Halloween Skeletons - Male or Female?

October 17, 2024 5:08 PM

Are the Halloween skeletons identifiable as male or female skeletons or are they so fake you can't tell?

I was thinking about the skeletons you'd see in school and wondering if they were all male, which then raise the important question if Halloween Skeletons are realistic enough to have an identifiable gender or are just skeleton-lit?

posted by Art_Pot to Science & Nature (7 answers total)

Real human skeletons are barely identifiable as male or female unless you're directly comparing specimens from a homogeneous population of people, and even then you're only making an educated guess based on relative sizing.

(A healed injury sustained while birthing a child would help.)
posted by phunniemee at 5:25 PM on October 17 [5 favorites]

Pretty much well guessing that the Home Depot skeletons are not authentic, let alone recognizably male or female.

A horse's shoulder blades and front legs are not actually connected to the skeleton. Horses have no clavicles, so the front end is actually supported by an incredible sling of muscles. There are also seven bones in the knee and two vestigial bones on either side of the cannon (lower leg) bone that I've never seen in Halloween display horse skeletons.

Make of that what you will.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:37 PM on October 17 [2 favorites]

Judging from this page on m/f skeleton differences-- and concentrating on the pelvis-- halloween costumes seem divided into fairly clearly male, fairly clearly male, and not really human.
posted by zompist at 6:00 PM on October 17

Someone I trust told me that the life-size plastic skeletons had wider-than-average pelvises (so plausibly female) because they look more aesthetic. But the places I see plastic human skeletons also sell skeletons of aliens, spiders, mermaids, and octopi, so realism is definitely not the goal.

I was once posted across the hall from a spooky movie poster for a volunteer job, and after some time studying it realized that the skeletal horses had bone tails. Now I want to go back and check for clavicles.
posted by mersen at 6:56 PM on October 17

Zombist, your link goes to "Fair Play for Women" which is an anti-trans advocacy group. They are motivated to suggest clear distinctions between male and female skeletons because they are interested in preventing trans women and girls from playing in women's sports.

Phunniemee has the right of it - sexing skeletons is more difficult than it would seem. This is a good article explaining some of the detail as to why. What that means about plastic skeletons is outside of my wheelhouse, but I would be careful about relying on Fair Play for Women's characterization of skeletal differences.
posted by kserra at 7:04 PM on October 17 [5 favorites]

Determining sex from a skeleton is so difficult that the sexes of many archaeological finds have been discovered to be different than first assumed now that DNA sexing is (sometimes) possible.
posted by heatherlogan at 7:46 PM on October 17

Very sorry... I didn't check out the site enough. Mods, feel free to delete the link.
posted by zompist at 7:53 PM on October 17 [1 favorite]