In the narrative, Northup describes work on the cotton plantation. The ground is prepared by throwing up beds or ridges, with the plough—back-furrowing, it is called. Oxen and mules, the latter almost exclusively, are used in ploughing. The women as frequently as the men perform this labor, feeding, currying, and taking care of their teams, and in all respects doing the field and stable work, precisely as do the ploughboys of the North.

–from Twelve Years a Slave,
by Solomon Northup and David Wilson

The phrase "as frequently as the men" means that enslaved women
A) let men do all the plowing.
B) plowed less than men did.
C) often had to do the plowing.
D)plowed only when men were absent.