"Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the slave-trader's hands as soon as possible, and thus getting them out of their sight. I am glad to say there are some honorable exceptions. ".

I find this part of the Jealous Mistress: from Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl to be interesting in the worst way. Historically it was common for slave owners to get young female slaves pregnant and sell those children off. It was something that was swept under the rug most of the time but every once in a while a case would be brought up. Most often these children would go on as slaves and never know who their biological father was.

This is a story with a sad beginning between two people and ends with four. It starts with a horrible interaction between the slave owner and the slave and ends with her, him, their child, and his wife. Some of these woman would marry a man knowing that he was already the father of many slaves others would go into the marriage and be naiive to the fact that he was forcing himself onto his female slaves. The later were the women that were mortified to discover his transgressions just as the case Harriet describes with her own situation.

These young girls are violated in every possible way. They have no privacy, no individual identity, their sexuality is violated and they are humiliated. This chapter clearly describes the way that they are used as a tool between husbands and wives and on plantations to acquire more slaves for the trade.

As a Student Hall Director I have many important conversations with young women on a daily basis. Sadly, some of these conversations remind me of the experiences described by Harriet and other young women affected by the slave trade. The emotional and physical abuse that occurs in the relationships of highschool and college age women is unreal. Many women have been subjected to this kind of abuse and have not been able to achieve healing or redemption because they first cannot forgive themselves for choices which may have led up to the assault or like the girls and women in the slave trade, they are manipulated beyond their own understanding. Manipulation is a key factor in all of this. Harriet mentions learning how to write and the way that her master would have frowned upon this and forced her to stop until he realized that it could be an advantage to him because he could write her notes; so that her verbal/emotional abuse could be received in a more secretive way. This is the same type of manipulation that goes on in relationships today.

We saw prime examples of this relationship aggression in the video clips from Wedding Crashers that we watched in class. Those men wanted one thing from those women:sex; they were going to do anything they could to reach that goal. They lied about everything and made up complete persona's in order to win the hearts... no not win the hearts but to get those girls to sleep with them. They didn't care about their hearts; again there was only one thing those guys wanted form those women.

This is the same mentality when characterized through men that leads to the stereotype: "all men are dogs".

How does this relate to Harriet Jacobs and the life of a slave girl?

All slave masters were men; most married; most "cheated" on their wives by soliciting their slaves for sex; or essentially raping them. All slave masters are characterized as brute forces, forcing themselves on women and children a like to get what they want; manipulating women into marrying them only to disregard those marriage vows for sex.



This brings me to another thought: the modern slave trade. All across the world young women are being prostituted by their own family members for money to by food in order to feed other children in the family. Or they are bought as sex slaves, there are entire massive rings of these being discovered everyday.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=676587n

"Hundreds of thousands of young, desperate girls are trafficked each year as sex slaves. Some are lured overseas with the promise of a good job, only to be enslaved once they arrive. Others are simply abducted". (This article from CBS news found at the link above) hosts videos and more information about the sex trafficking currently happening around the world.

As I said before there are multiple victims in these stories. Each page presents a new opportunity for someone to be made a victim. Harriet tells us that she felt sympathy for her masters wife because he was supposed stick to his marriage vows and make her happy yet he was doing the exact opposite.

Do you think some women in slavery used this jealousy factor to their advantage?

If all of these cases from the 1800's were revealed how many children in the slave trade do you think actually belonged to slave owners?





shoes of Holocaust Victims


What are the implications for slavery and power in the future if we have traveled a long journey from the 1800's with the African Slave Trade to genocide during the Holocaust to Sex Trafficking all over the world?

Self Reliance Relying on The Self

Becoming the Archetype of Self Reliance :
Alice and Ralph

"The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act of word, because the eyes of others have no other date for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them"

Ralph Waldo Emerson: ON Self Reliance:
Set all things aside, things of the world, self indulgence including charity and conformity in order to come to self awareness. In order to be yourself, to become whole and complete one must be centered on self reliance.

"Virtues are in the popular estimate rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pat a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade."

This is to say that virtues have no value but popular opinion?

A man must acquire the ability to judge another man's look of disapproval as a means of survival. "The bystanders look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor."


How do we rely on the self without self discovery? Without self awareness? How do we come to terms with ourselves when we cannot even carry a meaningful conversation with our self?

The self is a complex character, one that is mischievous misleading and deceiving even to the mind which it inhabits. The actual self, reflects the nature of others (close friends, relatives) and loathes the qualities which are opposite of those the desired self desires (for lack of a better word). We often see this competitive nature within our own psyche; the epic battle that rages between the actual self, the projected self and the desired self, these are who we are, who we think we are and who we wish we were. These are the me's the I's and the if only I were... that we look for everyday in our day to day struggle with the world. Pressures, media, influence, desires,wants, passions...these interfere with our understanding of our true self, our actual self. Emerson is trying to get to this literal idea of the self and the formation of that self in his essay Self-Reliance. I find that his ideas are both compelling and inhibiting in many ways.


