How Oscar the Grouch Helped Me Understand Sexism
By: Zaletta Zara
Tags: Sexism, Masks, Halloween, Metoo

This Halloween my son wanted to be a can of radioactive waste. On my day off I went to the Goodwill Outlet and found an amalgamation of costume worthy items: yoga mats, old fairy wings, felt, karate belts, fake flowers and sparkly do-dads. That night we turned the purple yoga mat into a cylinder, wrapped it in black duck taped and slapped on a homemade radioactive label. Voila, toxic waste! My daughter got a duct tape and felt unicorn horn and the karate belt to become the Karate Rainbow Unicorn.

I was left with a green yoga mat. What green costume could I make? A leafy vegetable? A gallbladder? Envy? Pond slime? At last it came to me…Oscar the Grouch! After an hour of trying to make an appropriately sized garbage can cylinder from the mat, and another hour stapling a carefully curated array of trash and recycling to my new can my husband came downstairs. “You look like a DaDaist ode to vomit, why don’t you just buy a trash can?” To the hardware store he went and I had the perfect Grouch costume: a full sized aluminum garbage can with a garbage lid hat. I even made a Slimy the Worm finger puppet to accompany the costume.

All that weekend I rocked my Oscar the Grouch costume: at the Halloween fair, at the Chamber of Commerce trick or treating, and through multiple Halloween parties. I quickly fell in love with my can, as did everyone else. It was heavy, it was loud, I couldn’t sit in it and my shoulders ached from the carrying straps but I was having a blast. People noticed me, but it was a different noticing that I was used to. I couldn’t figure out what was different about it at first. It wasn’t until halfway through Chamber of Commerce trick or treating that it dawned on me — I was being viewed in a completely non-sexual way and wasn’t being ignored.

“Hey, look, it’s the Grouch! That’s awesome!”

“Oh man, hey, how’s it going little slimy, good to see you.”

I was interacting with strangers and there was this cool, happy vibe. Not once did I get looked at and feel immediately judged for my body. Oscar the Grouch is the opposite of sex. He is a Muppet, he is puke green, he smells and he is covered in trash. In the can I was not seen as “overweight” or “sexy” or “too old” or “not in as good of shape as I am.” I was just whatever character I chose to put out in the world, in this case, Oscar. I was liberated! I could be grumpy, silly, silent, sulky, loud, angry: it was all okay. The power of the mask to transmute my narrow human existence was in effect.

I suddenly understood the way in which my appearance went before me shrouding every single daily interaction. My sexuality, be it negatively viewed “she’s not hot enough” or positively viewed, “I’d like to bed that mom” or otherwise viewed “I’m better looking than she is” was an innate, unspoken but energetic part of every exchange. I could remove myself from it as easily as I could remove my own skin. My worth was based not just on my character, skill or intellect but in part on whatever emotional lens my sexuality elicited in my observer.

No wonder women have to be “gold for the silver job” or “two hundred percent better than my male colleagues” to be paid or promoted equal to men. Our sexuality can devalue us the moment we enter the room. It isn’t that all the men in the room our assholes. It’s that all of us, men, women, etc., have seen women’s bodies overtly sexualized since birth. This sexualization isn’t a celebration of women’s power or life-giving force, it’s commercialization. Our worth as a female human in this society is determined in large part by our value as sexual commodities.

After the final Halloween party, I climbed out of my beautiful trash can and heaved it into the trunk of my car. That night my back was in such spasms I had to call to my husband from my position on the bathroom floor to help me get undressed so I could take a shower.

Two days later when it came time for the actual Halloween night, I put on a sparkly bouncy bat headband and left the trash can in the trunk. My back just couldn’t tolerate it. At the neighborhood pre-trick or treating party I sat on the sofa and talked to my five-year-old about costumes and favorite candies. I didn’t want to be social. I missed my trash can. I desperately wanted the feeling it gave me but without having to carry an extra twenty pounds on my back.

It’s taken me a while to find my own way to process all the “me toos” and the sexual harassment unveilings. Its not that I don’t have my own stories, I do. It’s that I have been so focused on my career and my kids that I didn’t feel like there was space to let any of it in. I couldn’t let it touch me. I didn’t have the time to be mad.

Being Oscar helped me see my own world more clearly by experiencing it in a different skin. The mask showed me the obvious before my eyes. Without it I don’t know that I would have let myself see it. Thanks to Oscar, now I am mad. More than just mad, I’m a royally pissed off Grouch.