Gender Differences In Slavery

Slavery does nothing but ruin manhood, and womanhood alike. Although some things between the two genders do not compare in the slightest. All of their labor is chosen based on their strength, and skills. Their looks are the key to whether, or not they will get certain jobs, raped, or punished. Gender impacts many outcomes in life, especially for slaves. Gender truly dictates how men, and women were treated differently. These qualities are demonstrated in the nonfiction articles Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, and The Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs. These articles explain the troubles of being a slave for men and women.
Labor is a big key in the difference gender has affected life of slaves. While …show more content…
Douglass and Jacobs show the examples of punishments as being horrid, and unsettling. For men, physical beatings seemed more of a punishment. “He then gave me a savage kick in the side, and told me to get up. I tried to do so, but fell back in the attempt. He gave me another kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried, and succeeded by in gaining my feet; but, stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell. While down in this situation, Mr. Covey took up the hickory slact with which Hughes had been striking off the half-bushel measure, and with it gave me a heavy blow upon the head, making a large wound, and the blood ran freely” (9). While punishments for men were more brutal, womens being punished was just as awful, it was less physical, and more emotional. Jacobs states that a woman was separated from her child, making it an emotional abuse instead of actual physical violence. “This poor woman endured many cruelties from her master and mistress; sometimes she was locked up, away from her nursing baby, for a whole day and night” (8).Slaveholders punished the slaves based on what they think would hurt them the most. They would attack women’s mental state and children, and go after a man’s physical stability and strength. This not only shows the manipulation slaveholders have …show more content…
Not only was labor worse for men the punishments were meant to be harsher for them as well. Women had to deal with more emotional abuse rather than physical. While both were are very awful, men take the worst of it. For women the assault of slaveholders were something that men did not have to put up with when it came to punishments. While both men, and women dealt with awful treatment from slaveholders, there is a line between men and women that slaveholders