Frederick Douglass on Women Essay by Calwriter

This paper explains that Frederick Douglass may have been a radical abolitionist, but he was not a radical advocate of different ways of conceptualizing women in literature. The author points out that, over and over again in the course of his work, Douglass states that slavery is particularly bad because it destroys the 'natural' gentleness of women. The paper relates that Douglass underscores the common notion of the time: a woman's place is in the private sphere because of her greater sensibility and sensitivity, which justifies her exclusion from the public sphere, and, under the marital unity doctrine, her husband retains the ultimate authority over her, even in the domestic domain.