Sarah Baartman Podcast
This podcast follows the exploitation of Sarah Baartman, focusing on the larger theme of the sexualization and exploitation of black female bodies.
Transcript:
Hi, welcome to my podcast. My name is Amie Fillet and today I am going to discuss the story of Sara Baartman and the larger issue of the exploitation and sexualization of Black women’s bodies. This exploitation and sexualization of women creates a stereotype of what Black womanhood is and also functions to hold in place and support not only the control over Black women’s bodies, but of the slave trade in of itself. As discussed by Lisa Gail Collins in her article, “Historic Retrievals: Confronting Visual Evidence and the Imaging of Truth,” Sara Baartman was abused sexually and psychologically in the exploitation she faced being paraded around for Europeans to ogle at. She was called “Hottentot Venus” for its irony, meaning that Baartman was viewed as the exact opposite of the Roman goddess of love and beauty, Venus, and instead was thus perceived as the exact opposite of European ideals of beauty.[1] Baartman’s exploitation was part of not only the social sphere for the general public to gawk at her body, but she was exhibited as part of the scientific community as well. It was in this scientific community of ethnographic studies that illustrations of Baartman were commissioned and spread.[2] The exploitation of Baartman and the characterization of her being inferior to Europeans perpetuated not only the sexualization of Black women’s bodies, but it supported the notion that Black women were inferior to Europeans. The dispersal of images of Baartman’s nude body and the sexual abuse she suffered relates to this larger concept of Black women’s bodies not being their own, but being the subject of entitlement to the white gaze, specifically the white male gaze. In the dispersal of the prints, drawings, and paintings of Sara Baartman’s body combined with the touring she was forced into, perpetuates the ideology that Black women do not own their own bodies, but that their bodies are open to gaze and sexualization by the white male gaze, both socially and scientifically.
In regards to the touring of Sara Baartman’s body around Europe, it is worth noting that while many people came to see her for amusement or shock-value, not all people approved of the exploitation of Sara Baartman. In an article by Pamela Scully and Clifton Crais titled “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London,” the authors note that “Cesar’s display of Baartman particularly outraged some members of the anti-slavery lobby, including Zachary Macaulay of the African Institution. They disliked a Dutch settler keeping a Khoekhoe woman in a state of bondage in a free England exulting in its recent abolition of the slave trade”[3] There is a sort of sad irony in the fact that the very place that Baartman was being exhibited at, which was England at the time, was considered a free state which had just previously abolished the slave trade. While Sara Baartman was not a slave in the traditional sense in a domestic or plantation sphere, she was directly affected by the attitudes of the slave trade in which Europeans felt that they had a right to the use of bodies of Black people. Baartman’s slavery was that of mental and sexual abuse and exploitation. It is in the nature of this form of exploitation that Baartman was subject to that Zachary Macaulay questioned in terms of her free will. According to the article by Pamela Scully and Clifton Crais, “Macaulay asked the attorney general to investigate whether Baartman displayed herself of her own free will or whether she wad enslaved. According to the court paraphrase of the interview with Baartman, she said that she stayed in London to earn money. Although she was cold, she wanted to remain in England until it was time to return to the Cape.”[4] There is an issue here however with the concept of consent. Due to the power dynamic between Cesar and Baartman, it may be argued that Baartman was not in a position wherein she could provide proper consent under the environment of sexual, mental, and physical abuse she was under.
In addressing how this ideology of Black women’s bodies being not their own functions in relation to Black womanhood, the concept of voyeuristic tourism is very much relevant. In the exchanging and circulation of illustrations of not only Sara Baartman’s body, but of other African women, it is evident how this visual culture of the exploitation of Black women’s bodies functioned to keep in place a stereotype about the sexualization and inferiority of Black women’s bodies in relation to the white gaze. Bringing in some of the class materials we have looked at in the past week, the postcards and specifically photography of African women in relation to this circulation of Black women’s bodies is relevant in discussing this larger idea of voyeuristic tourism. Some of the postcards and photographic works such as the postcard or carte-de-visite from circa 1920 by an unknown photographer, titled African Woman exemplify the spreading and commodification of visuals of Black female nudity. Another example as discussed in class lecture is that postcard photograph by Edmond Fortier in circa 1910, titled Senegal Woman. As evident from the woman’s facial expression of suspicion and upset at having her photograph taken, there is both a lack of consent in these types of photographs as well as the issue of the concept of exoticism for the titillation of the white male gaze. While female nudity has long been a defining element in what is considered high art, the nudity of Black women, particularly in these types of postcards and photographs functions slightly differently in that it has an added layer of exoticism for the sexual gratification of the white male gaze. In the exchange of these visuals of the Black female nude, the ideology of the entitlement to Black bodies is again in function.
Circling back to the narrative of Sara Baartman, it is evident how multiple racist ideologies of entitlement to Black bodies, the over-sexualization of the Black female body, and the issue of consent are at works. Something that is incredibly upsetting is the treatment of Sara Baartman not only during her lifetime, but even post-mortem. As discussed in class lecture, after Baartman died, George Cuvier conducted a detailed dissection as well as creating a mold of her body which was displayed in Paris until 1974.[5] What is extremely upsetting in addition to this, is that her body was not sent back to South Africa until 2018, more than two whole centuries after her death. It is incredibly disrespectful to further subjugate Baartman to even more exploitation even after her life had ended. The legacy of Baartman is tainted in this way the degree of exploitation even post-mortem. It is in the narrative Sara Baartman, that is it evident how racist ideologies over the control of Black womanhood and Black bodies in general has interacted with not only the slave trade and cultural attitudes towards the Black community, but also the historic racism and exploitation of Black bodies in the scientific community of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
[1] Lisa Gail Collins, “Historic Retrievals: Confronting Visual Evidence and the Imaging of Truth,” in Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot,” edited by Willis Deborah, by Williams Carla, Temple University Press, 2010: 72.
[2] Collins, “Historic Retrievals: Confronting Visual Evidence and the Imaging of Truth,” 72.
[3] Pamela Scully and Clifton Crais, “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London,” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 2 (2008): 301.
[4] Scully and Crais, “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London,” 301.
[5] Denise M. Johnson, “Controlling Black Women’s Reproduction” (lecture, Chapman University, Orange, CA, September 29, 2021).
Bibliography
Collins, Lisa Gail. “Historic Retrievals: Confronting Visual Evidence and the Imaging of Truth.” in Black Venus 2010: They Called Her “Hottentot,” edited by Willis Deborah, by Williams Carla, Temple University Press, 2010: 71-86. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14bt8mv.11.
Johnson, Denise M. “Controlling Black Women’s Reproduction” (lecture, Chapman University, Orange, CA, September 29, 2021).
Scully, Pamela, and Clifton Crais. “Race and Erasure: Sara Baartman and Hendrik Cesars in Cape Town and London.” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 2 (2008): 301-23. Doi: 10.1086/526552.