Question

Discuss the reasons behind the sexual abuse of black women after the abolition of slavery in the US in 1865

Answer 1

"The breakup of the abolitionist coalition and the rise of a new group of black leaders in the 1840s and 1850s led black abolitionists to place a greater value on manual labor rather than moral perfection as a method of racial uplift for blacks. However, black abolitonists distinguished between meaningful skilled labor, and "degraded" occupations such as domestic service and waiting tables. Such distinctions grew out of a general ideology about labor in the antebellum period, rooted in republican thought, which devalued personal service occupations as not providing workers with sufficient independence from employers. Among blacks, such distinctions also grew out of the experience of slavery, in which domestic and other personal servants were more subject to the will of their masters than other workers, and at worst, were also subject to sexual abuse by them."

Answer 2

you have to think in the eras mind set . forget today . forget what you see and hear . at that era in time women in general had no rights. so a black woman had even less rights and was considered dis possible sounds hard ?. they were considered "sorry" like cattle. white women were thought of as possessions. at that point on time it was acceptable to beat your wife and kids . it was the mans role and considered personal. "the family's business". as long as no one was killed what a man did in his house was his business and no one had anything to say.. we forget much as time goes on that was what was so great before the television came about.. family's talked at diner people spoke with one another.and everyone had human contact.. people understood times past through stories passed down through generations .. now we have a hard time thinking woh was that possible ?. we have come a long way in the past 5 years . your talking about something that happened much longer.. so that is why it can be hard to comprehend the mindset.. . did this help

Answer 3

Speculation but probably correct. When Black women were owned by plantation owners they were protected by the plantation owner. If anyone abused them or raped them then the plantation owner would hunt that person down and probably hang them. They would certainly have all the support of the other plantation owners to protect their “property”. . . When slavery was abolished the plantation owners no longer had “interest”. Unfortunately the people just set free had no protection. The police department and legal system will still the same as it was before the war. So being an ex-slave and running to the police would probably only lead to being abused by the police.. . Developing a law or winning the war that does not take into account the ramifications will always lead to this. Look at Iraq now, we won the war but it seems the war between the people is just starting. Before it was kept in check by Saddam's strict enforcement. Now freedom allows people to take vengeance on one another in a way that law enforcement cannot control.. . Mark

Answer 4

If you are throwing things out like that, you should have an information source, therefore it should explain why. Maybe the problem is that most were not. That is the equivalent to asking why all women have brown hair.

Answer 5

I am assuming you are referring to abuse by white men. Although slavery was abolished, we were still treated like slaves for a long period of time. Many slaves ended up "working" for there original masters. Within this arrangement many of the women were probably abused and raped as if they were still slaves. It wasn't a big deal back then for slave masters to impregnate young black women.

Answer 6

For the same reason sexual abuse goes on today, and not necessarily black women. A women is intimidated by her preditor who she believes has some sort of power over her (be it her slave master, husband, boss, landlord, even drug dealer). The end result is the sad reality called sexual abuse and it happens all over the world. But to the root of your question, black women feared white men. They were born and taught to fear them. So just because slavery was abolished, do you seriously think that they would no longer fear the men they saw rape their mothers, kill their fathers and brothers, and do it just because of the color of their skin?

Answer 7

because they were easy targetsthey had no rights or if they did they didnt know it

Answer 8

Black women were the least protected segment of the recently freed population and therefore easy targets for abuse and rape.. . Having been separated from husbands, their natural protectors, there was little they could do to help themselves. Who, in the deep South, would step up to protect such helpless people?. . Remember that across all of America women of all backgrounds were being legally treated as second class citizens.. . The Civil War ended in '65 but it would be hard to prove that slavery was truly abolished at that time. True, slaves were freed.. But the reality is that the social and personal behaviors of slavery continued well into the 20 century.

Answer 9

Because black women a friggin hot. Duh.

Answer 10

because they were as slaves .