[MUSIC] A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done, no matter how brave its warriors nor how strong their weapons. >> Powerful assurances and statements, such as the previous quote, acknowledge and recognize that Indigenous women remain the backbone of our communities. This lesson explores the resilience and vitality of Indigenous women, girls, and genderful folks and celebrates the influential roles and responsibility shared with Indigenous men as nation builders. However, as much as this lesson seeks to examine the strength of Indigenous women, we must first take into consideration why there is an entire lesson devoted to this topic at all. Indigenous women currently live in an appalling state of extreme marginalization, and oppressive state policies such as the Indian Act, genocidal tactics like the residential schools, and sexist policies have all worked to police and shape attitudes surrounding Indigenous women, girls, and genderful folk. Including the examination of colonial history as it applies to Indigenous women does not dishonour the resiliency and strength that they represent today, but it is required in order to return to our rightful position and equal status in the world today as healers, hunters, intellectuals, nurturers, and leaders. This lesson begins with Indigenous concepts of gender and explores some of the understandings of gender and sexuality across a range of Indigenous cultures, which leads into a discussion about the ways that Indigenous women traditionally held critical roles and responsibilities within their communities. One of the key messages we're trying to get across in this lesson is how colonization is a gendered project. We outline the ways that the Indian Act discriminated against women and discuss the issue of violence against Indigenous women. We will also talk about the ways Indigenous women in Canada have fought to defend their rights. We'll end this lesson with the discussion about Indigenous feminism. We will begin by talking about the concepts of gender and sex. Sex as a concept is used to refer to the kinds of biological differences that exist in terms of genetic makeup, anatomy, hormones, and physical characteristics. Commonly, sex is seen as a binary consisting of male and female; but today, scientists recognize that gender and sex are not always so easily categorized, a fact that many Indigenous peoples have always understood. The concept of gender is used to describe the culturally constructed categories that reflect ideas about a person's role, traits, and position within society, depending upon how they present themselves as male, female, or another category. The concept of gender is related to the concept of sex, but they definitely are not the same. Social scientists often talk about gender as a spectrum, with male and masculinity on one end, and female and femininity on the other. An individual's gender identity is how much they see themselves as either male or female, or somewhere in between. Some cultures view gender as being limited to either male or female, but in other cultures, gender is seen as much more fluid. Indigenous cultures across North America have different definitions and expressions of gender than is found in Western cultures. Gender variance is a concept used to refer to the cultural construction of multiple genders. Multiple genders and a wide variance of gender roles existed in many tribal societies and communities. Gender roles are the culturally defined duties and responsibilities that people are expected to carry out depending on their gender identity. Gender roles in Indigenous cultures were traditionally pretty clearly defined, and men and women would have different responsibilities to carry out within their communities. The roles of men and women were complementary, and each were seen as important and essential. An individual's gender identity determined the associated gender roles they would perform, such as hunting, smoking meat, or performing certain ceremonies. This was based on the cultural teachings about gender roles within each distinct Indigenous society. For example, Inuit women's roles and responsibilities within their community traditionally included sewing and food preparation, while men's roles and responsibilities included hunting. However, in her article, I'm Not the Great Hunter, My Wife Is, Barbara Bodenhorn describes how, within that Iñupiat worldview, women are more influential to hunting than men. They're more influential because it's the women who are responsible for attracting the animals so that men will be able to hunt them successfully. While noting that many tribes were egalitarian and held complex clan systems, gender roles were unique to each tribe. Indigenous women often held spiritual, political, and economic power equal to men. Women and men's roles were different, but equally important. Through their participation in community and women's councils, Indigenous women held a high degree of political power when it came to management of land, the nomination of chiefs, and tribal governance. Women Elders chose the best suitable individual for tribal leaders and made important decisions that benefited the well-being and livelihood of the whole community. [MUSIC] >> Toni Letendre, I'm from Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation, Alberta. [MUSIC] So my mom lost her mom when she was 16 years old. So my mom basically had to figure out a lot of parenting, mothering