Historians have normalized and minimized the rape of enslaved black women.

Evidence

Modern historians tend to make light of the sexual exploitation of black women during slavery. In his Daughters of the Promised Land Page Smith writes: … Most young Southern men doubtless had their initial sexual experience with a compliant slave girl. It was not unnatural that many of them should continue to indulge themselves after their marriages. In addition there was undoubtedly the attraction of the perverse, of the taboo, the association of darkness with pleasant wickedness, the absence of any danger to the sexual exploiter however unwelcome his attentions may have been. Moreover, there was the tradition of Negro sensuality which may well have worked to make the white wife a more restrained sexual partner. Thus when the Southern male looked to slave women for his basic sexual satisfaction, he increasingly found them there. Since there seems to be in masculine sexuality a measure of aggressiveness and even sadism, passivity and defenselessness seem often to enhance the desirability of the sexual object which was what the Negro woman was for her white masters. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 85

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Black women under slavery were doubly enslaved by race and sex — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 26; Labeling black women as sexual savages enabled their rapes by denying their humanity.; Nineteenth-century sexual morality taught mistresses to blame enslaved women for rape — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 112 (+2 more)

Related

• Nineteenth-century sexual morality taught mistresses to blame enslaved women for rape (similarity 0.91)
• Labeling black women as sexual savages enabled their rapes by denying their humanity. (similarity 0.90)
• Rape of black women was ignored because they were seen as sexually permissive (similarity 0.90)
• Rape of black women was not a crime under slavery law (similarity 0.89)
• Rape of enslaved black women devalued black womanhood beyond slavery’s end. (similarity 0.88)
• Abolitionists who condemned rape still blamed enslaved women as accomplices. (similarity 0.88)
• Rape of enslaved women functioned as institutionalized terrorism, not lust (similarity 0.87)
• Sexual exploitation dehumanized black women more than labor exploitation did (similarity 0.87)
• Black women bore the brunt of slave-ship terror because they could not retaliate (similarity 0.86)
• Black women’s experiences were ignored and ridiculed as unworthy of study (similarity 0.85)
• Enslaved women absorbed anti-woman violence that white women otherwise faced (similarity 0.85)
• Devaluation of black womanhood licensed exploitation and prostitution (similarity 0.84)
• Sexism made the black female slave’s lot harsher than the male’s (similarity 0.84)
• Institutionalized sexism protected black male sexuality while legitimizing black female assault (similarity 0.84)
• White male sexual power over slaves redirected white women’s anger onto black women (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Rape of black women was ignored because they were seen as sexually permissive #corroborates (0.70)
• Labeling black women as sexual savages enabled their rapes by denying their humanity. #expands (0.60)
• Black women under slavery were doubly enslaved by race and sex #expands (0.50) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 26
• Nineteenth-century sexual morality taught mistresses to blame enslaved women for rape #expands (0.50) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 112
• Rape of enslaved women functioned as institutionalized terrorism, not lust #expands (0.50) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 78