The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
14 — Wednesday, December 9, 2020
statement

T

his September, Netflix announced
that it would start streaming the film
“Cuties,” a French film directed by

Senagalese-French director Maïmouna Dou-
couré, and the Internet went wild. “Cuties” is
a coming of age film following an eleven-year-
old girl who uses dance to explore her identity,
against the ideals of her conservative family.
The film has been critiqued for hypersexual-
izing young girls, as multiple characters under
the age of twelve are depicted making sexually
suggestive gestures throughout the movie. A
rush of Netflix subscriptions cancellations fol-
lowed, and the backlash was so strong that a
Texas grand jury indicted the film for “promot-
ing certain lewd material of children.”

Some, however, defended the film, saying

that many people were missing the point. The
film was not a promotion but instead a com-
mentary on the hypersexualization of young
girls in today’s society. It was lewd, by nature,
forcing us to have a conversation about the hy-
persexualization of young girls, especially dur-
ing the age of social media, which was another
common theme throughout the film.

This was the first time in my life that I have

heard such an in-depth and purposeful conver-
sation (albeit a short-lived one) about
the hypersexualization of young girls,
especially girls and women of color. As I
reflected further, I started to realize how
much this culture of hypersexualization
has affected my own perception of my
body as I grew into it as a young girl and
a woman of color today.

This hypersexualization of women

of color is deeply rooted in our coun-
try’s history, dating all the way back to
the trans-Atlantic slave trade and colo-
nization. Professors LaKisha Simmons
and Andrea Bolivar from the Women’s
and Gender Studies at the University of
Michigan introduced me to the historical
contexts of the fetishization of women of
color.

“There was a concerted effort to de-

fine whiteness as proper humanity, and
part of that definition involved what
makes one a man and what makes one
a woman,” Simmons explained in an in-
terview with The Daily over Zoom. “And
so you see, these conversations kind of
intertwined with what we might say are
excuses, or colonization, and stealing
both land and human bodies.”

There is concrete evidence for this in

the writing accounts of early European
colonizers and slave traders. In a 1997
paper, Jennifer L. Morgan, professor of
social and cultural analysis at New York
University, wrote, “Writers who articu-
lated religious and moral justifications
for the slave trade simultaneously grap-
pled with the character of the female Af-
rican body — a body both desirable and
repulsive, available and untouchable,
productive and reproductive, beautiful
and Black.”

Postcards with pictures of naked In-

digenous and African women on them
were even sent back to Europe to entice
men to come to settle in the New World. These
writings and postcards had a cynical underlying
intention.

“They’re trying to justify access to bodies,

whether for labor or force for sex and justi-
fied various forms of violence,” Simmons ex-
plained. “So on the one hand you have to say
that these are not regular women like the ones
back home, right? And then on the other hand,
you’re also saying that they’re somehow extra
desirable.”

As a Latina myself, I was interested in what

led to the hypersexualization of Latinas spe-
cifically. In an email interview with The Daily,
Bolivar gave me valuable insight on the history
of hypersexualization of Latinas in the U.S.

“Scholars have argued that Latina women

are constructed as hypersexual and overly ro-
mantic in order to distance them from, and thus
bolster, the white heteronormative family and
nation,” Bolivar said. “Racialized/sexualized
stereotypes also justify violence, including sex-
ual violence, against Latinas, and other women
of color.”

East Asian women also experience hypersex-

ualization. Like other WOC, they are exoticized
and fetishized for their looks. They are stereo-
typed as being submissive, a justification for ac-
cess to their bodies.

This issue is further complicated when we

look at the intersectionality between being a
woman of color and in the LGBTQ+ commu-
nity. Bolivar, whose research allows her the op-
portunity to work with transgender Latinas in
Chicago, explained the challenges faced in this
overlap of identities.

“They challenge cisgender notions about

gender, the body, and the relationship between
gender and the body, and they challenge the
gender binary — all of which are foundational to
personhood and membership in larger society,”
Bolivar explained. “As a result, their bodies are
objectified, fetishized, and hypersexualized.”

At the inception of the country we know of

today as the United States, those in power —
white, land-owning men — were creating sys-
tems and a culture that inherently served to dis-
empower WOC. In fact, colonizers associated
African and Indigenous women with wildlife to
justify the inhumane treatment of these groups.

“Hypersexuality is associated with animail-

ity, so claiming that they were hypersexual
bolstered the association with animals, which
of course justified genocide and enslavement,”
Bolivar wrote. “We, as a nation, have inherited
that reality, but have yet to reckon with it. BI-

POC and BIWOC have inherited this trauma in
our bodies.”

These systems continue to exist today and

have a lasting impact on the women of color
living in the United States. For example, the
U.S. gender wage gaps disproportionately af-
fect women of color. For every $1 a white man
makes, Latina/Hispanic women make $0.54,
American Indian and Alaskan native women
make $0.57, Southeast Asian women make
$0.61, Black women make $0.62 and Hawaiin/
Pacific Islander women make $0.68. This ineq-
uity makes sense, considering the systems that
exist were built to the benefit of whiteness and
maleness, viewing those of color as “others” or
exotic beings existing in a completely different
category.

Women of color today are also more prone

to experience acts of domestic and sexual vio-
lence. Black women experience intimate part-
ner violence at a rate that is 35 percent higher
than their white women counterparts. Trans-
gender women of color are also a group very
vulnerable to this abuse. A 2012 study showed
that 61.5% of victims from hate violence homi-
cide were women, many of whom were trans-
gender women.

“It is incredibly important to recognize

violence against trans women of color,” Boli-

var said. “That is the first step in combating it.
However, at the same time, trans women of col-
or have become associated with death, which is
dehumanizing and dangerous.”

