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Native American Women

524 Words3 Pages

My reaction:
While working through this sections reading, videos, and other material, I felt ill to my stomach thinking about how Native American women are suffering so greatly. Their culture and beliefs were stolen away from them by colonization, which lead to a plethora of other problems such as violence and a loss of say in their culture.
My Analysis: The Native American culture was a mostly egalitarian society before colonization took place. Native American women held a great amount of power and authority in their tribes. On example of this is seen in the book Women and Religious Traditions by Leona Anderson and Pamela Young when they discuss Clanmothers. A Clanmother is described as a woman who holds “a key political office in Indigenous …show more content…

Colonization lead to the separation of the sexes and the belief that man is superior to woman. Native American women were portrayed in popular media such as Westerns as inhuman, which sent a negative message about Native American women and all women. This excerpt describes the way that women were described, “rarely speaking or showing any emotion, these women were often depicted as nearer to animals than human beings, and their dehumanization was compounded by their depiction as beasts of burden or slaves to their owners- their husbands” (Anderson and Young 165). The colonization of Native Americans has had a lasting effect on the women and men, however the women seem to be underrepresented. “As a result of colonial policies, Indigenous women are overrepresented in recent statistical data on issues such as domestic violence, imprisonment, suicide and general poor health” (Anderson and Young 173). The video No Justice for Alaskan and Native American Women by Amnesty International USA stated that “Native American and Alaskan women are 2 ½ times more likely to be raped, in fact 1 in 3 of these women will be raped in their lifetime” (“No Justice for Alaskan” 0:24). These numbers are outrageous and need to be addressed in order to help Native American Women and women around the

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