Deborah Gray White explains this in her book, Ar"n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South. On the one hand, mainstream media viewed the black woman as a sexually insatiable female, a Jezebel, whose licentious appetites differentiated her from the more ideally pious and pure white woman. On the other hand, the black woman functioned as the matronly, kind-hearted Mammy, intent on caring for her master's children, running the plantation household and disregarding the need for her children to be nurtured. Usually a dark skinned overweight woman played the role of a "mammy" to reinforce her undesirable appearance. 2 .
Though mainstream media has deviated from the "mammy" and "jezebel" images for black women, it still has not deviated from hindering African American women from success. In January 2003, UPN piloted a reality series, "America's Next Top Model, in which twelve women competed for a Wilhelmina Modeling Agency contract. With stats such as 5"9 and 160 pounds, Robin was proclaimed a full figured model. By being classified as a full figured model, Robin was informed by Janice Dickinson, one of the .
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world's first supermodels, that she would be unable to model for most fashion designers and lines.3 When the question of Robin being defined as a plus size model was posed to the public, one young lady responded:.
VIA EMAIL: dakyung.
Hi, I read your article on America's top model. I couldn't believe that Robin was a plus-size model. I've been watching the show for the past month and I've always thought she was beautiful and had the perfect and most realistic body. I believe that the judges commenting on her body being "big," or "plus-size" is very disturbing for young girls like me to watch. I understand that you need to maintain a fit body to be a model but it's making girls who are Robin's size or "normal-size" feel like they are too big. I saw a preview of tomorrow's episode of "ET" and Robin was saying that the judges think everyone who wears size four up is considered big and plus-size.
