Performativity: The Upstander Vs. Rhinelander Case

In The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto, Imani Perry argues that the over-sexualized, unattainable bodies of black women in popular culture will lead to the breakdown of feminism and the positive body image of the everyday black

Patriarchy’s Scapegoat: Black womanhood and femininity – A critique of racism, gender inequality, anti-blackness, and historical exploitation of black women.

Black women’s bodies have always been seen as different. They are deemed as exotic and highly sexual because of the protruding nature and curvaceous shape of their hips, butts, and breast. An example of this exoticism and ridicule can be traced back to the early 1800s. Sarah Baartman, also known as the “Hottentot Venus” became an object of fascination, degradation, and humiliation. Her features were not foreign to Khoisan Women. However, the Europeans who kidnapped her and the people who went to view her body as an exhibit could not believe how big her butt, breast, and hips were. Sarah did not fit into the white standardized image of the body, so her body was seen was unnatural and even un-human. One online magazine writer asserts that, “what

During slavery, the African American women have been forced to show their bodies and put on a nude show for the white man. In the unconscious mind, women in reality television shows, today, are credited for cloning the same activities because this is the “reality” of an African American woman’s

It is indisputable that the media depiction of “strong black woman, angry black woman stereotypes [that are later developed in the paradigm that] that little black girls are often taught to keep their heads up to get through anything” (Patel, 4). The similar expectation is carried on in adulthood that women can “manage everything” (Patel, 4). Comparatively, Stacy-Ann Buchanan was a struggling actor who firmly believed that she was not going to see her 30th birthday as her struggle with depression was exhausting. “I always made sure my nails were done, my hair was perfect, skin was perfect because I knew inside I was dirty” (Patel, 1). This term ‘dirty’ is very disturbing, as it is difficult to escape the feeling of a lacerated

This is frightening as television has the power to shape the narrative of individual and groups portrayed on it. African American women are not only judged by the shade of their skin, as dark skinned actresses were not considered for filmic roles but that of a “Mammy” or an “Aunt Jemima,” a practice which continued well into the 1960s but by their sexual appeal. To the white world, the black woman’s body is an excessive and flagrantly sexual desire, which is quite different from the ideal purity and modesty of the white woman’s body. These social constructs that defined the African American women unlike other groups of women, causes great fear to the African American community as a whole as the negative sexual image will continue to define the black woman

Dating all the way back to the late 1700s, women of color, have had to deal with the constant objectification and othering of their bodies. The hypersexualization of Black Women, has its roots in slavery, and has become a social stigma that is both systemic and institutionalized. It is something that is present both external from the black community as well as within the black community. Not only does this stereotype have a negative impact on the way in which black girls and women navigate and exist in society, it also restricts their voice. Typically, the sexualization of women has been focused from solely a gendered standpoint, which fails to understand the complexities associated with the inclusion of factors such as race, socio-economic status, as well as sexual orientation.

The Black Body Throughout time, minorities have always been at the bottom on the hierarchy pyramid. They continue to be degraded and seen as the filth of the world, despite their fight to break free from that image. The African American race in itself is known to have a conflicting battle with the said “superior” race in the history of America. Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents of the Life of a Slave Girl and Ida B. Wells’s Light of Truth explain the idea that the black body has no say in how they are perceived.

Black communities were confronted with the challenges between the dominant gender ideal and reality in British North America. In pursuance of a critical approach

In general, women have always been misrepresented in the media and negatively stereotyped in the American society. Black women especially have been disrespected regularly in the media. The media imagery for Black women, in particular, dark-skinned Black women, is limited and many times harmful. Because of this portrayal, Black women are not valued within society and experience a double standard that treats them as not as beautiful as white women despite white women using historically Black features as both trendy and fashionable. the media’s portrayal of Black women has been very distracting and unfair.

Examining the links between sexuality and power in a system of interlocking race, gender, and class oppression should reveal how important controlling Black women's sexuality has been to the effective operation of domination overall. The words of Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, and Alice Walker provide a promising foundation for a comprehensive Black feminist analysis.

David Banner’s statement speaks bounds of how society has progressed in attempts of ending discrimination against black bodies. It is clear society hasn’t changed at all. Since ink dried from the stroke of a pen onto notes of past historians, black bodies have always been categorized as subhuman or inferior compared to whites due to the color of their skin. Black boys who become men,

Although embracement or celebrations of this stereotypically black feature may empower these women who reverse or redirect the hegemonic gaze that had been centered on their backsides for so long, these Eurocentric derived presumptions and idealizations of female blackness, nevertheless, remain. However, attempts to redefine these social constructions, while accentuating this feature Beyoncé refers to as “bootylicious,” has transformed beauty industries and ideas of sexual desirability which “subverts social hierarchies and normalcy” (Hobson 88). These redefinitions of beauty, more specifically, black beauty, from the “grotesque, carnivalesque body,” (Hobson 88) seeks “a healthier body image than their white counterparts” who are exclusively depicted as slender and petite (Durham 36-37). Thus, black women begin to visualize their own bodies and other black women bodies in ways that lead to non-sexualized, non-deviant conclusions. Challenging these “controlling images,” as Patricia Hill Collins identifies in Hobson’s article, only “unmirrors” black femininity and its history, a term Hobson cited from black artist and theorist, Lorraine O’Grady, because in order to “name ourselves rather than be named we must first see ourselves” (89). She later adds

Throughout history, black female bodies have been marginalized by white society and viewed as only being valued for their bodies, specifically their genitals. bell hooks’ essay titled, “naked without shame: a counter-hegemonic body politic”, discusses the domination of the black female body and how there is little discussion on how the body has been “foregrounded as a site of conquest in all efforts of colonization”. According to hooks, black bodies are rarely highlighted in a way that counters the hegemonic representation of being

Whites’ study of slavery and the experience of women show a marked contrast between the restricted femininity of white women and the sexual exploitation and perception of black women. White women were expected to be controlled and preserve their modesty and virtue, but black women were exposed and blamed for the sexual advances and exploits of their white masters. White sums of this contrast best: