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This book is the first to develop a history of the analogy between woman and slave, charting its changing meanings and enduring implications across the social movements of the long nineteenth century. Looking beyond its foundations in the antislavery and women's rights movements, this book examines the influence of the woman-slave analogy in popular culture along with its use across the dress reform, labor, suffrage, free love, racial uplift, and anti-vice movements. At once provocative and commonplace, the woman-slave analogy was used to exceptionally varied ends in the era of chattel slavery and slave emancipation. Yet, as this book reveals, a more diverse assembly of reformers both accepted and embraced a woman-as-slave worldview than has previously been appreciated. One of the most significant yet controversial rhetorical strategies in the history of feminism, the legacy of the woman-slave analogy continues to underpin the debates that shape feminist theory today.
List of contents
1. Women's Rights, Feminism, and the Politics of Analogy.- Part 1: Transatlantic Social Movements.- 2. "All Women are Born Slaves": Abolitionism and Women's Transatlantic Reform Networks.- 3. "Bought and Sold": Antislavery, Women's Rights, and Marriage.- Part II: Between Public and Private.- 4. "Tyrant Chains": Fashion, Anti-Fashion, and Dress Reform.- 5. "Degrading Servitude": Free Labor, Chattel Slavery, and the Politics of Domesticity.- Part III: Political Slavery and White Slavery.- 6. "Political Slaves": Suffrage, Anti-Suffrage, and Tyranny.- 7. "Slavery Redivivus": Free Love, Racial Uplift, and Remembering Chattel Slavery.- 8. "Lady Emancipators": Conclusion.-
About the author
Ana Stevenson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the International Studies Group at the University of the Free State, South Africa. Her research explores the history of women in transnational social movements, across the United States, Australia, and South Africa.
Summary
This book is the first to develop a history of the analogy between woman and slave, charting its changing meanings and enduring implications across the social movements of the long nineteenth century. Looking beyond its foundations in the antislavery and women’s rights movements, this book examines the influence of the woman-slave analogy in popular culture along with its use across the dress reform, labor, suffrage, free love, racial uplift, and anti-vice movements. At once provocative and commonplace, the woman-slave analogy was used to exceptionally varied ends in the era of chattel slavery and slave emancipation. Yet, as this book reveals, a more diverse assembly of reformers both accepted and embraced a woman-as-slave worldview than has previously been appreciated. One of the most significant yet controversial rhetorical strategies in the history of feminism, the legacy of the woman-slave analogy continues to underpin the debates that shape feminist theory today.
