Women's Fight against Misogyny

During the age of slavery, women were often treated worse than African American men. Whereas men cannot produce children, women can. Slave owners took advantage of this and the misogyny against enslaved women. Since most women were fertile, they forced them to have children early. This was done so the slave owners could have more hands on deck and more money.

From the beginning of history, women were always treated like the lower class, as there were a lot of arguments that their job was only to have children or do house chores. The bias grew worse as history progressed, and it hit a whole new level under the power of misogyny. Women, despite the horrible treatment they endured, fought for their freedom.

As most slaves would recall before 1865, all the labor on the slave farm was forced. Women started at a young age, and as they grew older, they were assigned even more grueling tasks, including forced reproduction. The Hidden Voices exhibit defines women’s jobs as a “dual exploitation.” Women were mostly used to the advantage of their slaveholder to fulfill their sexual desires. Enslaved women started to have children as young as their first period.

Not only that, but the children usually spent no time with their mothers. They were taken from them as soon as they were born. Women were forced to return to work only a day or so after giving birth, to keep them in prime form, to reproduce even more children. As it is very important for a child to stay with their mother during their first year of life, most children do not receive that undeniable love. Heather Andrea’s book, Help Me to Find My People, explores these difficulties. She explains that while it is difficult to explore the emotions African American women faced, it is also crucial that people know their story.

Losing a child is heartbreaking. It is one of the worst things that a parent can experience, especially if the child is very young. As for the child, not staying with their parent is mentally exhausting and terrifying, as Andrea mentions on Page 22 of her book. “…the emotional lives of those African American children who experienced separation from families…”

Women were never able to support their children through the hardships of slavery. Many witnessed the death of their child right in front of their eyes, but the slaveholders did not give them a chance to grieve. An example is in Help Me to Find My People, when Andrea mentions that a baby was taken from her mother and beaten to death right in front of her2. As Andrea mentions, the whole situation is a “horror” story.2 Mothers did not know the fate of their children, and children did not know their own fate.

Some mothers who experienced such a traumatic death of a child developed mental illnesses. Andrea mentions a woman who developed epilepsy.2 It is no surprise that this happened to her, given the situation of her and her children.

To the slaveholders, women were not people at all. Instead, they were merely tools used for the holders’ pleasure and desires to have more slaves. Family was the least of their concerns. That, to any parent—not just women—is disastrous.

Even though the power of misogyny, gender roles, and racism, women fought back. The Hidden Voices exhibit mentions various ways they “resisted enslavement.”1 Thelma Jennings’s article, Sexual Exploitation of African-American Slave Women, also explores the idea of resentment. Women tried to stand up for themselves, but that most often resulted in a violent whipping, or the “bull whip,” as Jennings mentions. This was especially prevalent when women refused to marry the man that their Masters ordered them to. There was a strong woman, Ellen Rogers, whom Jennings touches on. Even though her master ordered her to marry a man, she refused to. Even after a violent whipping, she still did not follow through with her master’s orders.3

Marriage is known as the celebration of the love between two people, but that was not the case for slave women before 1865. The lore goes that they are the ones who say “yes” to the man’s engagement and determine where the wedding should take place, but most slave women never experienced how beautiful a marriage is supposed to be. The patriarchy wanted to do everything in its power to control them.

Since slave breeding was also such a huge issue with enslaved women, they tried to find ways to stop themselves from having children.

In another article, the author discusses how some ate a certain type of plant that rendered them infertile. It was an early form of birth control. Those who weren’t able to find these early forms of birth control could bear as many as nineteen children, like the woman Andrea talks about in her article.2 Those who were naturally infertile were either sold or worked to death.2 Even when a woman was going through the nine months of pregnancy, their masters continued to mistreat them. Some of those mistreatments were so horrifying that they affected the child and gave the woman PTSD.2

Hidden Voices discusses how important revolting was to enslaved Black women. They took advantage of the culture of their birthplace, such as songs, and challenged their masters by practicing it in the field. Hidden Voices says that, “they challenged slaveholders’ authority and preserved a sense of their own independence and humanity, even when unable to liberate themselves.” This form of resistance against misogyny was very important and is still explored today. Women, while they knew they were not free and that they still had many grueling years ahead, stayed strong. In a way, slavery made women extremely powerful and confident over their male counterparts. The tactic has been passed down through history and is still visible to this day.

Another way women escaped the patriarchy was by running away. The acclaimed Harriet Tubman comes to mind. She made sure slaves escaped unscathed. And again, women were able to get a sense of their self-identity and leave the world of cruelty by practicing their culture.1 That was especially important to those who were not able to leave the clutches of their masters.

A very grueling form of resistance is that some women even committed infanticide. That is, they killed their own children to protect them, especially their daughters, from misogyny. That came with its own set of punishments, but if women saw no other choice for their children, then they followed through with the dreadful act. Some women even went for a method that they “told their masters that they were already pregnant, when really, they weren’t.1

All these forms of resistance helped in women’s battle against misogyny, even though some resulted in death and not the liberation they were aiming for.

Before 1865, liberation was almost non-existent for slaves, but women did not give up. They believed that as long as they had their culture and their perseverance, they would thrive. They knew that they would one day be free again and live the life that they lost when under the influence of the patriarchy and misogyny.