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assignment 3

Europeans sought to categorize people by race and gender. This was not without purpose as they did so in a way to retain superiority when faced with discoveries and realizations that contradicted their own narrative of the foreigners. They sought to validate their own culture with which they thought they had an abundance of in comparison to foreigners.

Women were used as a means to express racial superiority. Morgan emphasizes how writers would frame their experiences with women from other races and foreign countries in what they had defined as femininity. They empathized how much of it these foreign women lacked.

Men seemed to have been fascinated and stimulated by the appearance of nonwhite women, but could not accept that it was the result of such different standards than what they were use to. Morgan observes that this fascination is always dominated by racism as seen in Girolamo Benzoni recounting of his experience when meeting an indigenous American women. He describes how her appearance, including highlights about the darker colors in clothing and makeup, influences why he considers this woman, as well as her people, as racially inferior.

European femininity emphasized the importance of reproduction and physical appearance. The appearance and birthing rate of nonwhite women contradicted what they considered feminine. Morgan analyzes Sebatian Munster’s A Trea- tyseof the Newe India and notices that he somewhat feared this contradiction. She also identifies the agenda of white men; that being both white women and non white women must be exploited for their labor, but done so in a way that white women were still superior than their counterparts. Labeling other races savages achieved this (Morgan, 2004, 12). White men compared white women to nonwhite women by using differences on physical appearance standards such as breasts (Morgan, 2004: 21).

Morgan also points out the importance of men having to deal with the contradiction that the African women they sought to enslave and exploit for their labor shared glaring similarities with their white counterparts. The female body was exploited by men in similar ways between races, a problem in maintaining the hierarchy which granted them superiority.

Discussion question: Were men conscious of the similarities in white and non white women?