"Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs" Book Review by BC
"Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs"
A review of Kathleen M. Brown's "Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs".
# 115227
| 1,825 words
| 3 sources
| MLA
| 2007
| 
Published
on Jul 13, 2009
in
African-American Studies
(Slavery)
, African-American Studies
(Gender)
, Gender and Sexuality
(Gender Studies)
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Description:
The paper examines how Kathleen M. Brown's work "Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs" reevaluated the development of racism and slavery in colonial Virginia from the perspective of gender. The paper then shows how this book did much to strengthen the arguments presented in Edward Countryman's collection of articles concerning slavery in colonial America, entitled "How Did American Slavery Begin?". The paper asserts that although frequently verbose and sometimes unfocused, "Good Wives" as a whole did much to supplement the readings found in Countryman's explication of how slavery became institutionalized in colonial America.
From the Paper:
"In keeping with the trend of revisionist historians who aimed to write women into key roles in history, Kathleen M. Brown's work with Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs reevaluated the development of racism and slavery in colonial Virginia from the perspective of gender. The book, divided into three parts, provided extensive information regarding the role of gender in shaping race and class relations in colonial Virginia. The bulk of the information regarding gender's involvement in the development of racism could be found in the second section of the book, "Engendering Racial Difference." The central argument of this section was that elite white men used discrepancies between gender roles of white women and African American women to deepen the disparity between the two races and thereby validate both social disdain and legal sanctioning against African Americans as a whole."Sample of Sources Used:
- Kathleen M. Brown. Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press (1996): 109.
- Edward Countryman. How Did American Slavery Begin? Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's (199): 100.
- A. Leon Higginbotham. The Ancestry of Inferiority (1619-1662). In E. Countryman, How Did American Slavery Begin? (pp. 87-98). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
Cite this Book Review:
APA Format
"Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs" (2009, July 13)
Retrieved September 24, 2023, from https://www.academon.com/book-review/good-wives-nasty-wenches-and-anxious-patriarchs-115227/
MLA Format
""Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs"" 13 July 2009.
Web. 24 September. 2023. <https://www.academon.com/book-review/good-wives-nasty-wenches-and-anxious-patriarchs-115227/>