Module: HST4310 Building the American Nation
By: Barbora Bundova
D.G. White’s book, “Ar’n’t I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South” begins and ends with the potent and influential words of Sojourner Truth, whose speech inspired the title of the book. Truth’s influence on the book is important to note, because she not only highlights that life as a black woman was strikingly different and significantly more difficult to that of a white woman in that the “sexual discriminations” that supposedly separated men from women, were simply not “justified” when it came to black women.[1] But she also identifies a new kind of “womanhood” which black women had created for themselves.[2] In her book, White expands on this theme by demystifying the stereotypes of black women – some which have prevailed into present day, as well as assessing the experience of black women against that of white women. White’s work is notable and important due to the various narratives she uses – by giving individual voices to the suffering of black women, rather than making broad generalisations about their experiences, she makes the realities of the horrors that much more intimate and shocking.
This book is of timeless importance for many reasons, the most important one being that with there already being a lack of historical material coming from enslaved people, White’s use of a female slave narrative in particular highlights the fact that men and women did not experience the same type of slavery. This is radiated through the debunking of mythologies and discussion of the origins of stereotypes, which still ration black women even in the 21st century. White discusses for instance, the stereotype that black women were promiscuous and mere sexual beings, which developed from Europeans not understanding African culture and “unaccustomed to the requirements of a tropical climate … mistook semi-nudity for lewdness.”[3] Another contributing factor to Europeans having this idea is their misinterpretation of polygamous relationships and tribal dances, both of which were thought to represent the libido of this “Jezebel character”[4] which white people created, and as White added, ‘it was during the slavery era that the ideas were moulded into a peculiarly American mythology.”[5] As a result of black women being thought of as licentious, their sexuality and decisions regarding their sexual organs were openly discussed amongst white men, as opposed to the strict sexual conservativism expected and respected of white women. White describes how this line of reasoning meant that rape, forced pregnancies and other sexual abuses were justified according to slave owners as they believed black women needed to feed their crazed “libido” one way or another.[6]
White goes on to describe that if black women were not seen as advocates for sexual deviancy, they were thought of as the complete opposite – hence the term “mammy” had arrived. A “mammy” was essentially a combination of the ideal slave and ideal woman, who was “someone special, not just another house slave.”[7] She was the ideal woman because she was elderly with no sexual desires and whose only purpose in life was to tend to children and serve men. She was the ideal slave due to the fact that she detached herself from fellow slaves and believed firmly in her owners’ morals. White argues that although some ‘mammy’s’ had acquired the same authority as whites, it was essentially “a romantic view of female household help” which required turning a blind eye towards the abuse they faced.[8] White claims that this turnaround of perception was superficial and that this “cultural uplift” propaganda was a way of the South justifying their immorality as well as keeping with the Victorian ideal for women of domesticity and motherhood.[9]
Additionally, White accepts that although there most definitely was an overlap between the sufferings of white and black women, and that “both blacks and women have generally been dependent politically and economically upon white men”,[10] a black woman had the burden that “if she is rescued from the myth of the Negro, the myth of woman traps her.”[11] In addition to this, white women did not sympathise with black women, in fact they often felt feelings of contempt and envy for not having the full sexual attention of their husbands, as they often raped their female slaves. Stephanie Camp echoes this exact problem in her own book, stating that “…white women also tended to agree with white men that black women possessed a certain “wickedness” and were, essentially, “prostitutes””.[12] Thus, White discredits the idea that black and white women were in any sort of solidarity, which is an idea that is largely promoted in 21st century media.
White also highlights in her book how significant and brutal the stripping of African culture was for female slaves. This was primarily exampled in that “the mother role, at least as it was defined by antebellum white America, was radically transformed.”[13] For instance, in their home country, black women were renowned, appreciated and respected for reaching motherhood, whereas in antebellum America, ‘motherhood’ was an investment made by slave-owners which “diluted the African culture” as it not only took away the intimacy and love which produced a child, it also meant that the female support which a woman had in her own country was also stripped away.[14] Camp reinforced the legitimacy of this argument by arguing that women had suffered psychological and physical trauma from being humiliated, for example, by being forced to wear “deer horns … with bells on them” and this “flogging may have induced labour, for just two hours later the woman gave birth to a child in this lacerated condition.”[15] This had obviously stripped away the sanctity of childbirth and motherhood for black women and highlights that as White so perfectly puts it “only black women had their womanhood so totally denied.”[16]
D.G. White’s book is a timeless text which ought to be more revered in African-American history. White essentially debunks the idea that the lives of black women were simple or made easier by any means, but that of themselves. She paints a picture of black women creating a new type of woman, despite being abused, tortured and having everything stripped away from them. In essence, D.G. White’s book captures the strength and independence of the African-American female spirit.
Notes: [1] D. G. White, 'Ar'n't I a woman?', 1st ed., (W. W. Norton & Company 1999), p.14. [2] Ibid., p.162. [3] Ibid., p.29. [4] Ibid., p.29. [5] Ibid., p.27. [6] Ibid., p.29. [7] Ibid., p.47. [8] Ibid., p.50. [9] Ibid., p.57. [10] Ibid., p.27. [11] Ibid., p.28. [12] Stephanie Camp, ‘Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South’, (Gender and American culture). University of North Carolina Press, 2004, p.64. [13] White, p.114. [14] Ibid., p.109. [15] Ibid., p.57. [16] Ibid., p.162. Bibliography:
Camp, S. (2004). Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South (Gender and American culture). University of North Carolina Press, pp.44-67. White, D. (1999). Ar'n't I a woman?. 1st ed. W. W. Norton & Company.
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