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Ellen Craft By Stephanie Mccurry: A Literary Analysis

1384 Words6 Pages

Many environmental influences helped shape women's status within society and shaped their dependency, regardless of race, age, marital status, or place of birth. Women, whether free, indentured, or enslaved regardless of race faced oppression through laws that shape the treatment of the different classes and women of color. However, enslaved women faced a far worse oppression in many ways. The continued oppression was an everyday struggle for enslaved women, and created an environment where they fought frequent objectification due to gender and race. The molding definition of gender in regards to race will determine how different races interact and coexist. National ideology will begin to mold perception of women and their worth among the new European economy. By having little ability to be an independent individual women are deemed property of men. African women and the …show more content…

The foundation of a man’s freedom and manhood was established by his ability to be independent. Stephanie McCurry states, “arguments about female submission not only naturalized slavery; they confirmed masculinity” (McCurry p.9). The story of William and Ellen Craft, a married couple who escaped slavery, shows the importance of gender and race, and how they utilize it to achieve their freedom. Ellen Craft, daughter of a slave and white plantation owner, dresses up as a white man, and her husband William pretends to her slave in order to Travel North to Philadelphia. On their journey to freedom they encounter law enforcement at a train station where William’s master, his wife, is asked to show proper paperwork to travel out of Baltimore to Philadelphia with a slave. Ellen spoke “in a voice and manner that almost chilled [their] blood” (p.229) when speaking with the authorities, and with persistence and rights of a white man Ellen and William were able to board the train to

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In the book Ar’n’t I a women the author, Deborah Gray White, explains how the life was for the slave women in the Southern plantations. She reveals to us how the slave women had to deal with difficulties of racism as well as dealing with sexism. Slave women in these plantations assumed roles within the family as well as the community; these roles were completely different to the roles given to a traditional white female. Deborah Gray White shows us how black women had a different experience from the black men and the struggle they had to maintain their sense of womanhood against all odds, resist sexual oppression, and keep their families together. In the book the author describes two different types of women, “Jezebel” and “Mammy” they

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Race, gender, and class, while commonly thought of as separate, are deeply intertwined with one-another. In his book Iron Cages, Ronald Takaki explores and lays out both the ways in which these three connected the ways they are not and the underlying reasons as to why. Following will be the analysis of the three in pairs, so as to better break down the comparisons among the three in relation to one another, concluded with the intersection of all three. Beginning with race and gender, it goes without says that masculinity was emphasized when referring to peoples of color, and femininity was emphasized when referring to white people. This appears to have been used as a way to paint people of color as threats whilst maintaining the white person

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At some point in an individual's lifetime, they will be faced with the judgement of race, class, and gender. These three classifications will cause people to be looked down upon, or become a praised individual. Also, you can receive unjust treatment in certain cases, such as someone thinking they are somehow better than another person. In “To Kill A Mockingbird”, there is a character by the name of Mayella Ewell, who is a poor, white woman that is abused. Mayella is a un-powerful character in the fact that she is a female, and she is very poor.

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Sally Hemings was a slave on the Monticello plantation in the late 18th century, and her experience helps us to understand that her gender aided the way she was treated versus if they went by the color of her skin (Dilkes Mullins). {Woman during this era were thought of as property, they were objectified, they were treated poorly and had no choice. Their husbands were liable for anything that they did} [Being a female during this era outweighed what one 's social status was. It did not matter what race you were, but if you were a woman, you were treated as such] (Dilkes Mullins). Ms. Hemings was a beautiful sixteen-year-old enslaved girl (Gordon-Reed, 102) who was more than just a slave on the Monticello plantation.

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Furthermore, the process of racialization is inherently gendered. Because Black people are not humanized, they are not permitted access to gender in the same way as their white counterparts. During slavery, Black women simultaneously faced gendered violence including rape while being hypermasculinized to perform manual labor. On the other hand, Black men could not access masculine privileges of protecting their families or owning property. Because the racial formations of Blackness rely on these gendered assumptions, gender continues to influence the way Blackness is

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Based on their ethnicity, gender, and economic situation, the characters in the book experience prejudice and marginalization. The experiences of black women, who confront particular difficulties because of their ethnicity and gender, are highlighted in the book. Black women still experience bias and discrimination in both the job and in their personal life, which is a problem

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Initially, the book began with mentioning the horrifying incidents of rapes, whipping and auctioning of female black slaves, and contrasted the way of how white southerner females were shielded from becoming a subject of perversion. As supported by White’s words, “Southerner white women were kept free and pure from taint of immorality, because black women acted as a buffer against their degradation” (19). It has been proved by this statement that black women had been mistreated by the Whites Southerners and there was no law and order system to grant them justice. On the contrary, the manner of protecting their white women/ wives depicted that even White Southerners considered this as an act of humiliation. Later, the focus shifted to making motherhood as the primary goal for the young black women, and the author also disclosed some life details of the elderly women.

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Forms of Oppression Today Society has a unique way of viewing women and labeling them as “submissive”. Even though there is a typical view of women, imagine having to deal with stereotypes for being a black woman in the time of slavery. The picture changes for a woman. First, she is no longer a woman but instead she is property in a man’s eye. Next, she is not assumed to be “weak” or “submissive” but she was told and taught that she and has no power or say so to change it.

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Kaye Gibbons once remarked that “someone once told me...writing is an act of faith. Another person told me that forgiving is also an act of faith. That’s true. I think both heal, both are arts. What a fine thing it is to do both at once” (Gibbons).

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Today, oppressed women around the world still face difficulty regarding their personal survival, and the survival of their children in their communities. Butler, however, does a tremendous job in presenting the struggle of a woman with their limited ability to help themselves and their love ones. Another key contribution to women oppression is young men and the examples that they have in their lives. Rufus the boy/men from Kindred doesn’t respect the females slave, not even his mother. “He had spent his life watching his father ignore, even sell the children he had had with black women.

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In a way, it true that this can be preserved as equalizing, but it is not. It is subjugating the entire ethnicity group. Within Angela Davis' Women, race and Class, she explains how in the fields female slave worker where not regarded as "women" that could not engage in hard laborer instead they simply part of the labor force (1983, 6). The African

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Slaves were beaten and whipped, separated from their families and were viewed as property in the eyes of the law. However despite the similarities between the two sexes, there were many differences. Women were treated far more worse than their male counterparts. The male slave was considered to be more valuable.

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This is seen in the Virginia Slave Codes, in which black femininity was harshly policed through laws that outlined racial differences and stripped black women of privileges, effectively blocking them from power. The Virginia Slave Codes explicitly denied black women of basic human rights, rights that white people enjoyed on an everyday basis. In every colony, European women and men lived a range of lives, from poor indentured servants to wealthy aristocrats, whereas black women were subjugated to the lowest of ranks. Because they were born in a black, female body, their status was disregarded and they were sentenced to generations of discrimination.

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Gender discrimination is the common and prevailing issue whether in the past or the present. The history of gender discrimination can date back to 1500. And the American gender discrimination is with the slave trade. In the American slavery system, the men were usually the skillful workers and were put in an important position. Women slaves had the ignoble work and their masters could control their fertility.

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