Shawna Racino
Friday, February 10, 2012
The Strange Story of Julia Pastrana
Today I decided to do the reading for this coming Tuesday. One of the readings is titled, The Strange Story of Julia Pastrana. Julia's story reminded me a lot of Sarah Bartmann's story. Though Julia suffered from a medical condition, and Sarah Bartmann's physical traits were not a disorder, both women were put on display for others to view how deviant they were. One thing I couldn't help but realize was both women were taking advantage of by men. In my opinion, both these men pretended to care about the well being of these women, but in reality only wanted to use them for some sort of profit. One thing that was different about Julia Pastrana's story was that she was not put on display for medical purposes. It wasn't until she passed away that doctors realized that she had a condition called hypertrichosis lanuginosa congenita. However, like Bartmann, after Julia's death for years people kept her preserved body, and put her and her baby on display. These women had no rights because the men that took them from their homes controlled every aspect of their life. Even after they were dead. Though both articles stated that these women were perfectly happy with the lives they had, I don't believe that is true.
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Shawna,
ReplyDeleteGood observations in connecting the stories of Baartman and Pastrana. Pastrana's case shows us that Baartman's case is not exceptional, but that these were practices that became institutionalized in the nineteenth century.