18 pages • 36 minutes read
Kim AddonizioWhat Do Women Want?
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2000A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Desire as a Thing to Be Worn
“What Do Women Want?” approaches desire as its own end rather than as a condition to be negotiated. The red dress is an object of desire because it reveals everything. The dress is desire made visible, perfectly expressed without the intrusion and complexities of language, which is as likely to obfuscate as clarify.
When Sigmund Freud asked his friend, Princess Marie Bonaparte, a noted and revolutionary psychoanalyst and sex researchist of the day, what it was that a woman wanted, it is unlikely he expected an answer as simple as “a red dress” (Line 1)—and because Addonizio is a poet, it is not, in fact, a simple answer, but a metaphor. As such, the red dress is a signifier, pointing to agency, sexual and otherwise.
Clothing itself is a signifier, a way to communicate without words. To dress in a way that reveals and calls attention to the body communicates a number of possibilities, including a love of one’s own body, or an acknowledgment of the animal nature of the body—a composite of life force, potential, limitations, and vulnerability. In Addonizio’s poem, the dress is not an invitation, nor does it consent to the wishes of anyone else. Instead, it “confirm[s] your worst fears about” (Line 17-18) the speaker, it “show[s] you how little [she] care[s] about you” (Line 19). Desire, unchecked by social constraints, is more eloquently communicated through a tight red dress, according to the speaker, than through words.
As a symbol of desire, the dress is an efficient vehicle, as so few activities are doable while wearing it. To wear a red dress and walk down the neighborhood street midday is to say, the person in this dress is not here to serve, please, or otherwise take care of anyone but herself.
Self-Empowerment, or, Say It Loud, Say It Proud
In the course of the poem, the phrase “I want” (Line 1) transitions from a simple and declarative statement to a radical slogan of self-possession. The title, a quote, directs its query to women in general. The poet wastes no time in unpacking the stereotypical baggage of the question, and she answers it in the first person: The speaker announces herself as an individual, rather than a member of an abstract, if gendered, group. No wallflower, the speaker repeats her request, “I want” (Line 2), four times in the first three lines. The thing that the speaker wants isn’t even of any quality—it’s poorly made and ill-fitting. The dress thus not only serves the purpose of being revealing, but it also accepts and even celebrates its cheapness. It is an accessible possession for a woman in a working-class neighborhood. In this dress, the speaker is powerful, regardless of her socio-economic status.
The stroll up the street during daylight hours is another example of the speaker exerting her agency. Sexual desire is not something that blooms only with the lights off. The speaker struts past presumed social norms to disrupt the day. The clock will stop as the people on the street will have to stop, too, to pay attention to the woman in the red dress, who “can have [her] pick” (Line 14) of them. The language that follows the last occurrence of “I want” (Line 21) indicates a turn from wishing to actualizing. Not if but “When” (Line 21) she finds the dress, she’ll “pull” (Line 21) it “like [she’s] choosing a body” (Line 22). All the choices are hers, as well as all the power. The phrase may remain an expression of desire—“I want” (Line 21) (already, arguably, a political statement), but the statement clearly communicates, “I am, and I will.”
Life and Death
Life and death are of a piece in “What Do Women Want?” Death is a tangible presence on the street, in the form of the pig corpses being thrown “from the truck and onto the dolly” (Line 12). These once-living animals are now destined for the deli case. Their death in no way impedes the fantasy of the speaker, who will walk that red dress up the street and past those laborers without giving the pigs a second thought. Death is part of the fabric of this life, as are “day-old / donuts” (Lines 10-11), also speeding toward their decay.
Urgency exists in the poem from the start. Addonizio’s speaker gives the impression that the moment is now to act on desire—the clock is ticking. The use of absolutes underscores this urgency: The dress must be “too tight” (Line 3); “no one” (Line 6) will have to waste time guessing; “all those keys” (Line 9) glitter in the sun; “I’m the only / woman on earth” (Lines 14-15).
The whole cycle of life fills the last lines of the poem, as the speaker chooses “a body / to carry [her] into this world” (Lines 22-23), enacting her own re-birth. From the wails of a newborn to the “love-cries” (Line 24) of the beloved, life—at least, a life lived with urgency—is a matter of noisy declaration. The life choices we make, the speaker suggests, is what makes us: “I’ll wear it like bones, like skin” (Line 25). The life that can be known is known only through the body, until it ends, and the body is committed to the earth. After that, “they” (Line 27) can do what they want.
