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Lorde's Autonomy For Indigenous Women

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automatically posses. “While woman’s intellect is confined, her morals crushed, her health ruined, her weaknesses encouraged, and her strength punished, she is told that her lot is cast in a paradise of women: and there is no country in the world where there is so much boasting of the “chivalrous” treatment she enjoys” (Martineau, 58). Missing and murdered Indigenous women are victims of the types of oppression and confinements that Martineau is theorizing. Social movements like the REDress project have begun to represent and declare resurgence, solidarity and autonomy for Indigenous women not only on behalf of the discriminatory treatment, violence and murder committed towards them, but also because of the legacy of trauma caused …show more content…

Traditionally, Indigenous women held the most power within their respective communities. Clan mothers were the heart and soul to Native civilizations, they were the creators of life and more often then not; men took important political orders from these groups of women because of their hierarchal roles. Lorde’s ideology connects with this Indigenous belief and way of life when she says; “For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive, and it is within that knowledge that our real power is rediscovered. It is this real connection which is so feared by a patriarchal world” (Lorde, 341). Evidently there is a strong connection between Lorde and Martineau’s beliefs in regards to women because Martineau believed women’s intellect was oppressed by men in multiple social frameworks (politics, religion, education etc.) and Lorde believed that men are essentially fearful when women intellectually nurture in groups because power exists to be stronger with numbers. Therefor, both theorists justify how men are fearful that women may be, if not are more powerful or intellectually capable of being dominant, which is why men oppress and diminish any rights women may think they have as a result. The REDress project represents a movement that gives Indigenous women a voice and encourages groups of women to stand together, as well as confidently alone against patriarchal

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