Stereotypes about Black Bodies in French Medical Literature (1780-1950)

In parallel with the colonisation of African countries, colonial doctors and scientists started describing "African bodies" developing a hierarchy between Black peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, i.e., from The Cape of Good Hope to Senegambia.  Interestingly, there were conflicts between some doctors and differing attitudes between home country practitioner medicine and colonial medicine on the field.

This research focuses on the descriptions of African people’s body according to French Doctors writings from the end of the 18th century to mid-20th century. Thoughthe black race is seen as monolithic group in the medical writings at the beginning of the period, the African multiplicity slightly came up under the colonial doctors’ pens. Their action and their work started developing in the last third of the 19th century in parallel with the colonization. Beyond the principal human races classification, the French doctors and scientists established a hierarchy between the black peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa, from The Cape of Good Hope to Senegambia. The view onAfrican bodies varied and became more refined all along the studied period, despite the permanency of numerous racial stereotypes. A sexual description of the peoples is added to the racial and ethnic taxonomy. Based on medical dictionaries, research monographs about human races or even on colonial medicine work, our work displays, within the descriptions of the black bodies, the overlapping of the theories about race, gender and kind, and also explains the similarity of the rhetorical methods used to define and describe the Other, should they be female or black. Moreover, this research highlights the way these representations thrived on scientific controversies, political concerns and interactions between home country practitioner medicine and colonial medicine on the field. Though the medical speeches stigmatize racial inferiorities or even the inversion of gender of the African people, this work also underlines the antithetical opinions and the conflicts between some doctors about these consensual.

To the ethnic taxonomy, a sexual description was added since hypersexuality was one of the most common prejudices about Africans, not only in medical literature. These supposedly overdeveloped sexes were associated with uncontrollable sexuality. The association, again, was established to justify female circumcision and polygamy. With sexology emerging, doctors and scientists intended to learn about the sexuality of the othered "in order to define sexuality in their own society by race (sic), gender or class". Understanding the so-called sexual practices of Africans was a means to help colonists to control and preserve their own sexuality. 

In effect, white expatriates who passed several months in the colonies underwent all sorts of temptations owing to the visible bodies of women, the so-called “free” sexuality and the climate — temptations to avoid for the sake of preserving the colonial power’s integrity and authority. Out of these fears arose discourses and warnings about racial mixing and its dangers for the white race.

Myths, random observations and racist theories about a "black sexuality" as the antithesis of a "white sexuality" (moderate, hygienic and connected with moral values) were introduced to maintain boundaries and support colonialism, the latter being marketed as a "civilising mission". Hypersexuality was seen as a main characteristic of Black people. Pseudo-scientific approaches, such as establishing a correlation between skull shape, brain weight and the size of genitals with carnal instincts and pleasures and intellectual weakness - were supposed to explain "Black hypersexuality".

It is still the same way that, with the N*gro, the intellectual organs being less developed, the genitals acquire more preponderance and extension. (Gazette Medicine of Paris, 1841)

In the first half of the twentieth century, women were portrayed as virile since they did hard work, had muscular bodies, short hair and were courageous while men were portrayed as effeminate because of their alleged laziness and intellectual inferiority, and hairless body. Colonial doctors regarded their mission as a civilising one as their work was also about redefining the social roles specific to each gender (Peiretti Courtis, 2018).

Discourse surviving black men for their physical strength and robustness also existed in medical books throughout the period studied and particularly at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s when the degeneration of the white race worries the medical and political sphere. The black body then becomes an example of virtue and resistance to offer to white men weakened by civilization and urbanization. African femininity is also valued during the nineteenth and first twentieth century when it comes to presenting a model of maternity to white women forsaking their mission. If Africans are erected, according to the political or social context in France, as an example for the French, everything seems nevertheless to bring them back to their body, presented as their main strength and wealth. These discourses have political consequences. Feminization but also the infantilization of black peoples led to a more general devaluation of Africans, which had political repercussions such as to justify the colonization of men considered inferior, intellectually or even physically close to women and children. And subject to their passions. Thus, the famous speech of Ferry in 1885 draws its roots in the breeding ground of the radiological medicine and in the tests brought by the scientists of an inferiority of the black race. Similarly, while the writings of colonial doctors have highlighted African diversity, they have generated, by aiming to rationalize the colonial work, a strengthening of ethnic groups but also differentiations and hierarchies still existing today in Africa.

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- Peiretti Courtis, D. (2018). Stereotypes about black bodies in French medical literature: race, gender and sexuality (1780-1950), Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences, 3(3), link
- photograph by Sory Sanle via

Burkina Faso's School for Husbands

A few years ago, the project "School for Husbands" was launched in Burkina Faso. This concept is not new, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been supporting such schools since 2008, starting in Niger (via). The schools in Burkina Faso are financed by the International Development Association through the Sahel Women's Empowerment and Demographic Dividend (SWEDD) and implemented with support from the UNFPA. Husbands (and future husbands) meet once a week to discuss family life, a facilitator guides the meetings in which topics such as women's rights, maternal and reproductive health, family planning and hygiene are addressed. The project aims to change attitude and behaviour among men by allowing them to share their experiences, asking questions and learning from each other. All this is taking place in a region that is characterised by a very unequal distribution of household responsibilities among women and men and where, in 2018 alone, there were 747 cases of neonatal death and 95 women died during childbirth (via).

“The school for husbands creates an environment in which men can feel confident sharing with and learning from each other, Here, they can speak without fear of what people will say about subjects traditionally left to women, such as family planning, prenatal consultations, the need to give birth in a health center, and postnatal consultations. Convincing husbands that they have a role to play in these issues helps promote harmony among couples and families. Before the school for husbands was launched in the village, there was a lot of tension among members of my family. And when I drank too much millet beer, I argued with my wives. But that is now all in the past!”
Ouanibaouiè Bondé

“Now, my husband often brings me seasonings from the market for cooking. When I want to do the laundry, his eldest son goes with him to collect water from the creek. When I am pregnant, he goes to the health center with me for the weighings. On the day I gave birth, he was the one who drove me to the hospital and wanted to stay at my side during the birth. I was so happy on that day that I forgot about the pain from the contractions!”
Martine Gnoumou

As of 2019, more than 1,640 schools for husbands have been established in the countries where SWEDD is being implemented (via).

photographs by Sory Sanlé via and via and via and via and via and via and via

Sory Sanlé and the "People of the Night"

"Photography is a witness to everything, a kind of proof of life. When I started out, my nation was a French colony. A few months after, in 1958, we became an independent colony. Two years later, we were fully independent. Haute-Volta, as the country was known before 1983, flourished after independence, and the region experienced its own nouvelle vague."
Sory Sanlé

"There were only a few photographers working in Haute-Volta at the time. Most were in Ouagadougou, the capital. I was one of the first in Bobo, and the first to use the name Volta. People were excited about the possibilities independence offered and played with new identities in the studio."
Sory Sanlé

Sory Sanlé is a Burkinabe photographer, born in 1943, who developed "a reputation as photographer of the Burkinabe club scene in the 1960s and 70s" (via). Burkina Faso's club scene was vibrant in the years after the independence from France, bands played to "stylish crowds riding a wave of liberation". And Sanlé captured it all. (via)

“It was a pleasure to show the joy of those people. People loved each other and there was so much fun. … They might have been poor but they had a ball and enjoyed those moments.”
Sory Sanlé

“It did not matter what anyone’s position was,” says Sory. “People would always mingle, interact and take care of each other — not like today.”
Sory Sanlé

photographs via and via and via