Gender Roles Issues - Essay Example

Through the character of Linda, Harriet Jacobs depicts that women's sexual abuse and physical violence are the main forms of humiliation and oppression. Sexual abuse of a slave woman is the expression of the male’s power and dominance of the owner. Jacobs describes that socially slave women used to be oppressed. They have no right to protect their dignity and freedom used to cultural norms followed by generations. “But I do earnestly desire to arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two million women in the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered, and most of them far worse” (Jacobs, 2003).

Similar to Jacobs, Frederick Douglass discusses the role of gender in society and its impact on relations between a slave and owner. Gender roles in ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass shape not only how people identify themselves and view the world but also how others identify and relate to them and how they are positioned within society. “Slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers” (Douglass, 1997). Both Jacobs and Douglass portray that women are traditionally associated with childbearing, child rearing, emotional caretaking, and responsibility for the physical maintenance of the household. In contrast, men are associated with the activities of wage labor, physical prowess, intellectual achievements, and political agency. “Slaveholders pride themselves upon being honorable men; but if you were to hear the enormous lies they tell their slaves, you would have small respect for their veracity” (Douglass, 1997). This gender labeling is so strong that even when women work, they typically do so in areas regarded as "women's work". Also, “Women are considered of no value unless they continually increase their owner's stock. They are put on a par with animals” (Jacobs, 2003). Labor markets are thus segregated horizontally by gender, with women and men differentiated in occupational roles.

The dominance of men adds aggression and cruelty to cultural dimensions and values. Both narratives under analysis describe masculine societies. Masculinity describes a society in which men are expected to be assertive, competitive, and concerned with material success, and women fulfill the role of nurturer and are concerned with issues such as the welfare of children. Lack of respect towards women results in norms and values which reflect gender roles. It means that men play a dominant position as keepers of traditions and customers in contrast to women who perform a reproduction function only. Jacobs portrays that even free women suffer from male oppression and low social roles. “Mrs. Flint, like many southern women, was deficient in energy. She had no strength to superintend her household affairs” (Jacobs, 2003).

Jacobs chose to write about gender roles faced with extreme violence and oppression during her young years. She underlines that emotional abuse is a socially accepted form of violence. The consequence of emotional abuse is that it causes the greatest distress resulting in betrayal of trust and responsibility involved. Douglass writes about gender roles because he was deprived life of a mother since his yearly childhood which caused great suffering and emotional distress to him. “But we, who were slave children, without father or mother, could not expect to be happy. We must be good; perhaps that would bring us contentment” (Douglass, 1997).

To avoid such situations, men show extreme domestic violence towards women. To some extent, this situation and women's oppression is caused by religious dogmas and traditions that play a crucial role in their communities. Christianity played a crucial role in the lives of all women. Christianity and the church was a strong force that dictated social norms and social order. Gender differences are evident in the following description of Christian values: If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of the church, no matter if it is the price of blood, he is called religious. If a pastor has offspring from a woman, not his wife, the church dismisses him, if she is a white woman; but if she is colored, it does not hinder his continuing to be their good shepherd (Jacobs, 2003).

The point is that stereotypes of gender (masculinity and femininity) have consequences for the difference between men's and women's experiences in, for example, work and exercising power.

In sum, during the period of slavery, gender roles determined social and family relations resulting in the low status of women and the dominance of men. Both authors express the same ideas concerning the oppression of women as s result of cultural development and traditions. The main forms of violence among women were sexual and physical abuse as a reflection of gender roles and slavery.