‘Ugly’ associations leave behind a trail of bedfellows: monstrous, grotesque, deformed, freak, degenerate, handicapped. This word has medieval Norse roots meaning ‘to be feared or dreaded’. Both in her lifetime and posthumously, she was labelled ‘ugly’.
Brought to Europe, she performed according to Victorian norms: singing and dancing, speaking in foreign languages, undergoing public medical examinations, and other spectacle entertainments. In the 19th century, a hirsute aboriginal woman from Mexico named Julia Pastrana was billed on the freak-show circuit as ‘The Ugliest Woman in the World’.
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