on her own. But from what she shared with me are teachings that she did get from her mom, and she did get from her father as well. And one of the biggest things that she taught me was respecting each other. And that was something that her father taught her, was that you always should respect your siblings and respect the people in your life, your family members. A lot of people see it as gendered, but if you look at it broadly, and look at it as respecting everyone, and not just specific genders, like male or female, and binary genders, it makes sense. So that’s a teaching that my mom carried on to me and my siblings. She also didn't gender our housework. She made sure everyone did all the chores around the house, so that meant doing like yard work and housework for each of my siblings. >> The roles of cross-gendered individuals varied for each tribal society. Sometimes gender changes were strictly occupational, meaning gender changes occurred in order to perform certain roles and duties in the community. For example, there are individuals that crossed-dressed only for ceremonial purposes, such as a cross-gendered individual holding a specific task in a Sundance ceremony. In some cases, cross-gendered people would be the only ones able to perform certain ceremonies. Cross-gendered people often conducted naming ceremonies. Others are mediators to the spirit world, or often healers. Many tribal societies recognized individuals who took up opposite gender roles and responsibilities. These individuals would sometimes fall under our third and fourth gender category, neither male nor female, which would have different obligations and duties to community than gender statuses of other men and women. Their roles are sometimes understood as bridging the genders, or having a combination of both. As we've indicated, Indigenous peoples recognize gender as fluid. Taking a closer look at Indigenous languages is often really helpful when we're trying to understand Indigenous concepts, including the different concepts around gender that we've discussed. The literal translation of the Navajo word nádleeh means a person in constant process of change. Nádleeh is a Navajo word for a person with an unclear physical description of being male or female. The first part, ná, translates to being continuous. The Navajo origin story relates how the very first people born were hermaphrodite twins who have undetermined sexes. This story becomes the entire basis for understanding the spiritual role and high status of the Nádleeh. This person was highly regarded in Navajo society and was often integral part of ceremonies and other events. Another example, the Nuxalk, also known as the Bella Coola, of the Northwest Coast, have an oral story of newborn children that go through sex reversals. It's unclear which sex and gender the children are identified with. Similar to the Navajo, we begin to understand that many Indigenous gender systems, like the Navaho and Nuxalk, emphasize the idea that human beings may have both masculine and feminine characteristics. There are many terms and different tribal societies that were used for cross-gendered individuals, such that, Heemaneh’ for the Cheyenne, Agokwa for the language of Anishinaabe, and Tainna wa'ippe for the Shoshone. Through oral tradition, we can understand how Indigenous peoples conceptualize gender. Children are raised in flexible ways that allow them to discover their gender identity. For instance, a child may have physically male traits and later take up a woman’s role after they've exhibited their preferred and must be fitting gender identity. This gender system not only gives children the freedom to express their personalities, but also contributes to the community by capitalizing on the skills of each individual and utilizing each community member's intelligence and passion to the fullest extent. Choices about gender, and the responsibilities attached to that gender, may happen after a vision or develop over a series of childhood and adolescent milestones that confirms the person's choice. Gender transformations could happen before or during puberty. Indigenous oral traditions also pass on stories about women warriors, people that performed the traditionally male role in warfare. Sometimes, a female warrior would then hold a traditionally male status within their community. There were a number of women who partook in war from various tribal communities, such as the Cheyenne, Choctaw, Cherokee, Crow, Ojibwa, and Blackfoot. Other stories are about males who dressed in female clothing and performed duties of a woman. They then held a gender status that was completely separated from either male or female. Today, Indigenous people, youth in particular, are involved in a movement to reclaim lost ways of understanding traditional gender systems and have introduced a new term to describe cross-gendered people. Often today, referred to as Two-Spirit. Two-Spirit is a term that has only come into use in contemporary times and originates from the Northern Algonquin word, Niizh Manitoag, meaning two spirits. The term Two-Spirit represents the presence of masculine and feminine traits within an individual. This newer word includes Indigenous understandings of kinship, sexuality, and gender that is often more complex and fluid than mainstream perceptions of sexual orientation and gender. There is a key difference between the concepts of gender and sexuality. Remember that gender