Little Black Dress

by Natalie Masetti

Tags: Black, dress, date, desire, sexualized, become, we, freedom, real, personality, culture, society, body, accept, woman

The little [black] [dress], well known as the “LBD,” is [accepted] [date] night wear―a club-going, raunchy, sexy, “show-off-y” piece of ebony fabric. Does one wear the LBD to be [desired]? Or is it a skimpy piece of cloth made simply to draw attention? The LBD has often been seen as a cultural symbol of a [woman] “going out,” as in to parties, seedy clubs, or on [dates]. But, little is the LBD associated with empowerment―it is often reduced to its ability to make a [woman] “look good.” This association is expressed in Laura Mulvey’s passive [woman] and active man dichotomy[^4]: the [woman] wears the LBD “to be looked at” and the man “looks” and manifests his [desires] on the [woman]. Additionally, the LBD could be seen as an enhancer of the scopophilic gaze, in which one (the man) derives sexual pleasure from looking at another (the [woman]) as an object[^5].

Does the LBD need to be [sexualized]? Can it not [become] a symbol of empowerment for women, a case in which the [woman] rejects passivity? I believe the answer is yes, especially in the changing values of today’s [society] wherein the concept of the passive [woman] and active man is less standard. The LBD’s sexiness can [become] more along the lines of “I can wear this and feel good about myself in it” rather than “I am wearing this to attract or to be looked at by men” that is appropriated in popular [culture]. I believe this is important because [we] as a [society] have naturalized a [woman’s] [body] as an object of sexual pleasure so much so that [we] associate her clothing with sexuality, which is an offense against the [real] purpose of clothing as an outlet for expressing a [woman’s] [personality] and sexual [freedom]. The LBD can and should morph into a symbol of this female sexual [freedom]―a symbol of an ability to wear something scandalous not for the sole purpose of being looked at or desired by the opposite sex.

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