Who Is Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman?
Born on the Gamtoos River in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, Sarah Baartman was part of the Khoisan family, currently named the Khoi people. In the Khoisan culture, the body stores more fat around the buttocks and thighs, and Sarah carried even more of it than the others. Although her body looked different, within her culture it was seen as normal, healthy and viewed as something natural. To others, the white upper-class Europeans, the extra fat around her thighs and huge buttocks were seen as something less than human. In 1810 at the age of 20, Sarah was shipped off to London to be paraded around like a circus animal. Her body was seen as “grotesque,” and her genitals described like “skin that hangs from a turkey’s throat.” Not only was she treated like an animal, but her female anatomy was seen as something non-human and said to be the “highest form of animal life and the lowest form of human life.” Her body was viewed by hundreds of 19th century European audiences like a freak show. She was dehumanized over and over again, and looked upon as some kind of ape-like creature.
The ideas, theories and racist images around Sarah Baartman’s journey cannot, and should not be forgotten. The language and power surrounding the body is nothing but dehumanizing in her story, crossing over boundaries, and creating stereotypes that still continue to survive today. I am sure that Sarah had no idea of what her body and mind would have to go through when she left her homeland and stepped on the ship to London. Why is the image of a black woman, in this case Sarah, portrayed as inferior and displayed because of “unusual” features? The dominant European culture was obsessed with having power and authority over others, especially blacks. Sarah’s Khoisan features were said to be of “scientific curiosity,” and considered to represent an oversexed body. Along with these “white” ideals of superiority and sexuality, the center of her story also includes issues surrounding racism and colonialism. Baartman’s journey ties into the article for this week as we look at the historical pathways science has tried to pursue, while searching for the “truth” about the human body. Just as Sarah was put on display for others to gawk at, the female anatomy has a long history of male-dominated ideologies and assumptions.
The history of anatomy during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance is explained through the language and imagery depicted by the dominant culture specific to that time and place. These descriptions and stories are trapped in the institution of “Renaissance medical and physiological theory” (Laqueur, p. 69). They are tied up in “political and cultural order,” and completely leaving out evidence about organs, specifically facts involving the sexual differences between men and women (Laqueur, p. 69). In Thomas Laqueur’s article, Making Sex, Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, the practices of looking at the female body during the sixteenth-century represented a powerful and somehow convincing belief that women were simply “inverted men” (Laqueur, p.70). As males dominated the culture, the language behind anatomy was surrounded by a “one-sex body” image, powerful enough to be able to reveal the “inner mysteries” of the genitals, and even the soul (Laqueur, p.74). Even though most images showed the human body with enormous errors and illustrations of distorted female genitalia, the general public at the time in history viewed this to be normal. It was not just one image that turned the clitoris into looking like a penis; it became a serious of ideas taken from multiple representations, not from nature itself. These historical thoughts about anatomy were completely separate from the actual structure and function of what was known about the sexual organs. As ideology instead of fact was determining how the female body was seen, it is easy to see what sexual differences actually mattered and were chosen to be emphasized during this time. The female body did not have a unique language that gave exact anatomical classification for the genitals or for the reproductive system.
Throughout Lagueur’s article the language, imagery and explanations of the female anatomy shifted around, creating a map of the body that was inaccurate, but at the same time powerful enough to continue to deliver a message encouraging the belief of the “one-sex body” model. Clearly it seems most of these white males were caught up in only looking and seeing the body in one way, through a “male centered system” (Laquerur, p. 97). The hierarchy within this male dominated society determined how power and resources were distributed, including language. These relationships around the body are culturally created in ways that place emphasis on women’s social status and the “unique qualities of a woman’s body” (Laquerur, p.108). Already embedded into the dominant language of science was the language of gender, one that was dehumanizing. Like the anatomy maps of the past, illustrations focused their attention on specific features, leaving out certain parts, and placing emphasis on others. Laquerur points out how one of the most compelling features of talking about sex during this time in history was completely contextualized. As women were deprived of existing and separated into someone, or something less human, they entered into the conversations surrounding the body as the subject.
Throughout Lagueur’s article the language, imagery and explanations of the female anatomy shifted around, creating a map of the body that was inaccurate, but at the same time powerful enough to continue to deliver a message encouraging the belief of the “one-sex body” model. Clearly it seems most of these white males were caught up in only looking and seeing the body in one way, through a “male centered system” (Laquerur, p. 97). The hierarchy within this male dominated society determined how power and resources were distributed, including language. These relationships around the body are culturally created in ways that place emphasis on women’s social status and the “unique qualities of a woman’s body” (Laquerur, p.108). Already embedded into the dominant language of science was the language of gender, one that was dehumanizing. Like the anatomy maps of the past, illustrations focused their attention on specific features, leaving out certain parts, and placing emphasis on others. Laquerur points out how one of the most compelling features of talking about sex during this time in history was completely contextualized. As women were deprived of existing and separated into someone, or something less human, they entered into the conversations surrounding the body as the subject.
“If you touch that part of the uterus while women are eager for sex and very excited as if in a frenzy, and aroused to list they are eager for a man, you will find it rendered a little harder and oblong……………(Laquerur, p. 113)
Not only does this demonstrate how culturally and politically bound our language was, but how it is still rooted in our everyday communication with each other. I believe today, that there still exist a “man-made fabric which impinges” on most of our experiences (Laquerur, p. 69). I would just add in a “white man-made fabric….” into that sentence. Although I found the article to be somewhat fascinating, I thought it left out other important historical ideologies about the body that are shaping our relationships with the female image today.
Works Cited:
- "Angry Black Women Watch." ABWW Heroine of the Day: Sarah (Saartjie) Baartman. abww.wordpress.com. 3, Feb 2011. <http://abww.wordpress.com/tag/sarah-baartman/>.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI uploaded the second picture on this blog onto my own blog. Who does it belong to? I don't know whose permission i need and whether or not it is a copyrighted image.
Thanks