Women and Slavery

Gender and Slavery in America Deborah Gray White’s “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” attempts to illustrate and expose the under-examined world in which bonded, antebellum women lived. She distinguishes the way slave women were treated from both their male counterparts and white antebellum women by elucidating their unique race and gender predisposed circumstances, “(…) black women suffer a double oppression: that shared by all African-Americans and that shared by most women” (p. 23). In all, black women suffered an exclusive oppression due to their specific race, bondage, and gender. This essay will attempt to explain how institution of slavery did not protect women from the injustices placed upon them but instead, how they had to create unique and often unexpected strategies in order to protect themselves. One of the most significant injustices which bondwomen endured was sexual exploitation. From rape to being used as an economic vessel for childbearing, the black women involved in these horrific acts were physically and psychologically abused; unfortunately, this inappropriate employment of the bonded female body was not uncommon. To begin, childbearing was seen as an economic venture for slave owners. Children produced by personal slaves did not incur an initial acquisition fee and provided unlimited labor for life. Gray White explains, “Once slaveholders realized that the reproductive function of the female slave could yield a profit, the manipulation of procreative sexual relations became an integral part of sexual exploitation of female slaves” (p. 68). Not only were women expected to have children, they were often punished or sold if they did not prove to be procreative. In addition, masters commonly forced women to have children with men of the master’s choosing even if the woman had no interest in the chosen male. The story of Molly from St. Simon’s Island tells of a woman whose true love was sold away. She was subsequently given a new husband with which she had

Cited: White, Deborah Gray. Ar 'n 't I a Woman ? New York: W.W. Norton, 1999. Print.