roles, performance, dress, demeanour, and sexual preferences may be seen as separate categories, and one does not necessarily link with the other. For instance, an individual may wear clothes of the opposite gender, but it does not necessarily codify their sexual preference. Most of the time, individuals who crossed genders were encouraged to enter into a relationship with someone of the opposite gender. If a biological male who took up women's roles had a relationship with another man who performed conventional man's roles, it would be accepted. An individual's sexuality and gender were often viewed as two very different things. Sexual and occupational preferences are placed into different categories. Now that we've discussed Indigenous concepts of gender and sexuality, we will shift our focus to look specifically at women's roles and status in the community. Women were often known as the community caretakers and primary teachers of children. Indigenous women held a great deal of autonomy in many Indigenous societies. Examining the autonomy of women and their roles and responsibilities offers a deeper understanding of how Indigenous women were respected and valued partners in their communities. In many cases, women were able to choose what role they would take on within their community. Examples of relatively matriarchal societal systems and matrilineal kingship or clan systems are found in Indigenous cultures across North America. The term matriarchy describes a society where women hold the position of leadership. In Haudenosaunee society, women were responsible for choosing the political leaders, but might not be described as strictly matriarchal because the leaders were usually men. The Haudenosaunee clan system was matrilineal, which means that hereditary clan membership followed the mother's line. If the father was Deer Clan, and the mother was Wolf Clan, their children would be Wolf Clan. Earlier in this course, we discussed the ways that racism is fundamental to colonialism. Settler colonialism in North America is also a gendered process, in that colonization imposed European patriarchal social systems. The terms patriarchy describes societies that are male dominated. In a patriarchal system, men hold the positions of power in political, spiritual, and domestic spheres. When we say colonialism is a gendered project, we mean that settler colonialism reproduced the sexist beliefs held by Europeans. Mainstream North American society today can be seen as a heteropatriarchy, where the superiority of patriarchal beliefs and heterosexuality are seen as the norm. Colonization disrupted the balance of complimentary gender roles and shared power in Indigenous societies. Europeans introduced new values and ideals steeped in white male superiority and suppressed the leadership roles women held in many Indigenous societies. The results created an imbalance and inequality within Indigenous communities and upset the fluidity of gender roles we discussed earlier in the lesson. We can find specific examples of colonial strategies aimed at reconstructing Indigenous societies to fit into a patriarchal structure. Government policies institutionalized gender inequality and led to the internalization of patriarchal values within Indigenous communities. Consequences of colonialism include disempowerment and devaluation of Indigenous women's participation in the political, economic, social, and cultural realms of their communities. During treaty negotiations, Indigenous women were excluded from political interactions due to Western customs where women did not step into a political realm and remained within the private sphere performing domestic duties. The Indian Act further institutionalized gender discrimination. We already discussed earlier that the Indian Act's main intent was to assimilate Indigenous peoples into full Canadian citizens. Through Indian status, band governance, access to band services and programs and band membership, the Indian Act established provisions that exclusively gave men positions in political, economic, and social power structures. As discussed earlier on in the course, the establishment of status Indians is considered a process of racialization by minimizing the scope of what it means to be an Indian. One of the methods was in the way that legal category of status Indian was determined. Under section 12(b) of the 1951 Indian Act, women who married non-status men would lose their status, and therefore were unable to pass on status to their children. Remember, the loss of Indian status resulted in difficulties for women and their children to obtain a sense of connection, identity, and belonging. The Indian Act introduced a Eurocentric government model with the chief and council system that prevented the influence or participation of Indigenous women. The Indian Act created power imbalances in band politics and government where men dominated chief and councils and where women were unable to vote. Indigenous women were also prevented from holding title to property, as European customs dictated that only men were able to have possession of land. This diminished the influence women had over the distribution of goods from the land. Many First Nations and Inuit women traditionally held positions in community governance and politics. Federal law discriminated against Indigenous women in multiple ways, and gender and race were important factors in the establishment of colonial policies. [MUSIC]
