Chapter 21 Black Bodies, White Bodies By Jean Escobar Beaute

Sander Gilman Born February 21 st, 1944 in New York. Gilman investigates the constellations of medical, social, and political discourse that emerge at certain historical junctures. For 25 years he was a member of the humanities and medical faculties at Cornell University. Gilman was the author of over 80 novels including 1. Making The Body Beautiful (1999) 2. Difference and Pathology (1985) 3. Seeing The Insane (1980)

Black Bodies, White Bodies Toward an iconography of female sexuality in late nineteenth-century art, medicine, and literature. In this chapter of the “Feminism and Visual Culture” edited by Amelia Jones, it discusses how we as different people view things. This chapter specifically focuses on the views of the 18 th and 19 th centuries. The scale of beauty in the 19 th century was primarily based on the sexual parts of a female. In the 19 th century there were many paintings, studies, and books written about the difference between the sexual parts of black and white women. In this presentation I will use examples from different art, medicine, and literature to give you a better understanding of the chapter.

Art

The classic work of art from the 19 th century Olympia (painted in ) by Edouar Manet records the idea of both the sexualized woman and the black woman. In this painting there is a nude white women who is the central figure of this painting. Behind her stands her black servant who is fully dressed. The figure of the black servant in Europe was ubiquitous.

In the early 19 th century Buffon described black people as having an “apelike sexual appetite”. Shortly after that J.J Virey summarized his views on the sexual nature of black females in terms of acceptable medical discourse. According to him their “voluptuousness” is “developed to a degree of lascivity unknown in our climate, for their sexual organs are much more developed than those of whites.” Saartjie Baartman, also known as Hottentot Venus was exhibited naked to the public in many different countries. After she died they did a autopsy of her body and dissected her. Because they were weirdly fascinated with her they put her sexual parts on display. Her genitalia and her buttocks, served as the central image for the black female throughout the nineteenth century.

Medicine

After Saartjie Baartman’s dissection, the polygenetic argument is the ideological basis for all the dissections of these woman. They felt if the sexual parts of these women were shown to be inherently different that that would be a sign that black were a separate and lower race that Europeans. In 1868 Edward Turnispseed argued that the hymen of black women were 1 1/2 – 2 inches farther from the front entrance of the vagina than that of white females. From this he concluded that “this may be one of the anatomical marks of the non-unity of the races.” In comparison when looking for a description of the autopsies of black males there is no discussion of the male genitalia at all.

Literature

The fascination with the uniqueness of the sexual part woman focuses primarily on the buttocks. In a mid-century erotic caricature of the Hottentot Venus, you can see a white man staring at her through a telescope but he can not see anything besides her buttocks because it is that large. Another example of fascination with the black females sexual parts are in a british pornographic novel published in the male author wrote about all his fantasies with white women and their sexual parts but he also wrote about a time where a runaway slave was being whipped “she would have had a good figure, only that her bottom was out of all proportion. It was too big, but nevertheless it was fairly well shaped, with well-rounded cheeks meeting each other closely, her thighs wer large, and she had a sturdy pair of legs, her skin was smooth and of a clear yellow tint”

Real world examples

Discussion questions -Who do you think would be considered Hottentot’s of modern time? -Why do you think that? -Why do you think our generation of young females are now trying to enhance their bodies to look like the bodies of these “modern Hottentot’s”? -If they knew the history do you think they would still idolize these people? -Do you think its weird that in the 19 th century blacks who were using face powder to appear white were looked down upon but in today’s society it seems that whites are trying to mimic the bodies of the black females and they are not looked down upon? -Why do you think this?

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