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Assignment #3

Semir Mulic

In Jennifer Morgan’s Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and Racial Ideology, Morgan describes how the racism is sought to be justified by the characteristics of the female body. Morgan states in the very first chapter that Europeans viewed an African woman’s features such as hair, color of their skin and facial features as things that were flawed with the race. She goes on to say that the “flaws” of these women would make the act of forcing them into slavery somewhat more justifiable. I believe Morgan states that they had different body types to European women, and instead of just understand that they were different they had to make the connotation that they were inferior, even seen as “beasts”.

I think you can see the awful portrayal of women on the last paragraph of page thirty six. The Europeans seem to believe that because of their ability to carry around their large breasts to breastfeed their children, and the ridiculous assumption that they go through childbirth without experiencing any form of pain, they would not be phased by the hard labor they would endure if they were enslaved. In the paragraph it’s stated that the English believed the pain of childbirth was a mark of a woman in the christian community, this wouldn’t be the only time they use religion to justify themselves because it’s also stated that the African’s large breasts were that of a beast and only the devil was depicted with large breasts. Wealthy women in England would sometimes send their children to wet nurses to be breast fed, observations like these were said to create a barrier between the English and the Africans. All these differences would lead the English to believe that not only could the African Women perform hard labor but also the “trait” that makes them immune to pains of breastfeeding and childbirth would allow them to take abuse from things like beatings, lashings, and even branding. Morgan states that because of all these “flawed characteristics” from these women, the English were able to justify themselves that the Africans were able to deal with slavery.

Q: With how “strong” women were seen by the English how come there were so many more men sold into slavery?