scholarly journals Assimilation Tactics: Indigenous Women, the Politics of Birth, and the Colonization of Bodies on the Canadian Prairies During the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby Parkkila
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Canadian Prairies ◽  
Canadian Government ◽  
Indian Act ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Colonialism is a highly gendered process whose effects are disproportionately felt by women, and within the context of the settler state of Canada, by Indigenous women. The imposition of Euro-Canadian gender norms upon Indigenous Peoples by the settler Canadian government was driven by an explicit goal of assimilation. Consequently, Indigenous women have had their important positions within their communities as matriarchs, elders, midwives, healers, and other positions of significance undermined. While there are numerous dimensions to the Canadian government’s attempt to force Indigenous women into subservient gender roles, this paper is a historical analysis that focuses on the government’s attempt to exert control over the bodies and sexuality of Indigenous women, alongside restrictions placed upon Indigenous women that limited their ability to pursue midwifery following the introduction of the Indian Act in 1876.

scholarly journals Thunderbird Women

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Fayant
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
First Nations ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Indigenous Research ◽  
Medicine Wheel ◽  
Indigenous Feminism ◽  
Indian Act ◽  
Governmental Institutions

Indigenous gender roles have been distorted by colonialism, both through imposed systems of patriarchy and redefining gender roles within Indigenous communities. In Canada, the Indian Act of 1857 initiated a system of patriarchy which resulted in the loss of matrilineal family lines and Indigenous women’s rights to represent their community in leadership roles. This system still exists today, and despite numerous attempts to modify the law, the Indian Act still exerts patrilineal bias on Indigenous communities. In spite of this, there exists a large volume of research and literature by Indigenous women which investigates Indigenous feminism and the agency of Indigenous women in their communities. Examples include the writings of Sherry Farrell-Racette (Farrell-Racette 2010), Lee Maracle (Maracle 1996), Beverly Singer (Singer 2001) and Carol Rose Daniels (Daniels 2018) as well as online campaigns such as Rematriate (Rematriate 2018). Moreover, many Indigenous women in Canada are now stepping forward to address patriarchal systems in Indigenous institutions, such as the Assembly of First Nations, and outdated laws favouring male representation over female in meeting with governmental institutions. My research considers decolonization methods in relation to Indigenous feminist perspectives in research practice. Through an Indigenous research paradigm based on the teachings of the Indigenous Cree medicine wheel, this paper aims to decolonize homogenous forms of research by promoting Indigenous women’s knowledge. The medicine wheel in Indigenous teachings is a philosophy and a practical method of interpreting the physical, mental and transcendental domains. For research purposes, the medicine wheel offers a unique representation of Indigenous epistemology, ontology, axiology and methodology for use in research. Furthermore, following decolonial theory and Indigenous methodologies this research investigates the intersections of Indigenous feminism in decolonizing knowledge production and dismantling paternalistic affects in educational institutions. Including Indigenous approaches to listening, participation and storytelling as opposed to standardized interviews, as well as observation and document analysis, this thesis opens space for generating community-based definitions of Indigenous feminism. Focusing on the Canadian context, Indigenous women in Saskatchewan possess a vast amount of traditional knowledge and ways of knowing which have been devalued since the enforcement of the Indian Act. One vital way of Indigenizing cultural revitalization is by reclaiming Indigenous women’s epistemologies as a means of decolonizing gender roles and negating the impacts of the Indian Act.

Disruptions of the Local, Eruptions of the Feminine: Local Reportage and National Anxieties in Egypt’s 1890s

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Booth
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Female Images ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Advocacy Role ◽  
Representations Of Women ◽  
Gendered Expectations

This chapter demonstrates that inscriptions of female images in Cairo’s late nineteenth-century nationalist press were part of a discursive economy shaping debates on how gender roles and gendered expectations should shift as Egyptians struggled for independence. The chapter investigates content and placement of ‘news from the street’ in al-Mu’ayyad in the 1890s, examining how these terse local reports – equivalent to faits divers in the French press – contributed to the construction of an ideal national political trajectory with representations of women serving as the primary example in shaping a politics of newspaper intervention on the national scene. In this, an emerging advocacy role of newspaper correspondents makes the newspaper a mediator in the construction of activist reader-citizens.

McIvor v Canada and the 2010 Amendments to the Indian Act: A Half-Hearted Rememdy to Historical Injustice

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (1, 2 & 3) ◽  
pp. 2011
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Hamill
Keyword(s):  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Neutral System ◽  
Historical Injustice ◽  
Canadian Government ◽  
Indian Act ◽  
Gender Neutral

2010 saw the twenty-fifth anniversary of two important legal developments in Canada: Bill C-31, which significantly amended the existingIndian Act, and the coming into effect of section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.1 Section 15 was partially responsible for the introduction of Bill C-31. The Canadian government introduced Bill C-31 to address, among other things, gender discrimination in the system of Indian status. Bill C-31, however, fell short of its goal of introducing a gender-neutral system of Indian status under the Indian Act.

