a-culture-that-isn’t-yours theme gone wrong, i.e. Arizona State’s Tau Kappa Epsilon’s “MLK Black Party” in 2013 (I’m not making this up people.) Then there's the theme gone gendered/sexist, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

I was angered upon discovering that the theme for a party I was planning on going to with a group of friends was “Gym Bros and Yoga Hoes.” Now, there are a couple things wrong with this one, folks, so let’s break it down:

First, the very obvious term of insult: “hoe.” For all the people who are unfamiliar with this word, bless your kindred soul, a “hoe” or “whore” is someone perceived to be easy or willing to have sex with many people. I’m not sure when sexual liberation became insulting but the word “hoe” is definitely a degrading one and doesn’t belong in a theme. Furthermore, by putting “hoe” in the theme, it implies that someone who is “easy” dresses a certain way, which is actually not the case--it’s actually an incorrect assumption that has been perpetuated through rape culture and ignorance.

Second of all, the theme implies what each gender should be wearing. “Bro” is a pronoun generally belonging to males while “hoe,” unfortunately, is typically female. So, when one plans their outfit for this theme party, they need to dress according to their gender as implied by the theme...the boys get to show up wearing what are likely loose-fitting gym clothes, and girls are expected to arrive scantily clad in their yoga pants and workout tops. Don’t get me wrong, this type of clothing is comfortable, but I don’t like the idea of being told to wear tight yoga clothes and feeling like I have to because I’m a girl. And what about people that don’t feel like they fit into the gender binary? I felt extremely uncomfortable dressing according to my gender expectation...so I didn’t!

This is a picture of me dressed as a “Gym Bro” for the party. I’ll admit, I was upset to leave behind the yoga pants (I love thee so) but I figured making a statement trumped my comfort level. I have the rest of my life to look all done up, I could afford to be a “boy” for the night.

I woke up the next morning satisfied with my choices of the night prior, until I realized nobody really noticed my outfit. The few people that noticed were girls, not the boys who hosted the party and chose the theme. I discovered that racism, prejudice, and sexism in theme parties isn’t going away because one girl cross-dressed. And I don’t think people’s choice in dress is necessarily perpetuating these discriminatory themes either (my “Yoga Hoe” friends actually looked bangin’ Saturday night...kudo’s ladies)! I think we need to educate these party-throwers and theme-makers that appropriating culture or having gendered themes isn’t cool just because it’s the norm. What’s cool are themes that don’t stand a chance at offending anybody. Not to toot my own horn, but my a capella group boasts many a gender-neutral theme party: Frats and Cats (one could dress as a cat or a frat star), Red, White and Blue (good old U.S. of A.), and the most recent theme party, Penguins in Madagascar (jungle theme, complete with face paint and cheetah print).

Like I said before, there’s nothing quite like a theme party. But let’s keep them fun: let us refrain from themes that poke at people’s cultures or fit people into gendered boxes. We can have fun and dress up without hurting people’s feelings or making them uncomfortable, I promise! As for the people throwing theme parties that unfortunately fail due to poor planning and execution: I promise I’ll help you out with your Bill Nye-themed bash as soon as I take care of the “Gym Bros” and the goddamned white kids in blackface (ugh).