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When Sarah Baartman was born to her Khoisan family in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, no one knew that she would be made into the face of black female sexuality in the late 19th century. Sarah Baartman was a Khoikhoi woman who was most famous for being exhibited as a freak show attraction under the name Hottentot Venus-- "Hottentot" as the then-current name for the Khoi people and "Venus" in reference to the Roman goddess of love.
Baartman's story begins when she was a slave for a Dutch farmer near Cape Town and a friend of her slave owner was enticed by her highly unusual bodily features so much that he wanted to take her to Europe to be exhibited. Baartman's body featured a large buttocks and an elongated labia. Her physique, particularly her buttocks, became the object of popular fascination when Baartman was first exhibited in London in 1810, at the tender age of twenty.
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In 1815, Sarah Baartman passed away unexpectedly at the age of twenty-five in Paris, France. An autopsy was conducted, but the sole purpose was not to find out her cause of death but to get the chance to examine her sexual organs. Her skeleton, preserved genitals, and brain were placed on display in Paris' Musee de l'Homme until 1974, when they were removed from public view. In August 2002, Baartman's body was returned to her homeland of South Africa nearly 200 years after her birth.
Sources:
Gilman, Sander L. "Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female
Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature." Race,
Writing and Difference. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. Chicago, 1986.
This was a very interesting read since I've never heard of this topic before. I'm just curious as to why the unique physique of black females was only noticed with Baartman. Was Baartman's figure more pronounced then the average? Was there no one else before the slave owner's friend to noticed such physical differences between black and white women? Or was the difference always obvious to people but the friend was the first to market the idea?
ReplyDelete-Myung C.
Baartman's body was considered average among the Khoi women, but it was the work of the slave owner's friend that really made it seem as if her body was extremely abnormal. Sadly enough, it turns out that other Khoi women were also put on display during the same time as Baartman but she was the first and received the most fame.
DeleteI had also never heard about this aspect of early sexual research and its relationship to race. Reading this it occurred to me that a physical difference, such as greater pronunciation of certain body parts, that was tied to racial inequality and abuse of human rights, is now somewhat idealized in our sexual culture. In the U.S. having a large behind (to a certain extent) is often highly desired as a sexual benefit. I also find myself also wondering if this type of early research was continued on more than just Baartman's body. Though any type of physical difference is most definitely not an indicator of inequality, where did this research string end up, and is it still a point of research?
ReplyDelete-Hannah B.
As I mentioned in the article, "volumptuousness" was seen as a sign of animalistic sexual appetite. When researchers began to study the sexual appetite of white female prostitutes in the 19th century, they claimed that they seem to have bodies that look similar to the Khoi women. Instead of simply recognizing that body types are not race specific, they attributed large behinds on white women to an uncontrollable sexual appetite, just like they did for the Khoi women. I feel like it isn't a point of research today because in the 19th century, researchers were simply trying to find ways to explain the deviant behaviors in our society. If you were a prositute, it was because you had biological deviant traits rather than personal choice.
DeleteI agree in being clueless to this topic. It makes me wonder what differences might have been done about physical differences with males and females. I've heard of various 'experiments' measuring skulls (which always, of course, concluded that the researcher's race had the largest skull and thus largest brain) and for some reason I always assumed them to be male skulls. Were different features sought in black males and females to make them conform to early views? For example, exaggerated sexuality for females and low intelligence for males (if I'm actually remembering those skull experiments right)?
ReplyDeleteThe articles that I read for this article focused on female sexuality so I can't really comment on the skull thing. However, I found it very interesting that the articles claimed that male sexuality wasn't questioned or wasn't in as much interest as female sexuality.
DeleteThere was a really interesting exhibit about "race" that was shown at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum not too long ago that mentioned some of the physical features- like skull size- that were used to legitimize racial superiority. According to a PBS interview with Audrey Smedley, the craze for measuring skulls was sparked by a physician by the name of Samuel Morton in the 1820's and the 1830's. You're right about the skull size- Morton and other contemporaries found that, on average, African American skulls were smaller. The inference, sadly, was that because they had "smaller" skulls (this was later debunked), they were far less intelligent.
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