Explain the role of women in Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of an American Slave.

There are few female figures in the autobiography. The white women depicted were the wives of slaveholders, inured to cruelty and capriciousness. The black women were slaves (except for the minor examples of freed women like Douglass's wife and Sandy Jenkins's wife) and often bore the brunt of a master's hatred and brutality. One woman, Caroline, was pimped out by Mr. Covey, forced to bear the children of a male slave. Douglass's own mother was forced to have sex with a white man, thus begetting Douglass. Other women experienced the most savage beatings. Henny, a young woman who was maimed by burns, was specifically targeted by Thomas Auld. He whipped her multiple times a day. Aunt Hester was the favored victim of choice for Captain Anthony, no doubt because he was sexually attracted to her. He beat her mercilessly and humiliated her. Douglass recounts another tale of a white mistress so heavily beating a young slave girl that the girl died. Slavery took its toll on all of its participants, but women fell prey a larger part of the abuse due to the fact that their bodily strength was less and slaveholders perceived them as weaker.