The History of Black Women: Biologists' Accounts of Race and Gender

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Dr. Fausto-Sterling is examining the intersection between the ideologies of social difference and the development of biological knowledge. As a part of a larger study, she argues that much of contemporary biological knowledge and theory is covertly marked by cultural values, both past and present, concerning gender and race. She is examining the mutual interactions between social and intellectual forces and the development of scientific thought. Each part of this study probes the social nature of biological ideation with the examination and explication of the dissection literature drawn from the 19th century being a cornerstone piece for this undertaking. Starting with Georges Cuvier's detailed examination of the body of Sarah Bartman, a South African woman of color, and continuing into the 1870's, biologists published scientific accounts of dissections of women of color. Under this grant, Dr. Fausto-Sterling is completing the compilation and examination of that dissection literature emanating from Europe. She is also extending this study to literature emanating from the United States. She is searching the biological literature of the United States for parallel examples of accounts of the bodies of black women. The examples found both expand and diversify her evidentiary base. She is also completing the review of a growing body of secondary sources which provide both historical and theoretical background for placing and interpreting the results of this project. She will then be in a position to interpret her findings from her investigation of 19th century biologists and their scientific writings to create narratives of difference from the presumed norm of the European male. She hypothesizes that the narratives concerning people of color helped to create icons: body parts gained symbolical significance with regard to gender and deviant sexuality. Such icons derived from accounts of black female bodies, became mobile, appearing form the last quarter of the 19th century, well into the 20th century in scientific accounts of deviant white women. In amplifying and documenting her claims, Dr. Fausto-Sterling is moving from an essentially literal reading of the biological literature to a social and cultural account of its significance.