‘Our passion for legality’: international law and imperialism in late nineteenth-century Britain

2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-423 ◽  
Author(s):  
CASPER SYLVEST
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Congo Free State

AbstractThis article deploys a historical analysis of the relationship between law and imperialism to highlight questions about the character and role of international law in global politics. The involvement of two British international lawyers in practices of imperialism in Africa during the late nineteenth century is critically examined: the role of Travers Twiss (1809–1897) in the creation of the Congo Free State and John Westlake’s (1828–1913) support for the South African War. The analysis demonstrates the inescapably political character of international law and the dangers that follow from fusing a particular form of liberal moralism with notions of legal hierarchy. The historical cases raise ethico-political questions, the importance of which is only heightened by the character of contemporary world politics and the attention accorded to international law in recent years.

scholarly journals Women and Legal Pluralism: Lessons from Indigenous Governance Systems in the Andes

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 633-658 ◽  
Author(s):  
RACHEL SIEDER ◽  
ANNA BARRERA
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Governance ◽  
Collective Rights ◽  
The Andes ◽  
Governance Systems ◽  
National Citizenship ◽  
Citizenship Regimes

AbstractThe shift towards legally plural multicultural and pluri-national citizenship regimes in the Andes formally recognised indigenous peoples’ community-based governance systems. These tend to emphasise participation, deliberation and service to the collective, but are often criticised for discriminating against women. We argue that recent constitutional reforms and legislation combining recognition of collective rights claims with institutional guarantees for gender equality have in fact amplified indigenous women's different strategies of ‘negotiating with patriarchy’, allowing them to further the transformation of their organisations and ‘custom’. Such strategies are necessary because of the intersections of race, class and gendered exclusions that indigenous women experience, and possible because of the diverse and dynamic nature of community governance systems. Despite systemic and structural constraints on the guarantee of indigenous peoples’ rights, the actions of organised indigenous women over the last two decades point to new ways of imagining more plural, less patriarchal forms of citizenship.

scholarly journals Ever more parents in polyamorous families: A new materialist typology of parenting practices and division of work

Sexualities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136346072110374
Author(s):  
Cornelia Schadler
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Parenting Practices ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Care Work ◽  
Family Structures ◽  
Traditional Family ◽  
Standard Family ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Family Models

An analysis of parents that are a part of polyamorous networks—networks of three, four, or even more residential or highly available parents—shows three types of parenting practices: poly-nuclear, hierarchical, and egalitarian parenting. Especially, the hierarchical and egalitarian parenting practices show novel divisions of care work and a transgression of gender norms. However, in-depth new materialist analysis of qualitative interviews also shows how parents are, in specific situations, pushed toward standard family models and thus unintentionally maintain traditional family structures and gender roles.

scholarly journals FADE TO WHITE OR STEREOTYPE: PATRIARCHAL POLICING OF GENDER NORMS IN TELEVISION AND FILMIC REPRESENTATIONS OF CHILDBIRTH

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-34
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Allen Nall
Keyword(s):  
Gender Roles ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Popular Television ◽  
Reproductive Processes ◽  
L Word

Drawing on the examination of five feature films, including Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, and more than half-a-dozen popular television programmes, including Parenthood, The L Word and The Secret Life of the American Teenager, this work argues that dominant cultural representations foster a narrow and potentially damaging, disempowering and dehumanising depiction of childbirth. Together these works foster a dominant conceptualisation and representation of childbirth that narrowly represents childbirth, emphasising themes including ‘bitter birth’ or birth as affliction, a reproductive double bind affirming women’s fundamental procreative role while also pathologising their reproductive processes, and the trivialisation of women’s birthing agency through the broad failure to recognize maternal magnificence. This work further argues that dominant representations of maternity pervading mass media, as indicated in the examined examples, normalise patriarchal gender roles, particularly emphasised femininity, and mark gender noncomformists as deviant. The promotion of such norms is clear in contemporary cultural depictions of childbirth, including birth-related hit films such as Knocked Up and The Back-up Plan. In the last of these an important component of patriarchal gender codes is further shown to include heteronormativity.

Indigenous Women, Poetry, and the Double Gaze

2018 ◽  
pp. 69-102
Author(s):  
Gloria Elizabeth Chacón
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Indigenous Women ◽  
Gender Complementarity ◽  
The Way

Chapter 3 discusses the notion of gender complementarity through kab’awil as an achievable horizon for indigenous peoples. The chapter focuses on the work of indigenous women across regions and nations, demonstrating the way that the double gaze allows them to see beyond ideas of tradition that impinge on their sense of autonomy. The chapter underscores the work of Rosa María Chávez, Calixta Gabriel Xiquín, Maya Cú, Briceida Cuevas Cob, María Enriqueta Lunes, Angelina Díaz Ruíz, Irma Pineda Santiago, and Natalia Toledo Paz.

Gender

2017 ◽  
pp. 644-672
Author(s):  
Paola Giuliano
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Labor Force Participation ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Social Attitudes ◽  
Attitudes Toward Women ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
And Gender

Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children and therefore persist until today. We review work on the historical origin of differences in female labor force participation, fertility, education, marriage arrangements, competitive attitudes, domestic violence, and other forms of difference in gender norms. Most of the research illustrates that differences in cultural norms regarding gender roles emerge in response to specific historical situations but tend to persist even after the historical conditions have changed. We also discuss the conditions under which gender norms either tend to be stable or change more quickly.

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