Ain T I A Woman Analysis

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Recommended: The development of slavery in Colonial America

Jasmine Jones
Dr. S. Boyd
English 2180
24 September 2015
An Analysis of Sexual Abuse and Mistreatment of African American Female Slaves in Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman"
Jacobs’ and Truth’s illustrate in their writings how unfathomably harsh American slavery was for both male and female slaves. However, they place emphasis on the sexual abuse and ridicule specific only to females. Each author describes in detail the abuse and unfair treatment they experience while enslaved and these descriptions exist to make the reader better understand just how horrible conditions were back in the 1800s for Black women. An analysis of their writings proves that conditions for women were far worse …show more content…

These four principles include piety, purity, submissiveness, and domesticity (Lavender, 1998). Both women include in their writings glaring examples of how the institution of slavery contradicts each of these principles. In order to be pious and domestic, a “true woman” must devote her time to religion and maintaining a spotless home. But how is this possible for a slave? Women who were enslaved didn’t have the option of staying home while their partners went to work and the home they were responsible for cleaning was not even the one in which they lived in. Even their purity was out of their control as "slaveholders had no legal obligation to respect the sanctity of the slave's marriage bed, and slave women...had no formal protection against their owners' sexual advances,” (UKEssays.com, …show more content…

This is significant not only because it’s unjust but also because it further emphasizes the impossible position that female slaves were in. How can a woman be expected to remain chaste or be submissive to the man she’ll marry if she’s denied the right to do so? Jacobs describes a similar situation in her own narrative when she mentions that a male slave once requested to marry her but Dr. Flint denied the request because he wanted Jacobs for himself though never planned to marry her. She eventually chooses Dr. Sands, another white male who had no intention to marry her, and has children with him but faces ridicule from her grandmother who calls her a “disgrace” and temporarily stops speaking to her. It is maddening trying to comprehend how female slaves must have felt mentally as they had no one to run to. Their owners abused them, their mistresses were jealous of them, and their own family expected them to model themselves after women with twice their level of

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