Gender, Power, and Rape in Twelve Years a Slave

Introduction: Intersectionality and Power in Twelve Years a Slave

Because slavery is fundamentally about power and exploitation, it is unsurprising that the women depicted in Steve McQueen's 2013 film Twelve Years a Slave are systematically abused — including the white women. In the film, Eliza, Patsey, and Harriet are all sexually abused by white men, revealing the intersectionality of power along lines of both race and gender. It is equally important to note that Mistress Epps is also abused by Master Epps, demonstrating how white males wield power within a hierarchical social system in which women of color occupy the lowest position. The role of women in Twelve Years a Slave is complicated: some understand that they must submit — and even feign enjoyment — in order to survive and protect their children.

Could Enslaved Men Defend Women and Children?

This question is difficult to answer because some men do attempt to defend women and children in the film, and are severely punished for doing so. Early in the film, a slave on the transport ship defends Eliza and is subsequently murdered for his actions. Placing this scene near the beginning of the film underscores what McQueen is arguing about the role of enslaved men in antebellum America. He makes clear from the outset that enslaved men cannot be held accountable for failing to stand up or speak out, because when they did, they were killed — and there would always be another enslaved man to take his place and remain silent in the face of beatings and brutality.

Slavery is a system of power as much as it is an economic system, though all economic systems are ultimately systems of power and exploitation. Enslaved men may have technically held more social status than women by virtue of their gender, but relative to white slaveholders they possessed no power at all. It could even be argued that enslaved men lacked one resource available to women: the ability to use sexuality as leverage. Eliza and Harriet, for example, understand that their sexuality gives them a small measure of negotiating power — access to a marginally more secure situation for themselves and their children. The intersection of race and gender in Twelve Years a Slave is abundantly clear, reflecting what Solorzano describes as "racial and gender microaggressions" (121).

Gender, Labor, and the Assignment of Work on the Plantation

The children of enslaved people were born into slavery, with no alternative life available to them. Gender was the primary factor determining who would purchase a slave and how that slave would be used. Although enslaved men were certainly subjected to sexual abuse, such abuse was far less visible and culturally normalized than the sexual exploitation of enslaved women. The sexual use of enslaved women was considered standard practice within the plantation system, which is precisely why McQueen depicts it so openly in Twelve Years a Slave.

As Schafer explains, the arrangement constituted a form of concubinage — and the relationship between Epps and Patsey exemplifies this dynamic exactly. Crucially, Schafer emphasizes that this system of concubinage was "open," meaning there was essentially nothing anyone could do to challenge it, including the slaveholder's wife. As the film shows, white wives were in some respects as powerless as the enslaved people themselves, and could be brutally beaten — as Master Epps beats his wife when she protests Patsey's presence in their household.

Enslaved men were evaluated according to their physical attributes: height, muscularity, and physical strength. To a lesser degree, intelligence and skill were assessed, but were paradoxically viewed as liabilities, since a more intelligent enslaved person might better comprehend his situation and seek ways to exercise power — because knowledge is power. Solomon Northup must conceal his background for precisely this reason; he knows that his masters would feel threatened by an enslaved man who is educated, literate, and musically accomplished. Both men and women were assigned grueling physical labor, but because men could produce greater quantities of cash crops such as cotton, their labor was technically regarded as more economically valuable.

Conclusion

The sexual assault depicted in Twelve Years a Slave accurately reflects life in antebellum America because the film draws directly from slave narratives. Many such narratives were authored by women like Solomon Northup's contemporaries who were able to rise above their traumatic circumstances and use their intellect to prepare future generations for eventual emancipation and liberation — even though it would take generations for that liberation to arrive.

Works Cited

McQueen, Steve. Twelve Years a Slave. Feature Film, 2013.

Schafer, Judith K. "'Open and Notorious Concubinage': The Emancipation of Slave Mistresses by Will and the Supreme Court in Antebellum Louisiana." Louisiana History, vol. 28, no. 2, Spring 1987, pp. 165–182.

Solorzano, Daniel G. "Critical Race Theory, Race and Gender Microaggressions, and the Experience of Chicana and Chicano Scholars." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 11, no. 1, 1998, pp. 121–136.