Emerson's quotes are littered throughout the world found on postcards and in inspirational cards, "lift me up's" if you will. But honestly, this essay is depressing. If you look at it literally he says, cast off happiness, cast off pleasure and reward, cast off charity and religion because a man must rely entirely and completely on himself before he can advance in the world.

But one could also read this as positive in the truth that a man cannot fully love another until he loves himself and he cannot trust another until he trusts himself.

To bring it back to the quote I started with a man cannot trust himself completely until he believes in his own consistency. One cannot have truth without consistency. When a man is so encumbered by his past acts he cannot move forward he is not trusting of himself; Emerson describes this feeling as a fear of self trust.

The Pimp Vs.The Coquette

Eliza is searching for something more. She wants to be free to "date" as she pleases without the influence of others particularly the influence of her parents. After her first suitor an old man chosen by her parents dies due to illness she is excited to explore her options. Many express interest in her intellect, beauty and flirtatious nature yet, Stanford (the pimp) tries to seduce her and eventually succeeds. Boyer is a nice option, pious and gentle yet he has a motive of his own. Boyer is interested in finding a wife because he wants someone to love and have a family with he is in every way, ready to settle down. Eliza displays opposition to Boyer's claim of love because she does not want her freewill to be tied down in a marriage. Due to her desire for freedom Eliza makes a huge mistake in falling for Stanford's flattery. His flattery destroys her goodhearted qualities and leaves her void of herself.

This is a story of the struggle of passion and of social conformity. Conformity is often based on social rules of society, no matter how ridiculous those may seem at the time everyone is expected to conform in order to be considered 'normal'. Eliza resisted conformity when it came to her own relationships and her own ideals about social networking. Eliza like many of the protagonists of literature was far beyond her time. She like Emily Dickinson did not want to be stuck in a social conformity cloud. She was in a constant struggle of what was right and wrong vs. what was right for her.



This reminds me of the power of manipulation that we saw in Puritan society. How easy it is to get caught up in something appealing, menacing and evil? How easy is it to chose evil when what is seen as good is so boring and seemingly lacks insight? How hard is it to hold onto what is good and comfortable and pious when we can turn to the exciting, indulging things/people of the world?

Eliza struggled with wanting freedom from the opinion of others and not knowing how to decide for herself without the influence of others. Imagine how vastly different Puritan society would have been without the extreme importance of the opinion of others? How often did the people do organically what they thought was right without letting the ideas of others crowd their mind and alter their true feelings? Look at this in comparison to culture today: How many of you girls out there choose a guy without looking for a wink of approval from a mother/sister/bestfriend? How many of you guys have chosen a girl with out looking for a nod of approval from your dad/buddies/brother?

Too often we base the decisions we make on the opinions of others, the approval of others or rather the disapproval of others. When do we say enough is enough? When do we follow the decision that is true to ourselves? How do we decide what is true when the opinions of others are constantly interfering? Isn't the decision to follow our hearts/ our own intuition the most important decision we can make? These are the struggles Eliza faced and the decisions we face with each new challenge of life.

Eliza was most likely written as a symbolic version of what to do and not to do in this era. She was a woman who wanted the worldly things yet at the same time wanted nothing to do with it. She broke the rules. She resisted conformity.

MAN VS. WoMAN

WWE WWF... what ever they are calling it these days. Fake wrestling on television is disgusting. I do not think it is entertaining because it degrades women. I think in this country we too often see a fine line between entertainment and subjecting the rights of others. Entertainment should be something that challenges the intellect in a way that helps mold an idividuals' inward concept of self or outward view of the world. The type of wrestling we watched in that documentary is challenging no doubt but in a very different kind of way.

In looking at this documentary and the films 300 and Wedding Crashers we are presented with a very unique image of what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman.

A Man is obviously someone that should lie to women and children regardless in order to protect them from the truth. As we saw this in all of the above excluding 300. A man is a violent character that kills without looking back and treats women like dogs, literally making them crawl on their hands and needs and strip tease on command.

A woman is a submissive creature that is talked out of her pants with false heroism and bravery(the purple heart: Wedding Crashers). She will change her image in any way possible to please a man including undergoing painful expensive surgery (China). A woman is something to be attained, something containing monetary value (this we even see in the reading).

What does it mean this picture of a man and this picture of a woman have to coexist together?
Who is the weaker sex?
Is there a weaker sex?
In the end who has the ultimate power?

These are the questions we face in a society so obsessed with money, sex and beauty.