Lady Gaga’s raw meat dress hits the road in ‘Women Who Rock’ show

Lady Gaga’s infamous raw meat dress -- which she wore during the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards to protest a ban on openly gay officers serving in the military -- is now a museum piece: It’s on display at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

It’s part of a traveling exhibit, “Women Who Rock: Vision, Passion, Power,” which opened Friday. The show is being put on by the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“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,” Gaga said in 2010 when she appeared in the dress.

The beefy dress is well preserved -- in the most literal of fashions. It’s been dried and painted to look like raw animal flesh, as it appeared when Gaga first wore it.

More than 70 influential “first ladies of rock” are represented in the exhibit, which also includes 250-some artifacts from the likes of Stevie Nicks, Billie Holiday, Cher, the B-52s and Cyndi Lauper, curator Meredith Rutledge-Borger told the Associated Press. Madonna’s memorable cone bra outfit from her “Blond Ambition” tour will be on display, as will Loretta Lynn’s controversial 1975 song about “The Pill.”

Collectively, the show brings to light the political and cultural sway that these female music icons have had on society over the decades. Put simply: they rock.

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