Double Oppression

The writings of Harriet Jacobs and Sojourner Truth exemplify that the sufferings of black women were far worst than that of their male counterparts. All slaves were forced to endure the physical and emotional turmoil of bondage, however, for the enslaved woman, race and gender presented a double oppression. Women slaves experienced peculiar wrongs and injustices to which men slaves were not subject. These wrongs included sexual harassment and exploitation, denial of the basic rights and benefits of motherhood, and gender inequalities.

In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs dramatically documents the claim “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.” Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was a political effort to help other sisters in bondage by exposing the sexual inflictions placed upon slave women. Jacobs fash...