“Tip Drill” Project



The Black Female Body: History and Today’s Media

European explorers constructed degrading stereotypes of African women when they traveled to Africa in the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. These explorers noticed and commented on African women’s bodies, which seemed different from European women’s bodies. Based upon these observations, European travelers represented African women as strange, animalistic, and hypersexual. In her article, “Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder,” historian Jennifer Morgan compiles journal entries from these European explorers, and argues that the writers “represented African women’s bodies and sexual behavior so as to distinguish Africa from Europe” (48). These sexualized images were popularized by the public display of South African women known as “Hottentot Venuses’” who were viewed by many Europeans as animals and “freaks” because of their so-called large breasts and oversized behinds. Though Europeans victimized many African women through public display and humiliation, the story of Sara Baartman has become a well-recognized representation of the entire group’s struggles. Images of black women that originated and developed as early as the sixteenth century are still prevalent in our society today. The negative generalizations that were made about African women by European explorers and later, by Euro-American slaveholders, have had significant effects on the ways in which black women are viewed physically as well as sexually.

Sara Baartman was a young Khoi woman who was born in Eastern Cape, South Africa. After the destruction of her home and village by Dutch colonists, she moved to Cape Town and worked as a domestic servant. In Cape Town, Sara Baartman was enticed or coerced to travel to Europe with her employer’s brother. However, Baartman had no way of knowing beforehand that she would be “paraded naked before jeering mobs” in England and in France (Swarns 1). Because of her voluptuous figure, people saw her as inhuman and thus treated her like an animal. She was “exhibited in a metal cage and sold to an animal trainer” like an animal in a zoo (Swarns 1). Baartman entered Europe at a time when anything “different” fascinated people. Sara was what Europeans called different because she had large breasts, hips, buttocks, and what is said to have been unusual genitalia. Not only did the spectators treat her inhumanely because of her appearance, but it is said that her “manager” also treated her like an animal when she would not perform. Those that saw her “show” laughed at her body. Reporters and artists portrayed her comically and caricatured her physical features. Even upon her death she was not given rest. Once she died, scientists immediately requested to dissect her body, more specifically, her genitalia. A cast was made of her body after her death, and then she was dissected. It is clear that in both life and death, Sara Baartman was exposed and humiliated. It was not until 2002 that her body was returned to South Africa, and she received a proper burial. Because of her voluptuous figure that seemed so different from the traditional white Victorian woman’s body, Sara Baartman was continuously objectified and exhibited around Europe as if she were a circus animal.

The experience of Sara Baartman is barely an isolated incident. The African American woman’s body has been of interest for hundreds of years and in fact, “many stereotypes about black women… are rooted in slavery and sexual servitude,” according to journalist Erin Aubry (24). This “interest” was generated by the first contact between Europeans and African men and women. At initial contact with Blacks in Africa, Englishmen were “unaccustomed to the requirements of a tropical climate” and “mistook semi nudity for lewdness” (White 29). Habits of dress related to climate and culture were immediately perceived as evidence of primitiveness. European male observers viewed African women as having unusually long beast-like breasts and of being over-sexed. Overall, by characterizing black women as “infantile, irresponsible, submissive and promiscuous” white Europeans were able to dehumanize them, enslave them and abuse them in sexual and reproductive ways (White 27). Sara Baartman’s story is an example of the effect that these generalizations had both on African women themselves and on non-black people.

While slavery ended almost 150 years ago, stereotypes associating black women with hyper-sexuality did not disappear with it. Today, many of these stereotypes still exist in our society. Writers such as Erin Aubry express that black people are taking familiar stereotypes (such as hyper-sexuality and “abnormal” body-type) and making them worse by publicly displaying black women in highly sexualized advertisements and music videos. Much like Sara Baartman, the public images of these women are mainly focused around their breasts and their behinds. In disturbing music videos such as Nelly’s “Tip Drill,” black women aren’t recognized for their dance talent; rather, they are seen as disembodied behinds as they shake and flaunt their bodies in front of the camera, never showing their faces. Like Baartman, these women are promised compensation for the public display of their bodies. Although the women today have more control over their own sexuality, these types of images of black women continue to flood the media. Song lyrics such as the ones in Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” seemingly admire black women but still concentrate a great deal on the expectation of an attractive black woman; one who has a skinny waist and a large behind and is willing to “put out” sexually in exchange for money or access to wealth. These images in the media continue to define the public image of black females in our society.

