User:Mirixcx/Indigenous feminism

Effects of Colonization

In most Indigenous communities, it is colonization and Christianity that have brought about the most profound and harmful changes in the standing and treatment of women.[3]

Gender relations within Indigenous communities

Through colonization, Indigenous people became subject to a racist patriarchal system that significantly shifted the social, economic, and cultural practices of pre-contact Indigenous societies. Consequently, the economic, political, and spiritual power granted to women in Indigenous communities was threatening to the arriving Europeans who used "Xenophobia and a deep fear of Native spiritual practices" to justify genocide as a means of domination.[7] Additionally, "while women's traditional roles in Indigenous communities vary widely, colonization has reordered gender relations to subordinate women, regardless of their pre-contact status."[8]

Within cultures with a matriarchal structure, the implementation of the patriarchy has diminished the role of women in their own communities. The patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism created a framework for the oppression of women, gay, queer, and transgender people in Indigenous communities. While varying among different groups, colonization led to the implementation of a fixed gender binary of “male” and “female,” disregarding existing Indigenous values on gender and sexuality. Today, some tribes have continued or restored matriarchal structures in their community and are emphasizing the transformative power of women. The abstract idea of 'decolonizing gender' has become a figment of Indigenous feminism that emphasizes the diversity of gender roles within Indigenous communities instead of settler-constructed dynamics that affirm male dominance.

Mainstream media continues to influence perceptions of Indigenous women and queers of different tribes and cultures. For example, “Colonial literature related to Māori is framed in such a way to embed dominant western misogynistic constructions of gender as a means by which to continue an intentional assault on the roles and status of Māori women.” The Sámi documentary, Sparrooabbán tackles the culture of silence surrounding the sexual and gender diversity in Sámi communities and continued oppression stemming from colonization. Literature such as In Good Relation: History, Gender, and Kinship in Indigenous Feminisms has included the experiences of queer and Two-Spirit individuals in discussions of Indigenous feminism, highlighting the movement’s intersectionality with “activism, theory, kinship, land, historical trauma, sexuality, violence, and gender roles.”

The normalization and support of female rage, rather than Western gender ideals of being divorced from emotion, have become a figment of Indigenous female healing. Reclaiming a space for female rage has become a method of fighting the violence and domination of settler colonialism.

Political and economic status of Indigenous women

The struggles faced by Indigenous people today are due to the actions taken by settlers to assert dominance through colonization. White settlers often brought a new type of economic system from their European nation that included the idea of private property, ownership, and gendered labor, which was forced onto Indigenous communities.[6] In A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood, Anderson notes, "the split between public and private labour and the introduction of the capitalist economies disrupted the traditional economic authorities of Native women."[9] Poverty is a problem for many Indigenous people, and can be traced back to the artificially enforced economic ideals of the colonizer onto Indigenous groups. In order to strip women of political power, colonizers forced regulatory systems onto Indigenous people. For example, the Indian Act of Canada defined women's status as inferior to men's. Indigenous identity and status were now determined based on a patrilineal blood line, which cost women much of their social and political power.[10] The political and spiritual power of women are often connected, as the spiritual or theoretical role for women can inform a real political role. As a result, "heteropatriarchal religious traditions have excluded women and two-spirited peoples from leadership roles."[9] The combination of loss of power from the economic, political, and spiritual leadership places Indigenous people at a heightened risk of violence. The overall argument about the effects of colonialism "isn't just that we are being colonized, but [also] that we are assuming that nation-state form of governance is the best way to govern the world."

Indigenous women and the medical industrial complex

Main article: Sterilization of Native American women

Colonizers also worked to restructure Indigenous social systems to fit within the white settler ideal by labeling any transgressors, such as women, as “criminally insane” for “breaching racial and social conventions.” Through institutionalization of Indigenous women in psychiatric hospitals and penal systems, colonizers were able to surveill and control the reproduction of Indigenous women. Chunn and Menzies (1998) found that a disproportionate number of women who were labeled criminally insane and incarcerated were from ethnic and racial minority groups; significantly, of the 38 women incarcerated for reasons of criminal insanity, seven were First Nations women.

Canada is known for treatment of its Indigenous women in the aforementioned manner. For example, Canadian eugenics boards used these justifications of mental illness to pass Sexual Sterilization Acts in Alberta and British Columbia from the 1930s to 1970s. These boards could forcefully sterilize institutionalized patients who “if discharged without being subjected to an operation for sexual sterilization would be likely to beget or bear children who by reason of inheritance would have a tendency to serious mental disease or mental deficiency.” 74% of all Aboriginal patients presented to eugenics boards were eventually sterilized, compared to 60% across all patients. Karen Stote, author of An Act of Genocide: Colonialism and the Sterilization of Aboriginal Women, estimates the number of sterilizations occurring between 1966 and 1976 to be more than 1200, 1150 of which were Indigenous women.

Subsection under MMIW: Man Camps

Fracking site locations and "man camps" are statistically associated with higher rates of violence against Indigenous women, including human trafficking and murder. These temporary man camps, built to house the influx of workers for fracking infrastructure construction, contribute to an increase in sexual assault cases. Violent crimes surge in counties with proximity to man camps. An influencing factor of violent crimes against Indigenous women perpetrated by man camps include is the perceived lack of legal consequences of assault. It is the United States federal government's legal responsibility to investigate and prosecute crimes committed against an Indigenous person by a non-Indigenous perpetrator. However, these cases are often futile in securing justice for Indigenous people, a result frequently attributed to unconcerned prosecutors and federal government, and under-resourced police departments.

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