Reviews tagging 'Rape'

They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

12 reviews

princxporkchop's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Kidnapping, Terminal illness, Slavery, Child abuse, Murder, Medical content, Medical trauma, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Blood, Child death, Genocide, Misogyny, Torture, Miscarriage, Racism, Ableism, Sexual assault, Colonisation, Death, Grief, Hate crime, Infertility, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Confinement, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Rape, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, and Gore

almostqualified's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Trafficking, and Racial slurs

Moderate: Physical abuse and Misogyny

Minor: Rape

tascaraudo's review against another edition

challenging reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Captivating read. I was regularly shocked by the contents, in the sense that I hadn't heard of nor ever thought about situations the author discussed. Particularly the discussion of wet nursing felt so surprising, yet obvious at the same time.

I am struck by how very much enslaved people were viewed as objects.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism

Moderate: Violence, Grief, Physical abuse, Slavery, Pregnancy, Racism, Confinement, Death, and Rape

I found this book to be "easy" to read in the sense that sentences and paragraphs flowed well. It was never a chore to read. But the content itself is not easy to digest. Necessary read in my opinion.

wolf013's review against another edition

dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Kidnapping, Murder, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Death, Child abuse, Physical abuse, Slavery, War, Colonisation, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Hate crime, Child death, and Miscarriage

Minor: Rape, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

djspiderman's review against another edition

challenging informative slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Racism, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Slavery, Sexual assault, Rape, Murder, Child death, and Torture

bootsmom3's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Child abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Violence, Classism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Infidelity, and Slavery

adrigodebison's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

4.5

This book should be required reading. Not only does it have vast amounts of information and documentation, but it is really well written. 
(I would also suggest looking at the content warnings)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, Child death, Colonisation, Sexual violence, Slavery, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Racism, Genocide, Racial slurs, and Torture

Moderate: Rape

c100's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Colonisation, Religious bigotry, Racism, Gore, Racial slurs, Violence, Torture, Sexual violence, Genocide, and Physical abuse

Moderate: War and Rape

allisonwonderlandreads's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

They Were Her Property turns an academic eye on white women as slave owners in the United States and as full participants and beneficiaries of slavery as a system. They were not bystanders. Their delicate female sensibilities were not protected from the slave trade. They were calculating, economic minds that knew how to navigate the system for their own gain. This narrative is a reminder of the importance of intersectional feminism. Correcting the dominant historical narrative to acknowledge women's agency isn't an uncomplicated victory for women because it demands white women abandon using gender to absolve ourselves of guilt. The author chronicles how white women were busy framing their own experiences in the postwar era to distance themselves from slavery or to cast a maternal, nurturing light on their past behaviors. Historical documents and recorded interviews do not uphold that story.

I love returning to academic nonfiction for the miles of footnotes and precise connections between evidence and argument. This book is especially compelling for the variety of source material and for consulting overlooked and dismissed accounts. Newspapers, court documents, and contracts are bolstered with white women's diaries and personal or business correspondence. The author also directly quotes from WPA interviews with formerly enslaved people, who give valuable insights into the actions and thoughts of their mistresses in the home, where no written records reach. Their voices are one of the most powerful aspects of the book beyond the strengths of the central thesis.

What most struck me about this book, of the many carefully laid arguments, was the concept that slavery was inescapable in the United States, especially but not limited to life in the South. It permeated public and private spheres, it was the economic foundation of society, and there was no way to shield white women from its practices, even to support a feminine ideal. And the author makes it clear that this futile goal wasn't even actively sought. White women were taught how to be slave mistresses from childhood, they received slaves in their own right to mark important life events, and they were more than capable of managing their own wealth whether through business (buying/selling/hiring) decisions or philosophy towards the care and discipline of slaves they owned.

I highly recommend this as an opportunity to reevaluate your understanding of a crucial, dark aspect of American history with clear implications for current events. It's especially important for white women to become familiar with this information not only as a way of taking responsibility for our own history but to prevent ourselves from becoming comfortable in a harmful, fallacious white feminism viewpoint.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, and Slavery

Moderate: Torture, Child abuse, Murder, Violence, Physical abuse, Rape, and Sexual assault

Minor: War, Body horror, Confinement, and Child death

pupandpint's review against another edition

challenging informative medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery

Moderate: Rape and Violence