WGS 250 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1, 2: Angela Davis, Promiscuity, Underground Railroad
15 May 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
Women, Race, and Class
Angela Davis
1 – The Legacy of Slavery: Standards for a New Womanhood (3)
• Ulrich B Phillips
o Slavery gave African Americans civilization
• Scholars only debated about black men not black female slaves
o Sexual promiscuity
o Matriarchal
• Herbert Gutman’s investigation of the black family (4)
o “Family’s vitality proved stronger than the dehumanizing rigors of
slavery”
o Only sees women in terms of their wifely duties
• Setting the record straight
o More black women have always worked outside the home than white
women (5)
▪ That pattern started in slavery
▪ “Starting point for any exploration of black women’s
lives…their role as workers”
• Stereotypes
o Aunt Jemima and Black Mammy
• Reality
o Women were in the field with men
o “Strength and productivity under the threat of the whip outweighed
consideration of sex” (6)
o Victims of sexual abuse
▪ Flogged, mutilated, raped
o Forced women to have as many children as possible to get more
slaves (7)
▪ “Ideological exaltation of motherhood…did not extend to
slaves”
▪ They were just the breeders – their children could be sold
away from them
• Black men (8)
o Not the man of the house, not a patriarchy
▪ They were all subject to the same work and abuse
• Pregnant women were still forced to work
o After having new borns they would have to leave them and go back to
work in the field (9)
▪ Resulted in swollen breasts from not breast feeding
o Pregnant women were still abused
• “Women as substitutes for beasts of burden” (10)
o Pulling trams in mines
o Using white women in England instead of horses
• Female slaves were more cost effective (11)