Although images in the media continue to exploit black women’s bodies, perhaps the problem isn’t the hip-hop industry alone; rather, the root of the problem exists in our society as a whole. It is important to realize that the issue of female sexual degradation has not surfaced in recent years due solely to hip-hop and rap artists. This problem has existed in our media and society for several years. Liza Weistuch, a writer from the Christian Science Monitor argues, “Of course, hip-hop is hardly the first, or only form of contemporary music to portray women in an unflattering light. In the 1970s, and even more so in the 1980s, it was the spandex-clad, heavy metal crowd whose lyrics, videos, and album covers portrayed women as sexual objects” (2). The issue of female objectification in hip-hop culture is one that needs to be acknowledged and resolved. However, simply cleaning up the hip-hop industry will not solve the issue as a whole. The exploitation of women will surely resurface in other media and music forms in future years because the images in these videos are only exaggerated reflections of those seen in our broader society. A writer from the 2004 Hip Hop Convention, Mark Neal claims, “In many ways the images and lyrics used to objectify women of color in hip-hop videos serve as metaphors for the ways that American society actually treats these women” (1). Marcyliena Morgan, a professor at Barnard explains further, “Hip-hop is a cultural coming-of-age product of the world. It is a set of fractured mirrors. It mirrors the rite of passage, as it mirrors the rite of passage, it reveals to us both the good and the bad, the difficulties, the progress, the movement backwards and forwards – and the lies” (3). Hip-hop exposes all aspects of today’s world, even those that we may not wish to see or want to know about. The only way to fix this problem and clean up the music industry is to start at the root, our society as a whole.

Bibliography

“African-American Women Must Define Their Beauty,” The Philadelphia Tribune vol.

115, (February 1999)

Aubry, Erin J. “The Butt: Its Politic, Its Profanity, Its Power.” Adios, Barbie: Young

Women Write About Body Image and Identity. Ed. Ophira Edut. Seal Press, 1998. 22 – 31.

Badejo, Diedre, “African Feminism: Mythical and Social Power of Women of African

Descent,” Research in African Literatures vol. 29, (Summer 1998): 94-112

Bell Hooks, “Selling Hot Pussy” in Black Looks: Race and Representation. London: Turnaround 1992.

Bryant, Rebecca, “Shaking Things Up: Popularizing the Shimmy in America,” American

Music vol. 20, (Summer 2002): 168-187

Leola. D. Johnson, et al, “Differential Gender Effect of Exposure to Rap Music o African

American Adolescents’ Acceptance of Teen dating Violence,” Sex Roles vol. 33, nos 7/8 (1995): 597-605

Morgan, Jennifer L. “Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder.” Skin Deep, Spirit

Strong: The Black Female Body in American Culture. Ed. Kimberly Wallace-Sanders. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. 37 – 65.

Morgan, Marcyliena. “Hard Women, Soft Politics and Radical Chic in Hip-Hop.” The

Scholar & Feminist Online. 2003. 6 Feb 2005

Neal, Mark Anthony. “Hip Hop’s Gender Problem.” Hip Hop Convention 2004. 27

May 2004. 14 March 2005

Swarns, Rachel, “Mocked in Europe of Old, African Is Embraced at Home at Last,” New York Times (May 4, 2002): 1-3

Weisstuch, Liza. “Sexism in rap sparks black magazine to say, ‘Enough!’” The

Christian Science Monitor. 2004. 6 Feb 2005

Woods, Regina, “The Black Female Body: A Photographic History,” Black Issues Books

Review vol. 4, (Mar/April 2002): 20-2

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download