Sexual Assault and Women

¶ … slavery is all about power and exploitation, it makes sense that the women depicted in the 2013 Steve McQueen movie Twelve Years a Slave are systematically abused, even the white women. In the film, Eliza, Patsey, and Harriet were all sexually abused by white men, revealing the intersectionality of power. However, it is also important to point out that Mistress Epps is also abused by Master Epps, showing how white males wield power in a hierarchical social system in which women of color are at the bottom. The role of women in Twelve Years a Slave is complicated because some understand that they need to submit and even pretend to enjoy the sex in order to stay alive and protect their own children.

Question 1: Did the male slaves defend the women and children, why or why not?

This question is difficult to answer because some men do try to defend the women and children in the film and are severely punished for it. Early in the film, a slave on the transport defends Eliza and he is then murdered for his actions. Showing this scene early in the movie underscores what McQueen is trying to say about the role that male slaves had in antebellum America. McQueen shows right away that male slaves cannot be held accountable for not standing up or speaking out because when they did, they were killed and there would always be another male slave to take his place and remain silent to the beatings and brutality.

Slavery is a system of power as much as it is an economics system, but all economics systems are systems of power and exploitation. The male slaves might have technically had more power than women in terms of their gender status in general but when it comes to their power vis-a-vis the whites, they had none. It could even be said that the male slaves lack the power of using their sexuality as a playing card, which the women are able to do. Eliza and Harriet, for example, know that they can use their sexuality as a playing card to gain them access to a slightly more secure situation for themselves and their children. The intersection between race and gender in Twelve Years a Slave is abundantly clear, referring to what Solorzano refers to as "racial and gender microaggressions," (121).

Question 2: What role did gender play in assigning jobs and chores on the plantation? How old did children begin to work?

The children of slaves were born into slavery. They never had any other chance, and their gender was the main factor determining who would buy the slave and how the slave was used. Although men were probably used for sex, this would not have occurred as openly as using female slaves for sex. Using female slaves for sex was considered normative, which is why it is depicted so openly in the McQueen film Twelve Years a Slave.

As Schafer points out, the system was a type of "concubinage," and that is exactly the situation with the Epps and Patsey. Moreover, it is important to point out that the system of concubinage was "open," and that there was essentially nothing that anyone could do about it, even the wives. As the film shows, the white wives are as powerless as the slaves in some ways and can even be brutally beaten as Master Epps does to his wife when she protests the presence of Patsey.

Male slaves are evaluated in terms of their physical form, height, muscularity, and prowess. To a lesser degree, their intelligence and acumen are called into question but are ironically considered a detriment because of the belief that a more intelligent slave might be a slave that can understand his position and wield power; knowledge is power. Solomon has to keep his background a secret largely because of this fact, as he knows that the masters would feel threatened to have a slave that was educated and knows how to read and play music. Males and females are both assigned hard labor but because the men are capable of producing more of the cash crops like cotton, their labor is technically more valuable.

Question 3: Did sexual assault/rape occur in this movie, and what impact did it have on the women, children, and slave community?