White mistresses feared black slave women despite holding power over them

Evidence

Shared understanding of particular female experiences did not mediate relations between most white mistresses and black slave women. Though there were rare exceptions, they had little impact on the overall structure of relations between black and white women. Despite the brutal oppression of black female slaves, many white women feared them. They may have believed that, more than anything, black women wanted to change places with them, to acquire their social status, to marry their men. And they must have feared (given white male obsessions with black women) that, were there no legal and social taboos forbidding legalized relations, they would lose their status. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 188

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White mistresses often punished rather than protected sexually exploited slave women; White mistresses usually sided with their husbands against enslaved women — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 112; White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 191 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• White women’s fear of black women stems from servants witnessing their contradictions. #corroborates (0.93) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 203
• White women fear black women’s power to expose their hypocrisy #corroborates (0.88) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 203
• White women feared black women’s perceived immorality threatened their own status #expands (0.85) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 384
• White male sexual power over slaves redirected white women’s anger onto black women #expands (0.82) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 451
• White women’s affection for black servants coexisted with status domination they denied #qualifies (0.80) — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 191
• White mistresses often punished rather than protected sexually exploited slave women #expands (0.78)
• White mistresses usually sided with their husbands against enslaved women #expands (0.76) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 112
• Enslaved black women withheld the respect they granted white men from white mistresses #complicates (0.74) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 450
• Enslaved women absorbed anti-woman violence that white women otherwise faced #complicates (0.73) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 119
• White wives sometimes encouraged their husbands to take black mistresses. #complicates (0.72) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 181