Sally G. Mcmullen's The Old South

Imagine being one of the black female victims in the plantation south, and not having the voice to revolt against immorality experienced frequently because of White southerner males. The unthinkable feeling of white males having full access to a female’s body without her consent, and using her for their personal amusement reveals that discrimination and inhumanity existed in the era before slavery was abolished. For this reason, Deborah Gray White wrote the book known as Ar’n’t I a Woman? to highlight the brutal actions of these white southerner males that made miserable circumstances for black slave population to survive. The way she brought forth the reality and the vicious mentality of the White southerner males manifest that the status

The title of this book comes from the inspiring words spoken by Sojourner Truth at the 1851, nine years prior to the Civil War at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In Deborah Grays White, Ar’n’t I a woman her aim was to enrich the knowledge of antebellum black women and culture to show an unwritten side of history of the American black woman. Being an African- American and being a woman, these are the two principle struggles thrown at the black woman during and after slavery in the United States. Efforts were made by White scholars in 1985 to have a focus on the female slave experience. Deborah Gray White explains her view by categorizing the hardships and interactions between the female slave and the environment in which the

This paper discusses the experiences of African American Women under slavery during the Slave Trade, their exploitation, the secrecy, the variety of tasks and positions of slave women, slave and ex-slave narratives, and significant contributions to history. Also, this paper presents the hardships African American women faced and the challenges they overcame to become equal with men in today’s society. Slavery was a destructive experience for African Americans especially women. Black women suffered doubly during the slave era.

One of the more striking developments of the Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) was the integration of emancipated black men and women into the labor forces of Southern States. This transition period proved to be difficult for the largely agricultural economies as elite whites had to adjust to a more independent lifestyle, working class whites became poorer and blacks remained poor despite their freed status and ability to earn wages for their work. In Thavolia Glymph’s ‘A Makeshift Kind of Life’: Free Women and Free Homes, she examines the working class black women and the conditions they found themselves in. Two of her most prominent arguments found between pages 177 and 185 is that black women were still made to accept less than ideal and that white women struggled to cope with both their worsening living standards and black women’s independence. This paper examines both of those arguments.

The period of the antebellum south was among the most burdensome times for African American slaves, especially females. During the early 1800s the lives of enslaved women were extremely demanding. The female slaves were expected to bear children, as well as were required to work just as hard as the male slaves on the plantation. Days were long and laborious for slave mothers, they had to make sure that all the work that needed to be done was completed, and also care for their children. Female slaves’ jobs varied from housework, to field work. Slave mothers knew that giving up on their work was not an option, they had to persevere for their families. Motherhood and work went hand in hand for female slaves, one was not able to do one and not the other.

White explores the master’s sexual exploitation of their female slaves, and proves this method of oppression to be the defining factor of what sets the female slaves apart from their male counterparts. Citing former slaves White writes, “Christopher Nichols, an escaped slave living in Canada, remembered how his master laid a woman on a bench, threw her clothes over her head, and whipped her. The whipping of a thirteen-year-old Georgia slave girl also had sexual overtones. The girl was put on all fours ‘sometimes her head down, and sometimes up’ and beaten until froth ran from her mouth (33).” The girl’s forced bodily position as well as her total helplessness to stop her master’s torture blatantly reveals the forced sexual trauma many African females endured.

Women’s issues during slavery and even into the Reconstruction Era were not held as top priorities within the social structure of life during those times. The main political and social issues were within the male spectrum, and therefore left women’s rights and values in second place, behind men. Within the nineteenth century, there were four specific characteristics that society deemed should be associated with a woman; piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. However, this was not the case when it came to black women. They were not able to exemplify the expected worldview of womanhood due to their circumstances.

Thesis: Morgan argues that by utilizing the degrading and graphic imagery of black women, slave-owners were able to justify transforming enslaved women from people into property and commodities valued not only for the work labor, but their ability to produce children (7). Through this vision, Morgan explores the lives of enslaved women in colonial America as central to the historical narrative rather than as existing on the margins and how the “underlying realities of reproductive lives shape the encounter with work, community, and culture (1, 3, 194).”

High mortality rates, the fear of being sold to another plantation owner or their loved ones being sold away, back-breaking work, abuse from their masters, the occasional–but violent– slave uprisings and lynching’s, and the striving for the cultivation of a unique and meaningful slave culture were all aspects of African Women’s experiences that remained constant through their 17th century lives as slaves in America.

Minrose Gwin‘s book, Black and White Women of the Old South, argues that history has problems with objectiveness. Her book brings to life interesting interpretations on the view of the women of the old south and chattel slavery in historical American fiction and autobiography. Gwin’s main arguments discussed how the white women of the south in no way wanted to display any kind of compassion for a fellow woman of African descent. Gwin described the "sisterhood" between black and white women as a "violent connection"(pg 4). Not only that, Gwin’s book discusses the idea that for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a black woman usually got subjected to displacement of sexual and mental

Hannah Craft’s novel The Bondwoman’s Narrative reveals aspects that women in slavery face that many are unaware of. Such as marriage being enjoyed more by the free than slaves, how a profit can be made other than being sold, the awareness of their station in life, the jealousy slaves face from their female masters, and two-faced hypocrisy. The article such as “The Radical in the Kitchen: Women, Domesticity, and Social Reform” and Deborah Gray White’s book Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South reinforce some of these points.

During the 19th century, black women faced a plethora of hardships culminating from hundreds of years of oppression and denigration while simultaneously fighting for equal rights with all other women. One of the biggest obstacles that was necessary to overcome was one of the most common ideologies of the West, the Cult of True Womanhood. This Victorian ideal of womanhood defined women within a domestic sphere and required them to be subservient to their husbands (Broude). These women gave up much more than their rights outside of the home, they were taken advantage of physically, mentally and sexually. The majority of women during this time did not meet this standard of true womanhood and never could hope to. This ideal and the common stereotypes of the time were questioned by an African-American woman named Sojourner Truth.

Imagine yourself a female slave, living a life of service on a large plantation during the early-19th century. Imagine waking every morning at dawn to begin a never-ending day of cooking, cleaning, washing, and sewing. Imagine being at the beck and call of a master who not only uses you for daily chores, but also for his personal sexual pleasure. Imagine the inexhaustible fear of his next humiliating request and the deep feelings of shame and remorse for your inability to stand up against him. Imagine lying in bed at the end of the day wishing God would carry you to heaven so you would not have to wake and experience this hell on earth all over again.

Gender Differences in Slavery Essay In this essay, I will discuss how slavery differed for men and women. Then what kind of challenges, threats, and dangers each faced and what motivated white masters and mistresses to mistreat their slaves. Finally, I will discuss imagine this impacted gender roles.

Whites’ study of slavery and the experience of women show a marked contrast between the restricted femininity of white women and the sexual exploitation and perception of black women. White women were expected to be controlled and preserve their modesty and virtue, but black women were exposed and blamed for the sexual advances and exploits of their white masters. White sums of this contrast best: