The infamous raw meat dress that Lady Gaga wore to a 2010 awards ceremony is now on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC, by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The meat dress will be on display with the exhibit, "Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Poser," as part of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's national tour for an exhibit about women in rock and roll.
The ehibit which opened Friday includes more than 250 artifacts and represents more than 70 women including Cher, Donna Summer and Stevie Nicks. Curator Meredith Rutledge-Border said to the Associated Press, "This really is the center of our political life. Bringing this exhibit here kind of redefines what's important in our history and political life ... at a time when there's talk of women being under attack in politics."
Other icons include items from Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
For the museum, this is the first exhibit to feature women performing artists. The meat dress that Gaga wore to the MTV Video Music Awards, was dried, preserved and painted to restore its meat color.
For Lady Gaga, the meat dress had a political context. According to the AP she wore the meat dress in a protest to "don't' ask don't tell" where gays in the military were not allowed to be open about their sexuality She said if said, that if people don't stand up for their rights, "pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our own bones. And, I am not a piece of meat."
Rutledge-Borger believes she is a pioneer saying, "If you dig a little deeper, there's this important message of inclusion and family," she said. "That to me is really why she's so powerful."
