Pretty, but...
In the twenty-first century, Sara Baartman's influence can still be felt. In the beauty magazine industry, black women and women of minority status are constantly sexually objectified through their seductive poses, attire, and accentuated body parts. They are usually framed as hypersexual, primal, animalistic, and exotic. The first picture is of Beyonce. Here, she is scantily clad with her breasts sticking out. It is a provocative pose and highly suggestive. She is not looking at the camera, however, portraying an internal powerlessness regardless of her strong external stance. The second picture is of Jennifer Lopez. Here, the main emphasis is on her rear end. Again, her pose suggests a lack of power and vulnerability. In the third picture, Lucy Liu poses for Esquire magazine. She is in a very seductive pose with her legs spread. Her outfit, too, is provocative. While she is looking at the camera, her gaze says "come and get me". Her rounded back makes her look even smaller than she already is. This smallness makes her look weak. This weakness, coupled with her gaze and attire, gives way to her sexual objectification.
Compare the sexual objectification of ethnic women to white women. White women, while still sexually objectified, are done so in a much different way. They are usually wearing white or light-colored clothing. White women are usually photographed as innocent and playful, not fierce and primal. The photographs of these white women remind readers of the "girl next door" look. An objective of these photographs is to make the women look as small as possible, suggesting their lack of power. White women are usually portrayed in magazines as vulnerable and seeking the attention of the dominant male.
A commonality between both the ethnic and white cover girls is that they are both subjects of the male gaze even in magazines made specifically for women. According to Beauty Redefined, "this emphasis on how others – particularly men – perceive women’s bodies is extremely prevalent throughout women’s magazines, and strongly contributes to “body surveillance,” or the tendency to constantly monitor one’s appearance. [...] This aligns with Laura Mulvey’s (1975) concept of the “male gaze,” which serves to marginalize and oppress women while “reflecting and satisfying the male unconscious.”
The question is why? Why do women continue to degrade themselves for the pleasure of others? White women do it as often as ethnic women, but as this website is about Sara Baartman and her influence, I will focus on ethnic women and the social scriptorium. According to Appiah, "in constructing an identity, one draws, among other things, on the kinds of person available in one’s society. [...T]here are ideas around (contested, many of them, but all sides in these contests shape our options) about how gay, straight, black, white, male, or female people ought to conduct themselves. These notions provide loose norms or models, which play a role in shaping our plans of life. Collective identities, in short, provide what we might call scripts: narratives that people can use in shaping their projects and in telling their life stories" (21-22). In the 19th century, a woman was made "famous" for her large butt and supposed primal and hypersexual tendencies. Ever since, ethnic women have followed this script, but unlike Sara Baartman, most do so willingly. Sara Baartman did not have a choice, but women of today do. It is extremely difficult, however, to break out of this script, especially living in a predominately white and patriarchal society.