Black And White Women Of The Old South

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always proved that they had complete control and black women needed to bow to them. Gwin�s book discusses that the white male slave owners brought this onto the black women on the plantation. They would rape black women, and then instead of the white women dealing with their husbands. They would go after the black women only since the wives had no power over the husbands, but they maintained total control of the slaves, the white women would attack the black women and make their lives very diffucult. The white women would make sure that the black women understood that the white women completely hated the black women for being raped and wanted only pain for the them. This is how the black women of that time got the stereotypes of being very sexual beings and hated by there oppressors. You can see evidence of this when Gwin discussed the realities of such hatred in the book Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner. The main character, Clytie, sexual assaults by her male ...

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her power over him in their relationship which. As the husband himself describes as, what makes her the master and him the miller." (pg 133) The slave that caused this upset usually received many beatings and unnecessary overworking of the slave. At the time, this treatment was not unheard of and needed, the white slave owners used it as an example to show all slaves that they were not worth the air they breath except in the fields.
And even those who were not involved were treated as sub-human and found that life remained hard for them. Gwin describes the black communications with their oppressors as a surrogate mother and her children that need guidance, looking after, ...

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