Enslaved women were no more sexually liberated than white women.

Evidence

These diary entries indicate that Chesnut held enslaved black women responsible for their fate. Her wrath and anger is aimed at them and not at white men. Although stereotypical images of black womanhood during slavery were based on the myth that all black women were immoral and sexually loose, slave narratives and diaries of the 19th century present no evidence that they were in any way more sexually “liberated” than white women. The great majority of enslaved black women accepted the dominant culture’s sexual morality and adapted it to their circumstances. Black slave girls were taught, like their white counterparts, that virtue was woman’s ideal spiritual nature and virginity her ideal physical state, but knowledge of the acceptable sexual morality did not alter the reality that no social order existed to protect them from sexual exploitation. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 173

Categorization

• XREF: Directly counters the ‘jezebel’ stereotype hooks challenges throughout; connects to later Black feminist scholarship on controlling images of black women. — connects to: Enslaved people also absorbed the view of women as temptresses — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 112; Enslaved women absorbed anti-woman violence that white women otherwise faced — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 119; Enslaved women’s unpaid labor did not produce feminist consciousness but resentment at denied womanhood — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 161

Related

• Enslaved women’s unpaid labor did not produce feminist consciousness but resentment at denied womanhood (similarity 0.89)
• The cult of true womanhood demoralized enslaved women and enabled manipulation (similarity 0.87)
• Enslaved women absorbed anti-woman violence that white women otherwise faced (similarity 0.87)
• White women, not white men, were slavery’s most direct beneficiaries (similarity 0.86)
• Slavery forced black women into work independence, not voluntary choice (similarity 0.86)
• Sexism made the black female slave’s lot harsher than the male’s (similarity 0.85)
• Enslaved black women withheld the respect they granted white men from white mistresses (similarity 0.85)
• Enslaved people also absorbed the view of women as temptresses (similarity 0.85)
• Black slave gender roles replicated white patriarchal divisions of labor (similarity 0.85)
• Black women bore the brunt of slave-ship terror because they could not retaliate (similarity 0.85)
• Black men asserted dominance over women to compensate for losing to white men (similarity 0.85)
• Sexual exploitation dehumanized black women more than labor exploitation did (similarity 0.85)
• Enslaved black people internalized their owners’ patriarchal sex roles (similarity 0.84)
• Public nakedness was deliberately used to degrade enslaved women (similarity 0.84)
• Black women’s exploitation is better described as masculinization than black men’s de-masculinization. (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Enslaved women’s unpaid labor did not produce feminist consciousness but resentment at denied womanhood #corroborates (0.25) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 161