When looking at images of African American Barbie dolls it seems as if there can be major improvements to their appearances. All three images that I pulled are African American Barbie dolls dressed in animal print, adding to the over sexualized stereotype. As I mentioned in my pervious post, African American women are often displayed as “wild things” as if they are some kind of rare species, they are seen as exotic creatures. These Barbie dolls do nothing to go against this common used image. If these images of African American women being perceived as wild sexualized animals onto Barbie dolls then what are young children who are playing with these dolls learning? There are learning that there is nothing wrong with these images, they are learning that that is exactly what African American women are, rare sexually driven creatures. These dolls promote the stereotypes that have been promoted for hundreds of years, since slavery was abolished. We allow people too keep reproducing these kinds of images so that the white dominate society can have that superiority over African Americans that they have had throughout history. We are only teaching our children to cooperate with these images and go along with them by not putting a end to them. The negative, over sexualized images of African American women will not end until we put an end to it and get rid of these images once and for all. We need to stand up and be the modern society that we are supposed to be. We have to get rid of these negative stereotypes and focus on the more positive images that African American women should be known for. If we do not do anything about putting a end to this social issue it will only continue, and these negative images of African American women will continue to hurt their images as individuals. We need to stop grouping them together and end this racist view of these women. It’s time to put a end once and for all to un true “facts” about African American Women and promote individuals and who they truly are.
I came across a great article on the Huffington Post website by Rhonesha Byng called “The Images Of Black Women In Media Still 'Only Scratch The Surface,' Essence Study Finds” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/the-images-of-black-women-in-media_n_4102322.html). The article focuses on how there has been improvement of African American images in the media, but there is still a lot (a lot) of room to expand and grow. The article focuses on a study that “surveyed 1,200 women about the images of black women in media and found that respondents felt the images were "overwhelmingly negative," falling typically into categories including: “Gold Diggers, Modern Jezebels, Baby Mamas, Uneducated Sisters, Ratchet Women, Angry Black Women, Mean Black Girls, Unhealthy Black Women, and Black Barbies” (Byng, 2013). The article describes that African American women ages 18-29 reported seeing more negative images, “89 percent of respondents saying they regularly see baby mamas in media and 87 percent reported seeing gold digger images, while just 41 percent reported seeing images of "real beauties" (Byng, 2013). Like the article mentions, although there have been groundbreaking characters that have broken out into the scene in the past couple years, such as Kerry Washington’s Olivia Pope, on the hit TV show Scandal there are still a majority of people who see African American women in the media in a negative light. Even Washington’s role is contradicting, her character Olivia Pope is in a male dominated relationship, with the president, who is white. She has such a powerful, feminist character, yet Pope will drop anything for the President if he asks her too. You can see that white authority that has been there for all of history in this show that is supposed to be about African American female empowerment. The idea that 89% of African American women see “baby mamas” in the media is staggering. This adds to the social issue of the over sexualization of African American women. It once again shows that there are more young mothers who are African American because they are stereotyped as “sexually available”. The article goes on to say that these articles have a major affect on women heavily. These images allow women to think that maybe these stereotypes of African American women are true when clearly they are not. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/the-images-of-black-women-in-media_n_4102322.html I wanted to start off with this picture for one reason and one reason only: it absolutely summarizes the points that I have talked about in my previous posts. When I Goggled “50 cent videos” I was looking for the typical African American woman in a rappers music video, dancing all over them in barely any clothes. I could not have found a more perfect picture. This is obviously a still from one of his music videos, I have no idea which one, nor do I want to know. As you can see the picture that I focused on has a big “booty” as the main display, with 50 cent smiling. Not only is the picture focused on large African American women’s buttocks, but the woman is also covered in paint from head to toe. And what is that paint displaying? A large jungle cat. I lied, I became curious and YouTube the explicit video. Not only is the song super offensive, with 50 cent dropping the N-word every couple of seconds but also it is totally over sexualizing African American women. The video not only features a African American woman with a large booty, covered in animal print paint, but she is also dancing all over 50 cent, smacking her “booty” right in his face. It is disgusting to see this kind of behavior amongst women. They are not only exploiting their own bodies but they are adding to the social issue that African American women are over sexualized. This is a common thing to see in rap artists’ music videos. They hire women to throw themselves all over the rappers, most of the time while barely clothed. This is only adding to the social issue. By African American women contributing to this kind of work they are objectifying themselves. They are saying that their bodies are objects that can be slapped, poked and played with at anytime, adding to the stereotype that African American women are much more sexually available. It is truly saddening to see these young women with such high potential, throwing themselves at men and using their bodies to get what they want.
