Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl Gender Analysis

While black men faced unspeakable work conditions and sickening strikes from a cow skin whip, black women faced their purity being stripped away like a theft in the night. In the novel, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs, Harriet describes the cruelty of her experience as a female slave. Frederick Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass to illustrate the devastating pain of being a male slave. While white men and women viewed themselves above black slaves, and treated them gruesomely, gender determined a slave’s position in the household regarding their role as a slave. With starving stomachs and blood rolling down their backs, African Americans would be tied up without any reason, and be whipped to the point of death due to the cruelty of a slaveholder. Slaves were only allowed a weekly allowance of food which would barely feed a tiny child. The allowance only included “three pounds of meat and a peck of corn.” Douglass exposed a small portion of this cruel when stating a slaveholder would, “cut a slave in places already made raw with his cruel lash.” Male and female slaves …show more content…
Jacob’s stated white slave holders, “compel her” to submit to him. White slaveholders would also favor certain female slaves and instead of whipping them, he would send them to the fields to work instead. Black women slaves were required to do everything the owner told them to do no matter how immoral the request was. While black women worked in the household, black men worked outside in the fields regardless the blazing heat or freezing winds. If black men did not work fast enough or speak when told to do so, the consequence would lead to death or severe torture decided by the slaveholder. Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass experienced inhumane acts towards then which shows how gender determined the acts upon