Controlling Images: Enslaved Women in Greek and Roman Comedy

This chapter analyzes the lives of enslaved women in the nineteenth-century United States and the Caribbean, an era characterized by the massive expansion of the institution of chattel slavery. Framing the discussion through the themes of labor, commodification, sexuality, and resistance, this chapter highlights the wide range of lived experiences of enslaved women in the Atlantic World. Enslaved women’s productive and reproductive labor fueled the global machinery of capitalism and the market economy. Although enslaved women endured the constant exploitation and commodification of their bodies, many actively resisted their enslavement and carved out supportive and sustaining familial, marital, and kinship bonds. In addition, this essay explains how white, native, and black women could be complicit in the perpetuation of chattel slavery as enslavers and slave traders. Considering women in their roles as the oppressed and the oppressors contributes and expands historical understandings of gender and sexuality in relation to slavery.

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"Mad" Enough to Kill: Enslaved Women, Murder, and Southern Courts

The Journal of African American History ◽

10.1086/jaahv92n1p37 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 92 (1) ◽

pp. 37-56 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Wilma King

Keyword(s):

Enslaved Women

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Choosing love, marriage and the traditional role

Gender and Language ◽

10.1558/genl.19205 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Camila Montiel McCann

Keyword(s):

Gender Difference ◽

Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

White Women ◽

Critical Discourse ◽

Traditional Role ◽

Controlling Images ◽

Love Marriage ◽

Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis ◽

Hegemonic Femininity ◽

Second Wave

Stereotypes of white women have historically limited their identities to that of wife and mother. Though restrictive, this type of femininity has been mobilised to create hierarchies of womanhood that legitimate this form and subordinate others. However, social change since the feminist second wave has seen the renegotiation of women’s position, and contemporary antiracist and LGBTQIA+ discourse has seen further departure from traditional ideals of femininity. Mass media is a dominant site where controlling images of women are negotiated and in which dominant, or hegemonic, forms emerge. This article applies Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to examine popular British gossip magazine Heat’s romance and sex narratives for discourse which (re)produces, negotiates or challenges hegemonic femininity. Through the appropriation of feminist language, Heat propagates an updated hegemonic femininity which preserves the racio-patriarchal discourse of gender difference whilst pacifying feminist audiences. Estereótipos de mulheres brancas historicamente limitam suas identidades aos papéis de esposas e mães. Embora redutoras, essas categorias têm sido mobilizadas com o objetivo de criar hierarquias de feminilidade que as legitimam enquanto subordinam outras formas do feminino. Contudo, desde a segunda onda do feminismo, mudanças sociais relativas à renegociação do lugar da mulher assim como discursos antirracistas e pró-LGBTQIA+ têm possibilitado um distanciamento dos ideais tradicionais de feminilidade. A mídia de massa veicula imagens de mulheres que acabam se tornando dominantes e hegemônicas. Este artigo aplica a Análise Feminista Crítica do Discurso a narrativas de romance e sexo veiculadas na popular revista inglesa Heat e investiga discursos que (re)produzem, negociam ou desafiam a feminilidade hegemônica. Através da apropriação do discurso feminista, a revista Heat propaga uma versão atualizada de feminilidade hegemônica que preserva discursos patriarcais racializados da diferença de gênero ao mesmo tempo em que tenta apaziguar o público feminista.

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An Intimate Economy

10.5149/northcarolina/9781469661353.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alexandra J. Finley

Keyword(s):

Slave Trade ◽

The Body ◽

Cotton Production ◽

Women's Labor ◽

Enslaved Women ◽

Slave Traders ◽

Women's Lives ◽

Personal Histories ◽

Southern Society ◽

Lower South

Alexandra Finley adds crucial new dimensions to the boisterous debate over the relationship between slavery and capitalism by placing women's labor at the center of the antebellum slave trade, focusing particularly on slave traders' ability to profit from enslaved women's domestic, reproductive, and sexual labor. The slave market infiltrated every aspect of southern society, including the most personal spaces of the household, the body, and the self. Finley shows how women’s work was necessary to the functioning of the slave trade, and thus to the spread of slavery to the Lower South, the expansion of cotton production, and the profits accompanying both of these markets. Through the personal histories of four enslaved women, Finley explores the intangible costs of the slave market, moving beyond ledgers, bills of sales, and statements of profit and loss to consider the often incalculable but nevertheless invaluable place of women's emotional, sexual, and domestic labor in the economy. The details of these women's lives reveal the complex intersections of economy, race, and family at the heart of antebellum society.

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The Risk of Birth

Journal of Global Slavery ◽

10.1163/2405836x-20212100 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-31

Author(s):

Hannah Barker

Keyword(s):

Maternal Mortality ◽

Pregnant Women ◽

Fifteenth Century ◽

Life Insurance ◽

Third Party ◽

Potential Contribution ◽

Reproductive Labor ◽

Enslaved Women

Abstract Why did fifteenth-century Genoese slaveholders insure the lives of enslaved pregnant women? I argue that their assessment of the risks associated with childbirth reflected their views on the connection between slavery, property, and lineage. Genoese slaveholders saw the reproductive labor of enslaved women as a potential contribution to their lineage as well as their property. Because their children by enslaved women might become their heirs, Genoese slaveholders were inclined to worry about and seek protection against the risk of maternal mortality. In the context of the commercial revolution and the rise of third-party insurance, they developed life insurance for enslaved pregnant women to complement the fines already required of those who illegally impregnated enslaved women and thereby endangered their lives.

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