Women In US History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Women In US History - Essay Example difference. But they have seldom talked about race (ibid 251). While white feminists have engaged in universalizing women’s culture and oppression from white (basically middle class) women’s experience and thereby failed to separate their whiteness from their womanness, Afro-American history also failed to examine the differential class and gender positions men and women occupy in black communities thereby constructing the image of a monolithic black community. This history reverberates with a male voice and is based on the experience of men (ibid 255-56). The social context for the construction of race as a tool for black oppression is historically rooted in the institution of slavery (ibid 256). The slaves were defined by law as â€Å"animate chattel†; they constituted property as well as a social class and were exploited under a system that sanctioned and institutionalized white ownership of black bodies and black labor. Women were denied right to their own bodies and sexuality. Women’s bodies and sexuality was under white ownership and this was institutionalized. It formed and essential part of the system of subordination and exploitation. The children the female slaves gave birth to immediately became the property of the slave masters (ibid 257). It reminds me of Alice Walker’s â€Å"Meridian†, where Meridian’s mother explained to her that Emancipation to female slaves meant that they could retain their own children. In the eyes of the slaveholders, slave women were not mothers at all. They were merely instruments guaranteeing the growth of the slave labor force. They were classified as â€Å"breeders†, animals as opposed to mothers. Hence, their infant children could be sold away like â€Å"calves from cows†. Courts ruled that female slaves had no legal claims on their children (Davis 7). Hard labor in the fields from sunrise to sunset was the norm. Where work was concerned, strength and productivity under the threat of the whip