Answer to Question #193186 in History for kivedo

Question

Briefly discuss why Sarah Baartman was symbolic of gender and racial discrimination against African women in the 19th century.

Answer 1

 Sarah Baartman

Sarah Baartman was a South African who belonged to the KhoiKhoi in South Africa.  Sarah after becoming an orphan at age 10, she moved to Cape Town to work worth a black man who later went to Europe with her where she spent the rest of her life. In Europe, Baartman suffered gender and racial discrimination by the Europeans who considered black people as lesser human beings. The European discriminated Sarah by inhumanly disclosing her body parts and mocking her. She was mainly discriminated due to her slender waist line and wide sex organs, hence they nicknamed her Hottentot Venus. Eve after her death, her body was preserved and exhibited at France Museum and was used as a sensation and exotic attraction. Her body was eve dissected after her death by a pathologist who revealed that she had ape-like body features, hence making her suffer even scientific racisms, in addition to the gender and racial discrimination that she also experienced. All these humiliations and discrimination of Sarah Baartman by the Europeans is indicative of gender and racial discrimination against African Women.