DescriptionMy dissertation contrasts the ideal and transgressive dress of Roman women as understood within literary texts. Since much scholarship has focused on ideal dress of women, I begin with a discussion of these ideal garments as they align with ancient ideas of morality. I incorporate fashion theory into a discussion of ancient dress to draw a connection between physicality of garments and ancient gender roles.
After two chapters on ideal dress, this dissertation then focuses on dress considered transgressive by male authors. The fourth chapter discusses women’s dress as it becomes transgressive when adopted by men that were labeled effeminati. The remaining three chapters focus on feminine-to-masculine gendered cross-dressing. In these are instances where Roman women were dressed in masculine clothing by authors.
This project contributes to Roman literary and gender studies because it elucidates how cross-dressing women comment upon female agency and the limitations of such as granted by male authors. It divides instances of female transvestism into different contexts associated with marital status, military dress, and ritual. Using a mosaicist approach, I provide a close reading of sources on women’s clothing in genres ranging from satire to historical texts, in a period spanning from the second century BCE to the late second century CE. I then explain the ancient attitudes towards dress through an examination of the text’s genre and context of the clothing description.
The findings of this research illustrate how authors use clothing descriptions to characterize the behavior and morality of women, whether to force dress to match behavior, or condemn behavior that did not align with perceived expectations of dress. I argue that this form of gendered cross-dressing allowed ancient authors to create foils to male characters whose behavior was also considered unsuitable for their gender. This examination of male authors shaping perceptions of ancient women is important to scholarship in the fields of Classics, as well as to discussions of representation and men “creating” women within modern media. Through garment descriptions we gain a better insight into how gender roles for men and women could be visually represented and socially enforced.