Thesis statement: Sexism, racism, and colonialism have served as multiple oppressions that have negatively impacted the health of aboriginal women.
Brief Summary Aboriginal women have a poorer health status than the general population due to the loss of their cultural identity (Bourassa, McKay-McNabb, & Hampton, 2004).Aboriginal women lost their cultural identity because of colonial oppression through the Indian act (Bourassa et al., 2004).Racism and sexism are other forms of oppression have negatively impacted aboriginal women’s health (Bourassa et al., 2004).Sexism was greatly displayed in the Indian Act because it reduced Indian women’s rights (Bourassa et al., 2004).
Evaluation
Strengths
Firstly, this article looked at aboriginal women’s
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Colonization led to the Indian Act (Bourassa et al., 2004). The Indian encouraged sexism, because it gave aboriginal women less rights than aboriginal men (Bourassa et al., 2004). This sexism had many negative implications for aboriginal women. According to the Indian Act of 1876, ‘Indian women would lose their status if they married a non-Indian man’ (Bourassa et al., 2004, p25). The Indian act also said that ‘Indian women could not own property, and once a woman left the reserve to marry she could not return to her reserve so she lost all property rights’ (Bourassa et al., 2004, p25). These restrictions placed on aboriginal women could cause great psychological distress, which can further translate into physical illnesses. The Indian women’s inability to own property could also lead to low social economic status in society and this can contribute to their poor health …show more content…
The ‘voice’ of aboriginal women are missing in this article. The authors wrote this article from their own perspective. The authors did not try and gain the perspective of an aboriginal woman. Writing this article from an aboriginal woman’s perspective is important because they have experienced the effects of racism, sexism and colonialism. No matter how much these authors try and understand the aboriginal women’s struggles, they will never fully understand them because they have not walked in a day in their