" black slaves in the United States were denied access to this particular system of gender"

I would go further. Sojourner Truth famously said, "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?" All of that was true of poor white women too.