Selling Saartjie Baartman
I live in a brand new residence and earlier this year we were asked to come up with names for it. A friend of mine suggested the res be named Saartjie Baartman. The response was overwhelming; some cringed in embarrasment, some plain and flat out refused, other said the name did not sound 'nice.' This is what I said:
I have never known and hopefully will not ever know what it is or how it feels to be enslaved. I have never known what it means to be so naive, so desparate, and so ignorant so as to allow myself to be used in the manner that was done to Saartjie.
I also have never known the humiliation that she had to go through, the toture of knowing that there is now way of escaping your reality.
What I have experienced though is that feeling of being trapped in your body. How many of us walk these streets with the thaught of rape or assault lurking somewhere in the back of our minds? Is this not the essence of what Saartjie's story is? The fact that, for generations, we as women, have been made to fear who we are. To apologise for our sexuality and shy away from expressing it.
From the corsets and the chastity belts women were made to wear in Europe; being forced to lock away important symbols of their sexual selves, to pretend their sexuality was never important to them Foot binding in China and female genital circumcision/ mutilation on the African continent, women have been distorted and deformed. Moulded and shaped to become what sociey deemed fitting sexually. When does it stop?
The continued existence of sexually degrading words like the "B-word" or the "C-word" and the increasing acceptance of their use in describing women is testimony to the fact that where ever ew go, whatever our race or body sahpe, men continue to see us in the same way that those men, all those years ago, saw Sara: as nothing more than objects.
It amazes me everyday how passively we receive these labels. We have become the hoes and the bitches described in the music we listen to. What does that mean really? Saartjie died a lonely alcoholic, buttered and bruised, her spirit broken. Tormented by the labels given to her. She had no way out.
How dare we, with all our education and technology, accept the very same status they made her hold. How dare we step on the throne and allow ourselves to be pimped as common and easy? I s this the legacy we will leave for our daughters?
Naming our residence after Saartjie, although it may be embarrassing for some, will mean that we are a residence made up of 73 women who refuse to be enslave, who refuse to be seen as mere sexual objects.
When we name our residence after Saartjie Baartman, we will not only be celebrating her spirit and and aknowledging her struggle. We will be telling and affirming our own.
I have never known and hopefully will not ever know what it is or how it feels to be enslaved. I have never known what it means to be so naive, so desparate, and so ignorant so as to allow myself to be used in the manner that was done to Saartjie.
I also have never known the humiliation that she had to go through, the toture of knowing that there is now way of escaping your reality.
What I have experienced though is that feeling of being trapped in your body. How many of us walk these streets with the thaught of rape or assault lurking somewhere in the back of our minds? Is this not the essence of what Saartjie's story is? The fact that, for generations, we as women, have been made to fear who we are. To apologise for our sexuality and shy away from expressing it.
From the corsets and the chastity belts women were made to wear in Europe; being forced to lock away important symbols of their sexual selves, to pretend their sexuality was never important to them Foot binding in China and female genital circumcision/ mutilation on the African continent, women have been distorted and deformed. Moulded and shaped to become what sociey deemed fitting sexually. When does it stop?
The continued existence of sexually degrading words like the "B-word" or the "C-word" and the increasing acceptance of their use in describing women is testimony to the fact that where ever ew go, whatever our race or body sahpe, men continue to see us in the same way that those men, all those years ago, saw Sara: as nothing more than objects.
It amazes me everyday how passively we receive these labels. We have become the hoes and the bitches described in the music we listen to. What does that mean really? Saartjie died a lonely alcoholic, buttered and bruised, her spirit broken. Tormented by the labels given to her. She had no way out.
How dare we, with all our education and technology, accept the very same status they made her hold. How dare we step on the throne and allow ourselves to be pimped as common and easy? I s this the legacy we will leave for our daughters?
Naming our residence after Saartjie, although it may be embarrassing for some, will mean that we are a residence made up of 73 women who refuse to be enslave, who refuse to be seen as mere sexual objects.
When we name our residence after Saartjie Baartman, we will not only be celebrating her spirit and and aknowledging her struggle. We will be telling and affirming our own.