The “booty” is a major trend right now in the western world. It is something that people are OBSESSED over. We see the “booty” displayed throughout mainstream media as something that is praised if you have a nice “booty”. If you ask someone what comes to their mind when you say booty, they might come up with examples like Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, J-lo, Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj, and how it has become a fashion staple. Many people may believe that the booty has only emerged as a fashion statement in the past couple of years, but are they ever wrong. There has always been a fascination with the booty, it has just reemerged in the last couple of years. Not only that but it has a terrifying background and explanation for it. People have always been fascinated with African American women’s body parts. The history goes all the way back to Saartjie Baartman, whom I mentioned in my earlier posts. People were fascinated with Baartman and her “abnormal” body parts just as they are obsessed with Kim K’s butt, the only difference is one had a choice, and the other one did not. Baartman was put on display, poked, laughed and stared at against her own will. Her large body parts that were sexual fascinated people and therefore since they are large they are over sexualized. Kim K, along with these other “booty” celebrities have made a choice to make their bodies over sexualized, which is very disturbing. Instead of fighting against the over sexualization of African American women they are just contributing to it by striving for these body types. They want to be known for having big butts because it’s a cultural thing, people are obsessed with it. What is the first line of Sir Mix A Lot’s “Baby Got Back”? That whole song is about a man wanting a women with a large “booty” because if someone has a large butt, then they are therefore sexually available. It is disgusting to see how we as a culture are obsessed with a women’s, more specifically a African American women’s, body. It’s something that we need to stop obsessing over in order to end the over sexualization of African American women. We need to focus on them individually, their personalities and who they are as a person instead of what their body is shaped like or else we will continue to repeat history. Now that I have established a brief history of my previous blog posts on the history of the over sexualization of African American Women, I will focus on something else. The media plays a major role in the over sexualization of African American women. Whether it advertisements promoting that African American women are sexually available or celebrates doing it themselves, the media is a advocate for over sexualizing African American women. In this post I am specifically focusing on how print advertisements add to the social issue of the over sexualization of African American women. Advertisements that feature African American women display them as over sexualized and always sexually available. These advertisements do not help the social issue, it only adds to the problem. When these advertisements are printed they promote the idea that African American women are sexually available at anytime for anyone. These advertisements group African American women together and give them a stereotype. In many of these print advertisements, like the three I have included down below, display an African American woman in a jungle-like situation. I did not have to do a specific search, all I did was Google African American women’s advertisements and these came up. When African American women are featured in these fashions ads we often see this. We see women being portrayed as animals, who are open to anything sexually, because as the ads display their animal like. The first advertisement, the model is running side by side with a cheetah, in what looks like a remote location, barely wearing at all, but what she is wearing is animal print. Also a caption says “Wild Things”. The second advertisement features a African American women naked in a cage, hissing into the camera, as if she cannot be tamed. The third advertisement features an African American, once again naked, who is covered in body paint and made to resemble a jungle cat. All three of these advertisements are adding to the social issue of over sexualizing African American women. They are promoting the idea that African American women are wild sexually, and that they cannot be controlled. They are exotic beings that are very much differentiated from our selves. We look at theses ads as if they are another species, we do not see ourselves in them. They are exploiting and over sexualizing African American women. The main purpose of this blog is to deconstruct the social issue of the over sexualization of African American women. One of the main reasons why African American women are over sexualized is because they are seen as always sexually available. To understand why they are seen as sexually available we have to get to the root of the problem, where this stereotype and notion came from. One of the many roots of the problems occurred from the post-Civil War era in the United States, also known as the reconstruction era. During this time, slavery had been abolished in the United States, and former slaves were freed and integrated into society. The reconstruction era was an attempt to integrate these now freed people into to the white dominant society. Due to the attempt to do this there were many uprising and riots against African Americans and entering society. Hannah Rosen specifically talks about the Memphis Riot of 1866 in her writing “Not That Sort of