As far as standards of beauty are concerned,

women of color still exist in a dichotomous
space where we are both disgusting and desired
at the same time. This weird place of fetishiza-
tion is fixated on all forms: from our hair tex-
ture to our curves to our accents. We are con-
stantly “othered” and outcast in the workplace
or in school, but we are simultaneously consid-
ered the most beautiful women in the world.

Growing up, I subconsciously felt this tug of

war inside of me. I am Dominican and Danish,
existing in two different worlds with two very
different standards of beauty. I was raised in
New York City, in spaces that were predomi-
nately white, where I was seen as different
from many of my peers. When my Caribbean
curves began to form, changing the shape un-
derneath my dance leotards, and as my breasts
and hips grew, stretching the fabric of my favor-
ite clothes, a sense of shame began to creep in.
When I walked down the street, the male gaze
became more aggressive — more like a hungry
stare. I began to dissociate from my body.

I did benefit from many privileges in my

Dominican culture because I have glimpses of
European features: light brown skin, hazel eyes,
“good” curls, a curvy physique, a European last
name. My POC peers would reach for my curls
and gently tug to test if my hair was real. They
would ask me to look into the sunlight so they
could observe the golden specks in my hazel
eyes and see if they were just contacts. I would
be told that my brown skin made me look taína,
the Indigenous people of my country, which is
the utmost compliment in Dominican culture. I
was made to feel beautiful as if I was a uniquely
and meticulously handcrafted piece of art.

At the same time, I was told that many of the

things that made me beautiful in my Domini-
can culture were ugly in the white spaces I ex-
isted in. White peers of mine would ask if they
could feel my boobs or if I could flash them,
as if they had never seen a woman with curves
before. They would assume that I slept around
often and asked about my sexual experience,
but would also say that I would get more atten-
tion from guys if my skin was a lighter shade.
It is in these spaces that my white peers felt
entitled to my body: to critique my shape, to
ask me personal questions about my sex life
and to touch me. It’s as if I have been walking
down a tightrope my entire life, teetering be-
tween being beautiful by some and undesirable

by others.

Of course, standards of beauty shift with

time — they are never stagnant. What was con-
sidered beautiful for women in the 1960s is not
the same as what was considered beautiful for
women in the 90s. When I scroll through my In-
stagram feed, I notice that the standard of beau-
ty emerging seems to be something I was once
made to feel ashamed about: having curves.
Namely, having a big butt and big boobs.

Enter the Kardashians/Jenners. I really do

believe that Kim Kardashian and her family
have made big butts and breasts more accept-
able and desirable in mainstream society. This is
illuminating in itself: A family of white women
using their privilege to iconize what has been
used to stigmatize women of color for centuries.

“It’s really about monetizing Blackness or

whatever, but they can do it in a way that actual
Black women cannot … It’s actually like leaning
into your privilege as a white person to be able
to use Black culture and style and look, and then
make money off of it,” Simmons explained.

But this is nothing new. The entertainment

and music industry has a long history of hijack-
ing ethnic minority cultures for profit.

Reflecting on the scope of and my own per-

sonal experiences with this issue made
me feel stuck. How could I possibly fight
a problem that is both so deeply rooted in
our society and in my internal dialogue?

Then, while I was trying to pick out

what to listen to for a run one day, I coin-
cidentally stumbled upon Brene Brown’s
podcast “Unlocking us” with Sonya Re-
nee Taylor on her book “The Body Is
Not an Apology.” The description of the
podcast mentioned words of radical self-
love, which I reflexively rolled my eyes
at. I have stuffed my mind before with
one too many self-love podcasts and
books, telling me how I can grow more
comfortable in my own skin. Would this
one be able to offer me anything differ-
ent? But I was going on a long-distance
run and needed something inspiring to
listen to, so I gave it a try. I expected
the podcast to be cliché, filled with talk
about ways to love yourself and to be-
come comfortable in your own skin by
accepting yourself for who you are.

Boy, was I wrong.
Instead, Taylor presented self-love as

a means of social activism. She went on
to discuss how systems in our society tell
so many people to dislike their bodies —
from people with disabilities to people of
color to plus-size people. By constantly
putting ourselves down and apologizing
for our appearances, we are contributing
and upholding the same systems which
disempower us. I had goosebumps for
the entire hour or so of my run.

But expecting every WOC to reject all

systems which oppress them is a tall order
to ask. We all have different experiences,
traumas and identities we hold that must be
dealt with and understood. It’s a personal
journey. So I turned to academics for per-
haps a more clear answer: I asked Bolivar
what I and fellow women of color could do

to walk the fine line of sexual empowerment with-
out feeling like we are being exoticized.

“Something that felt empowering yesterday

may feel icky today,” Bolivar said. “So I guess my
one piece of advice would be to check in with your-
self often. And don’t hold yourself to others’ ex-
pectations about how you “should” feel, and what
“should” be empowering or disempowering,” she
responded.

That’s just it. The journey into growing into

your sexually empowered self is a personal one. It’s
not linear, it’s dependent on circumstances, a trial
and error. But it requires being gentle and compas-
sionate with yourself, even when all external pres-
sures and your subconscious want to do otherwise.

I can only hope that the conversations sur-

rounding the hypersexualization of WOC don’t
just stop with the conversations we had in Sep-
tember on the film “Cuties.” Uncomfortable
conversations and confrontations with reality
need to be conducted. The most empowering
thing we can do is have those conversations in a
way that doesn’t victimize women, instead, ac-
knowledging their positions and honoring their
stories.

BY ISABELLE HASSLUND, STATEMENT ASSOCIATE EDITOR

It’s time to
It’s time to
talk about
talk about
fetishization
fetishization

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COLLAGE BY EILEEN KELLY