SLAVERY, PART 5: SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN SLAVERY

TW/CW: Today we are discussing sexual violence, assault and rape during slavery. 

Any discussion of slavery would be incomplete without acknowledging the sexual violence that was perpetrated against enslaved people by their owners—men and women alike. As with other aspects of slavery, white women were far from innocent or ignorant regarding sexual intimidation, assault and rape. We shout out the podcast Intersectionality Matters from Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (who coined the term "intersectionality" and helped found Critical Race Theory) and discuss two articles including Intersectionality & the Role of White Women: An Analysis of Divorce Petitions from Slavery by Rachel Feinstein in the Journal of Historical Sociology.

NOTE: We deeply appreciate the author of the other article that we discuss in this episode reaching out to let us know that her scholarship has come a long way since she wrote this piece. She recommends following the work of Thavolia Glymph, Stephanie Jones-Rogers, Martha Hodes, and Thomas Foster to learn more about this topic. We thank her, and are inspired to (as best we can!) reach out to the scholars whose work we're learning from to ensure they still vouch for it. As a reminder, we are not professional historians—but we are committed to learning from the highest quality work out there to share with all of you. 

Also, if you need a break from this painful, traumatic, bleak history, check out the delightful middle-school-diary-reading show Mortified.