Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet Essay

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself by Harriet Jacobs - Essay Example To help us understand this, we will tackle three topics; how slavery is more damaging to women than men, life in the North after the escape of Jacobs and how slavery undermined families in the south. Q1 Harriet Jacobs wrote a tale about life as slave and the challenges that she had to experience. The story exposes the bodily and emotional abuses a female has to endure when she is a slave. The story shows how women underwent terrible and traumatizing brutality of slavery than their male counterparts. Jacobs like many other slave women were sexually harassed by their white masters. According to the story, Jacobs was sexually teased and manipulated by Mr. Flint her master. Dr. Flint would usually remind her that she was her property and that he could as well do whatever he wanted with her. This made Jacob’s life to be uncomfortable and fearful. Dr. Flint would meet Jacobs at every turn, and remind her that she belonged to him, and swear by heaven and earth that one day, she will make her agree to her advancements. The situation was so traumatizing that Jacobs could hear Dr. Flint’s footsteps when she was relaxing after a long day of work. Whenever Jacobs would visit her mother’s grave, she would see a dark shadow of Dr. Flint following her. Life was so horrible for slave women that sexual exploitation was a daily affair for them. Jacob and other female slaves were psychologically abused and perplexed. They were subjected to abusive traditions that were thought to be socially right. For instance, for a female slave to be deemed a lady in the south, there were harsh conditions that they had to abide. This made Jacobs be haunted by the loss of her innocence when she was a kid. White females were required to keep themselves pure, and their homes were protected by the law and they had the freedom of choosing their partners. Female slaves on similarly, had no liberty to decide their partners, and it was hard for them to preserve themselves or to kee p themselves pure. Females were made to live in despair. Female slaves had to endure the hardships of motherhood in very harsh conditions. Motherhood set a different experience of women slaves from their male counterparts. Female slaves were subjected to a hard situation whereby they are forced to prioritize their activities Jacobs had to prioritize between being a slave and being a mother concerned about the welfare of her children. After Jacobs had learnt that Dr. Flint wanted to make her and her children slaves, she took the risk of escaping to save the destiny of her children, despite knowing the consequences that would happen to her if she was caught. Jacobs risked her body and mind and lived in complete seclusion in order for her children to be free. Female slaves were in charge of their families more than the slave fathers. The role of slave fathers was not much significant as they were sold far from their families. Q3 Though the north is seen as not supporting slavery, discr imination is very rampant. Whites and light skinned blacks are treated differently from the blacks. Black women were not supposed to mix with the whites in the North. Jacobs remembers a situation when she was the only black maid in a hotel and was unfairly treated. She was shown a seat in the hotel where she sat down, only for the waiter to come and tell her to sit the baby in the chair and to stand behind it on her feet. Jacob was told to wait to be shown where she was to take her meal from, which turned out to be the