Identity and Dress in Ancient Greece

 Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece by Mireille M. Lee (2015)

Photo: Lee


Lee's book describes gender and identity in ancient Greece in a way that ties in the significance of dress. By doing so, Lee draws on the multitude of cultural components that influenced certain ideas, such as that of the Ideal Male Form. The photo above is of a painting depicting Pandora's birth, and while she is typically understood to be a complex character embodying very positive and very negative qualities, in this image she appears simply feminine and graceful according to ancient Greek ideals. The myth of Pandora's birth speaks to the contradictory images of women because her birth - that of the first woman - breeds chaos for humanity, a notable difference from images of the birth of men in mythology.





Photo: Lee

    The ideal male figure (young as opposed to a grown man) is shown in the image Lee presents above. This statue is one that clearly depicts self-control, an almost peaceful quality in this case. So much emphasis was put on the ideal male figure that it was believed to be a kind of achievement rather than any physical inevitability. Women, however, were obviously excluded from this because the ideal form was only male. 

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