Out of the House of Bondage

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by Thavolia Glymph

The plantation family is viewed as a place of production in this work, where different ideas of gender were used as weapons in class fights between black and white women. Mistresses were strong figures in the slave hierarchy, rather than helpless victims of the same patriarchal system that oppressed the slaves. Glymph casts doubt on traditional representations of plantation mistresses as slaves' "friends" and "allies," shedding light on the political significance of ostensibly private battles, as well as the political objectives at play in defining the domestic as private and household ties as personal.