“‘The Relics of Slavery’: Inter-racial Sex and Manumission in the American South,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies Vol 31. 3: 22-30. 2010 . (original) (raw)
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Gender Trouble in the Deep South : Women ; Race and Slavery
Cahiers Charles 5, 2006
Slavery must be seen as a “culture of ownership,” or, where white women, adolescents and children are concerned, “co-ownership” of people, a culture of an aggressively defended right of access to de-subjectified beings, to so-called chattel, their labor, and their reproduction. The elements of white dominance over black add up to a picture of an extreme precariousness of social and individual relations, as Orlando Patterson and other scholars have so amply configured (Mullen, Patterson). What interests me about these relations is the process of idealization and division of gender, and the way white gender theory, as e.g. Judith Butler's, have ignored white women's violence over black being.
Carol Faulkner, Alison M. Parker eds. Interconnections: Gender and Race in American History
2015
Interconnections is a volume of essays that undertakes an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersections of race and gender as key constituents of American identity and American history. Part of the book series Gender and Race in American History, issued by the University of Rochester Press, this collection aims, in the words of editors Carol Faulkner and Alison M. Parker, to “bridge the gap between well-developed theories of race, gender, and power and the practice of historical researc...
2015
Shannon C. Eaves: "A Sad Epoch in the Life of a Slave Girl": The Sexual Exploitation of Enslaved Women and its Impact on Slaveholding and Enslaved Communities (Under the direction of Heather A. Williams) When white men exploited enslaved women's sexuality and sexual reproduction, enslaved men and slaveholding women were forced to bear witness, creating a web of pain, insecurity, jealousy, and contempt that entangled both slaves and slaveholders. I argue that through these experiences, enslaved women and men developed a consciousness of enslaved women's vulnerability to this kind of abuse that shaped their everyday decisions regarding marriage, family, and personal safety. Slave narratives and interviews and court documents reveal that they demonstrated a heightened concern about the sanctity of their romantic and sexual relationships and their limited ability to shield enslaved women from sexual exploitation. White men's sexual relations with female slaves also proved disruptive to slaveholding households and marriages. Court records and slaveholders' personal correspondence reveal that because of their social status as patriarchs and heads of household, white men often felt entitled to absolution for their illicit sexual behavior with female slaves. Yet, despite constraints of patriarchy, some slaveholding women felt empowered to express their grievances against "illicit" relations between white men and female slaves. Utilizing their authority as household managers, these slaveholding women inflicted physical violence and emotional abuse on enslaved women in retaliation. Divorce petitions also reveal the strife interracial sex caused within these marriages. Examining southern society's shared experience with enslaved women's sexual exploitation provides new perspectives on gender, race, and power in the antebellum era. iv To my parents, Robert and Lil Eaves. Your endless love and support made this possible. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As a child, I was reminded frequently that to whom much is given, much is required. These words have always guided my steps, and it is my hope that this dissertation reflects my desire to honor these words and those upon whose shoulders I stand. My dissertation advisor, Heather A. Williams, has stood by my side through the valleys and hills, exhibiting patience and enthusiasm when needed. I am forever grateful for her willingness to take a gamble on a high school social studies teacher and believe that I was capable of doing this work. I thank her for reading my work in its various stages and always offering thoughtful and encouraging advice. Most importantly, I appreciate her for pushing me beyond my own limits. I am inspired by her dedication to her students and her scholarship. I also owe a great deal of gratitude to Kathleen DuVal who also served as a key advisor. I appreciate her vows of confidence when I doubted myself. I thank her for taking me into her fold and providing counsel. Many thanks also to Jacquelyn Dowd Hall for her support and guidance over the years. Her work, activism, and ability to create community have always inspired me. To all of my dissertation committee members-Heather A. Williams, Kathleen DuVal, Thavolia Glymph, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, and John W. Sweet-I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude for their thoughtfulness and support. Without their careful and kind comments, this endeavor would have been impossible. I was able to bring this project to fruition through the generous support of numerous institutions. My archival research was funded by grants from the Center for the Study of the American South, the Virginia Historical Society, the George B. Tindall Fellowship endowment, and the Mowry Dissertation Research endowment. Researching was made easier by the vi knowledgeable assistance of archivists and staff members at the National Archives, North
Gender and History of the Postbellum U.S. South
History Compass, 2010
Although gender as a category of analysis has been largely accepted in the discipline of history for its valuable insights, such acceptance was not without resistance. The difficulty of understanding how gender applies in all historical situations impeded early endorsement. In this article, I examine works of historians writing on the postbellum U.S. South, a time and place when all social and political relations were especially volatile and in flux. The chosen works reveal the ways gender has collapsed the divide between public and private, between social and political history, divisions that have defied resolution. They also provided a foundation for studies on the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, which followed.
Reflections on the Black Woman's Role in the Community of Slaves
Words of fire: An anthology of African-American …, 1995
The paucity of literature on the black woman is outrageous on its face. But we must also contend with the fact that too many of these rare studies must claim as their signal achievement the reinforcement of fictitious cliches. They have given credence to grossly ...