Gender, Race, and Nation

"The history of classification must be read in this fashion; the attention paid by scientists to human [sic] anatomy cannot be painted on a separate canvas as if it were aberrant or odd and happening within the otherwise pure and noble history of biology"
Anne Fausto-Sterling, Deviant Bodies: Gender, Race, and Nation p 24




Photo Source: BBC

Bartmann, of "Hottentot" notoriety is indicative of the display and study that we subject people to in the name of "science". Attempts to define what is real is still a much contested issue.

Chiefly, the construction of the "real" creates a concept of what the body of a humyn is supposed to look like, genetically and in terms of social standards. The explorers of the 16th century are really quite like the explorers of today. Now, instead of traveling around the world, scientists trace DNA, our genes, our behaviors, all in an attempt to understand what it is that makes people different from one another. More importantly, it is an attempt to see how the other is different from ourselves. After all, you can't have black without white.