Women” (New York, 1999). Rosen explains how white males, would target African American women who’s men in their lives served in the Civil War, whether it be their husbands, brothers, fathers or sons. If these women were connected to African American soldiers in any way, they were targeted (New York, 1999). Rosen describes that white men, mostly men of the law, would target African American women and would rape and beat them (New York, 1999). Since slaves were now freed white men needed someway to stabilize their power over African Americans. The way they did this was through raping African American women; this disgustingly gave them a sense over power over them and reestablished the “slave-master” role in some ways. Rosen explains how these women in Memphis were terrified. The reestablished men would threaten them if they told anyone or opened their mouths about the rapes (New York, 1999). These African American women would not tell anyone or speak out against the men who raped them. They knew if they did that their families and possessions would be in jeopardy, therefore most of them stayed quite and continued to be abused. By not going to authorities, or using their voice as weapons due to fear these women did not stop the abuse. Unfortunately this lead to stereotypes that continue to forgo today. We cannot blame these women, who were they about to turn to the law who was abusing them? They did not speak out which allowed people to think that they were/are sexually available. This is a stereotype that continues today, and we can pinpoint exactly where it came from.
Slavery is a major root as to why the over sexualization of African American women is a social issue today. Although the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in the US in 1863, white people continue to assert their power over African Americans everyday. One of the ways they do this is by over sexualizing African American women. One of the main figures in African American history is Saartjie Baartman. You can see a photo of her in the first blog post that I posted. Baartman was brought to Europe from South Africa in the 19th century. There she was put on display for thousands to observe. Many thought of her as a rare species because she did not look like the typical white European women. Her full lips and exaggerated hips, buttocks and breasts astonished people. Baartman would travel all across Europe in a “freak show” to showcase her abnormal body. She was exposed to everyone, wearing nothing but a cloth when being shown. People would poke her, touch her and do as they pleased just because her body was different then theirs. Baartman definitely influenced the stereotype of African American women’s bodies today. Just because her breasts, buttocks and lips were larger than the average white women’s they were seen as more sexual. Baartman is a perfect example of how white people suppressed African American’s and asserted their power over them. Just because Baartman did not look “normal” in their eyes they suppressed her and made a fool out of her. They most definitely over sexualized her by putting her naked body on display for thousands to see. Her body set the state for more oppression to come for African American women in the years to come. There is a great YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDcSXQ8QjsA) where I got my information. It tells the story of Saartjie Baartman, what her life was like and how the oppression and over sexualization of her has continued years after her death. The video talks about how African American women continue to exploit themselves in the media for money and materialistic things. This is something that I will be discussing more throughout my blog. As a history major, it is nerve racking to see a certain issue that is taught in a history course, come up in an other class that deals with modern issues. The social issue I chose to focus on for this assignment is the over sexualization of African American women. This social issue is not something that is being studied in history, but as well as in classes that deal with modern issues. When I saw the commentary for this assignment this issue stuck out in my mind right away, I knew I had to focus on it. It is something that has been coming up in discussion in not one, but three of my classes this semester. We have talked about this social issue in American history, the history of North American women and in women’s and gender studies. To be in these classes and see the different perspectives has allowed me to see that this is a major issue in our modern world. Not only was the over sexualization of African American women been a issue in the past, but it continues to be a issue in our 2015 world. The social issue has come up a number of times and there seems to be reoccurring themes. In this blog I am going to address these issues. I am going to attempt to break down the facts as to why the over sexualization of African American women has been occurring non-stop over the years. I will break down certain instances and events that have sparked the over sexualization of African American women and how there have been similar issues in modern society. I will also be looking into the over sexualization of African American women as a social issue in modern day. I will look how history has influenced the modern issue and how it has either evolved or declined. I will also be looking into our modern mainstream media. Mainstream media plays a MAJOR role in keeping this issue afloat. I will pull examples from television, advertisements and celebrities to give evidence as to why the over sexualization is still a social issue today. |