Rape of enslaved women functioned as institutionalized terrorism, not lust

Evidence

The political aim of this categorical rape of black women by white males was to obtain absolute allegiance and obedience to the white imperialistic order. Black activist Angela Davis has convincingly argued that the rape of black female slaves was not, as other scholars have suggested, a case of white men satisfying their sexual lust, but was in fact an institutionalized method of terrorism which had as its goal the demoralization and dehumanization of black women. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 78

Categorization

• XREF: This is the theoretical cornerstone of hooks’s later analysis of intersectionality; connects to Angela Davis’s ‘Women, Race and Class’ and to Black radical feminist theory generally. — connects to: Rape of black women was ignored because they were seen as sexually permissive; Dehumanization causes perpetrators to perceive victims as nonhuman and therefore not entitled to moral obligation — Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence; Historians have normalized and minimized the rape of enslaved black women. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 85 (+5 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 78

Related

• Historians have normalized and minimized the rape of enslaved black women. (similarity 0.87)
• Rape of black women was not a crime under slavery law (similarity 0.86)
• Rape of black women was ignored because they were seen as sexually permissive (similarity 0.85)
• Enslaved women absorbed anti-woman violence that white women otherwise faced (similarity 0.84)
• Rape of enslaved black women devalued black womanhood beyond slavery’s end. (similarity 0.84)
• Black women bore the brunt of slave-ship terror because they could not retaliate (similarity 0.83)
• Labeling black women as sexual savages enabled their rapes by denying their humanity. (similarity 0.83)
• Sexual exploitation dehumanized black women more than labor exploitation did (similarity 0.83)
• Slave sexual violence was punishment, with the master’s deviance transferred to the woman (similarity 0.83)
• Enslaved people also absorbed the view of women as temptresses (similarity 0.83)
• Public nakedness was deliberately used to degrade enslaved women (similarity 0.83)
• Institutionalized sexism protected black male sexuality while legitimizing black female assault (similarity 0.83)
• Rape functioned as a tool of control and manipulation on plantations. (similarity 0.83)
• Nineteenth-century sexual morality taught mistresses to blame enslaved women for rape (similarity 0.82)
• Terrorization aboard slave ships forced Africans to adopt the slave identity. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Institutionalized sexism protected black male sexuality while legitimizing black female assault #expands (0.75) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 66
• Rape of black women was ignored because they were seen as sexually permissive #expands (0.70)
• Public nakedness was deliberately used to degrade enslaved women #expands (0.70) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 114
• Enslaved people responded to violence through collaboration, avoidance, or counter-terror #complicates (0.60) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 183
• Enslaved people also absorbed the view of women as temptresses #expands (0.55) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 112