Who is popular today?

Sarah Baartman

Sarah Baartman (; 1789– 29 December 1815), also spelled Sara, sometimes in the diminutive form Saartje (), or Saartjie, and Bartman, Bartmann, was a Khoikhoi woman who was exhibited as a freak show attraction in 19th-century Europe under the name Hottentot Venus, a name which was later attributed to at least one other woman similarly exhibited. The women were exhibited for their steatopygic body type uncommon in Western Europe which not only was perceived as a curiosity at that time, but became subject of scientific interest as well as of erotic projection. <nowiki></nowiki>La Belle Hottentote<nowiki></nowiki>, a 19th-century French print of Baartman "Venus" is sometimes used to designate representations of the female body in arts and cultural anthropology, referring to the Roman goddess of love and fertility. "Hottentot" was a Dutch-colonial era term for the indigenous Khoikhoi people of southwestern Africa, which then became commonly used in English, but which is now usually considered an offensive term. Although it is still unclear how much she was a willing participant, the Sarah Baartman story is often portrayed as the epitome of racist colonial exploitation, and of the commodification of the dehumanization of black people. Wikipedia