This is one of those moments where I profoundly loathe Rupert Murdoch and his Aussie tabloids. They are constantly trying to find fault in blacks and people of color and sexuality. I wonder how much they paid the turncoat who provided them proof of Semenya’s gender: that she is a hermaphrodite, meaning that she is physically female, but possesses male testes in her body. Somebody really needed to win a bet.

From HuffPo:

South African Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile expressed horror at the handling of the affair and insisted Caster is female.

“We think her human rights have been violated and her privacy invaded,” Stofile said, adding that Semenya should be given legal advice and counseling.

Semenya dropped out of sight Friday. The South African Press Association quoted her coach, Michael Seme, as saying she would not take part in a 4,000-meter race at the South African Cross Country Championships in Pretoria on Saturday because she was “not feeling well.” Seme had said earlier in the week that she would run.

In one of my first articles for this blog, I outlined the story of an outfront lesbian and gay activist, Eudy Simelane, who had been raped and done to death in South Africa, simply for being lesbian, with a “butch” appearance, and thus was unavailable to men. Simelane’s rape was what many call, “corrective rape” to “cure” her of lesbianism and to punish her for her refusal to submit to feminine norms.

Unfortunately, the president of South Africa himself, the Zulu Jacob Zuma, was acquitted of rape charges before his election in a highly controversial case in which he claimed thereafter that his clan culture proscribed him to rape. Now this.

At the same time that South Africans compare Caster Semenya’s treatment in the media to the Hottentot Venus, Saartjie Baartman, the men who raped and murdered Simelane have finally been brought to trial this week. In death, will Simelane finally obtain justice? Black women in South Africa who do not conform to feminine norms face shunning, physical injury, rape and death. This situation is not going to change overnight.

South Africa is progressive on paper only. The reality is far more onerous than people imagine. Women have the vote and have access to employment and education, but politically and domestically, they are still second-class citizens, especially within the African National Congress (ANC). The same can be said for gays; there is gay marriage in South Africa, but black gays are harassed to the point of death.

Many have pointed out that Caster’s father has been the most supportive of his daughter and that he has never tried to push her into a traditional gender role.

Dean Peacock, co-director of the Sonke Gender Justice Project, says: “Her parents have been very supportive. It doesn’t conform to the particular stereotype of rural families in Limpopo. I think Caster Semenya’s father is the unsung hero of this story. He belongs to a traditional church in a small village but leapt to her defence and has never tried to force her into a particular gender role.”

How far is Caster’s family and her countrypeople truly willing to go in response to the leaked test results and to the IAAF’s official determination which won’t come until November? And how will people’s minds be changed by the existence of people like Caster in their midst? They cannot just excuse her and not everyone else, like Eudy Simelane. Caster was already the target of whispers and gossip throughout her young life in a rural community of Limpopo Province. She was a girl who played football with boys, wore pants and refused to have boyfriends.

The Guardian was reporting that several groups were coming to the support of Caster Semenya and her family, as well as Winnie Mandela:

A group from Semenya’s home province, Limpopo, urged all participants in the controversy to consider the teenager’s feelings. The Limpopo Progressive Women’s Movement said: “We want to urge all role players in this sad saga to be more sensitive in how they handle it going forward. Stop the leaks, stop the double standards and stop hurting Caster and her family … How can we victimise a national hero like this?”

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the ex-wife of former president Nelson Mandela, joined the condemnation. “The poor innocent child is a victim of all this, and it is not of her making,” she told South Africa’s Star newspaper. “I do not understand how any sane person can blame this child for a biological problem which is not of her making.”

It’s not a ‘problem,’ Winnie. It’s how Caster was made. Nature didn’t make a mistake.

I can only guess what Caster Semenya is feeling at this moment. I’ve long forgotten how it is to be eighteen. I hope that the people around her will watch over her that she doesn’t harm herself. At the same time, I would hope that her countrypeople would allow themselves a window of understanding about what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people feel every day of their lives in a country that does not yet accept gender difference. This ain’t over yet.

Historians Clifton Crais and Pamela Scully’s new book, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography, is out.

From the publisher:

Displayed on European stages from 1810 to 1815 as the Hottentot Venus, Sara Baartman was one of the most famous women of her day, and also one of the least known. As the Hottentot Venus, she was seen by Westerners as alluring and primitive, a reflection of their fears and suppressed desires. But who was Sara Baartman? Who was the woman who became the Hottentot Venus? Based on research and interviews that span three continents, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus tells the entwined histories of an illusive life and a famous icon. In doing so, the book raises questions about the possibilities and limits of biography for understanding those who live between and among different cultures.

In reconstructing Baartman’s life, the book traverses the South African frontier and its genocidal violence, cosmopolitan Cape Town, the ending of the slave trade, the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, London and Parisian high society, and the rise of racial science. The authors discuss the ramifications of discovering that when Baartman went to London, she was older than originally assumed, and they explore the enduring impact of the Hottentot Venus on ideas about women, race, and sexuality. The book concludes with the politics involved in returning Baartman’s remains to her home country, and connects Baartman’s story to her descendants in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Africa.

