While reading Shira Tarmant’s chapter “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” I almost felt disconnected from other feminists. I’ve always believed in equality for all genders and supporting each other without demeaning each other in the process. Why was I feeling this sense of disconnection? I realized during my readings that I didn’t make this connection not because I haven’t experienced sexism, but because growing up in small Aboriginal communities it was viewed as tradition, rather than sexism.
According to Verna St. Denis, “feminism gets confusing even for women who have been working on women's issues for years”. That made me think about when I was in kindergarten. We would go across the river, take part in traditional activities and live off the land. My friend and I (who’s a female), did things like cook bannock, prepare the jam, prepare tea, set the tent and prepare what was caught in the traps. Another friend of mine (who is male), got to go check the traps and go fishing. I remember asking my teacher if I could go check the traps too, and she said no because “women didn’t do that”. I felt so confused and thought “Why don’t women do that? Why can’t women do that?”
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If that’s what I was told to do, I did it. As I got older, I started to think more about the traditions being placed on me. The more I thought about it, some of the things I was involved in didn’t seem “right”. Like when I was in preschool and the females had to use the drums with the red ribbon on it, because traditionally women don’t play drums in a drum