little freedoms
Freedom is defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action. If there is one group of people in American history who are subjected to more coercion and constraint in choice and action it has to be the black female slave. Slaves in general face constraints on their freedoms by nature of being slaves. Women, on the other hand, have been oppressed into submissive roles throughout human history. These constraints on the freedoms of women are reinforced by laws and customs in many parts of the world, even today. Women do almost all of the world's domestic work and childcare without pay. In total it is estimated that women work two-thirds of all hours worked, and yet only receive a tenth of the world's income. With that said it is difficult to imagine what small freedoms, if any, a female slave had so many years ago. Deborah Gray White's book Ar'n't I a Woman takes a hard look the issues and horri
The freedom of the female slave is held hostage on all sides. Thus, a woman's chance for a successful escape was slim. It is limited by the laws, the slave owners, and the oppressive society with witch it is surrounded. White put it best when she said the slave woman "did not dominate the slave marriage and relationship. 152) Clearly female slaves were on the bottom of the social food chain. One such case occurred in 1859 when a slave in Mississippi was sentenced to death for the rape of a ten year-old female slave. As it turns out this practice was not discouraged and "few attempts were made to keep crew members of slave ships from molesting African women. Another reason why women ran away less than men was because they rarely preformed any tasks that required them to leave the plantation. Women were not shackled on most ships, and may have enjoyed more mobile freedoms than their male counterparts, but were often sexually exploited at the same time.
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,
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Acceptance Essays