Praise from novelist Zoë Wicomb:

Finally, an authoritative account of the mythologized life of Sara Baartman. The meticulously researched subject comes to life in the hands of historians Crais and Scully, who skillfully negotiate the pitfalls of writing historical biography. The authors make a delicate distinction between the woman, Sara Baartman, and the iconic Hottentot Venus, in this elegantly written, passionate, compassionate, and carefully contextualized study, in which their findings are nevertheless unflinchingly presented. Magnificent–an outstanding contribution to South African culture, past and present.”

Source

By Talia Whyte

The Bay State Banner

From the “Hottentot Venus” of the 19th century to the video vixens so prevalent in hip-hop music videos today, pop culture renderings of the black female form have been debated — and often decried — for years, by social critics and ordinary people alike.

A new exhibit that opened yesterday at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center aims to add to the discussion, offering in-depth analysis through art, photography, film and performances on the way perceptions of black women have evolved over the last 500 years.

Read the full article here.

African Queen

African Queen: the Real Life of the Hottentot Venus

Saartjie Baartman (Baartmen? - PW and Booklist each spell the name differently, and I don’t have the book in front of me to correctly spell it, so use the spelling I remember) was, for many years, exhibited as a ‘freak’ to Regency society in England. A young woman from the continent known as ‘darkest Africa’, (I can’t find the phrase origin for ‘darkest Africa’ – does anyone know where it came from, or when?) Saartjie was misused, ridiculed, coldly handled as a commodity, but the author does an extremely good job of reconstructing Saartjie’s dignity as a woman who did the best she could in dreadful conditions.

She certainly comes off much better than her ‘handlers’, and I can’t help comparing her status to that of the teen stars of today (think Britney Spears) who are used by adults to fill their own coffers, with little real care for how the life they lead impacts their development as a human being of worth, sensibility and emotion. Saartjie, of course, suffered much worse abuse in every manner imaginable. But as with many of those teen stars, in the end Saartjie became an alcoholic who longed for home.

Saartje Baartman’s story is terribly sad, but in this book she is given some measure of tragically belated recompense for a life too short, too hard and deeply lonely.

As a research book, this is fascinating reading, giving insight into the hideous dichotomy of Regency England, a world in which feminine modesty was supposedly valued, and yet this poor woman was exhibited in a bodysuit intended to present her as naked, and thousands of “lower class’ English women were abused as maids of all work and prostitutes, subject to the cruel whims of their masters… and mistresses.

But even disregarding its research use, this non-fiction work is a fascinating read, and deeply compelling.

Today we made our way to the Commission on Gender Equality. The commission is an organization that works with the government of South Africa and mainly the constitution to make sure all laws are fair and equal for both men and women. They also spend a lot of time educating the general public on gender issues affecting the general public of South Africa. While there, we talked about a number of things and we spent much of our time discussing young girls and their access to education. 

According to the lady we spoke with, many girls in South Africa are not performing as well as boys in school. This is due to many parents not being able to afford consistent education for their children and since boys are often sent to school before girls are, some girls can go to school one year and not the next. Also, young women and girls are usually the first to miss school when their younger brothers/sisters or parents are ill. These girls are expected to care for the sick and make sure the home is kept neat and clean instead of going to school. Then there are those parents who don’t want to send their girls to school because they worry about the safety of their daughters as they walk such long distances to get to school.

Once young ladies make it to school they are not always treated fairly; teachers are not always sensitive to their needs and don’t give girls in the classroom the same amount of attention as boys (sounds familiar?). Even the text books used in class fail to be progressive and continue to place women in domestic roles.

So, what is the Commission on Gender Equality doing to help these girls now that they have identified many of the problems? They are working on setting up training programs to help teachers be more aware of gender issues and various gender inequalities in the classroom. They also want to help keep single-sexed schools stay open since most of them are in jeopardy of closing; women often do better in single sexed schools (but this doesn’t help boys since they often do better in co-ed schools). Lastly, they also shared their desire to help teachers and schools accommodate to the learning styles of women and girls, which I wasn’t really clear as to what they meant by that and I don’t remember why I did not ask.

Most of these sound like wonderful ideas. To me, some of them are a little vague but how detailed can you get in a short briefing? I just hope these ideas really materialize into programs that really will help young girls and women.

Some other gender issues discussed include:

• The few number of women in positions of corporate power  
• Domestic Violence (women not being able to get out of abusive relationships and some women going as far as murdering their spouses and their children then become orphaned)
• Gender and AIDS/HIV
• Gender, Culture and Religion (This deals with issues of witchcraft, and cultural expectations of women to be quiet and submissive. The commission is working with traditional leaders to educate the community.) 
• Widowhood (Which is a fascinating topic dealing with how women are treated by the families of the deceased and how widows are accused of witch craft and lose their children and property)

As I reflect on my time there and having read about Saartjee Baartman (African/Hottentots Venus), I realized it was the Commission on Gender who was behind the move to return her remains to South Africa. Read more about her story at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saartjie_Baartman, and then do your own research. Be careful though, you may see some things you were not expecting.

We had a wonderful yet brief time there and soon we were back on the bus headed for Lesotho.

Here are two books I picked up from the Commission. The one on widowhood was quite fascinating to me.

Will continue tonight with the drive to Lesotho.

-Monique