Gender Relations in Native North America

Abstract

Analyses of gender roles in societies throughout the world have raised questions about the causes of equality or inequality in status and inter-gender relations. Much of the recent research contradicts the often-stated claim that some degree of male dominance exists in all societies. The notion of reputed universal male dominance has been challenged on several fronts. First, most anthropologists have been male and have dealt with male informants in their fieldwork, and ethnographic material has been framed by the gender perspective of observer and participant. Second, historical accounts of earlier cultures are likewise tainted by the attitudes of explorers, missionaries and government officials, all of whom were men. It is well to be reminded of Lafitau’s admonition in 1724 that ”. . . authors who have written on the customs of the [Native] Americans "concerning the rights and status of women ”. . . have formed their conceptions, in this as in everything else, on European ideas and practice." Finally, by the time colonial agents, and later anthropologists, interacted with indigenous peoples, traditional gender relations were already distorted by rapid sociocultural and political changes resulting from colonial processes. Therefore, even the earliest post-contact data are not truly representative of aboriginal society.\nThis paper will examine gender differences in five Native American societies: the Naskapi, Navajo, Eskimo, Iroquois and Plains peoples. We will see the extent to which ecological and social conditions have molded gender roles in Amerindian cultures and the extent to which they have been re-shaped by postcolonial historical forces. We begin with a discussion of societal features bearing on gender relations and then proceed to the analysis of each of the five societies, which were chosen to demonstrate the impact of various factors in different ecological contexts.

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