Recovering our identities

Page 4

I was nosing around my wife's papers the other day. She'd left them on the kitchen table. She was reading a book manuscript about recovering identity as Native women. I read about the fact that, in many nations, it was the women who distributed the foods. When I questioned my wife, she was quick to point out that Iroquois women in fact "owned" the lands and worked the fields. This really got me to thinking.

I was at a community event here at Thunderchild. I am not going to say how long ago, but recently. I was sitting across from a man who expected that his wife wait on him. Get him soup. Get him more soup. Get him coffee and so on. I thought this was really strange. I hadn't seen this for a very long time. I told my wife about this. She asked me if I was wishing if I could treat her like that - and I could tell she wasn't too happy about what she was hearing.

She said, "You know, Denis, maybe there's another explanation for what's going on."

From what I saw in that book manuscript, women historically controlled food distribution. Isn't it possible to interpret this expectation that women will serve men at least as perhaps partially based on our traditions. This is probably why some of those sexist values have been able to seep into our communities because they are built on the backs of our traditions. These sexist ideas - and a man expecting his wife to wait on him is a sexist idea - didn't fully replace tradition. They just twisted tradition so it's difficult for us to recognize what those gender based traditions really were for us.

We hear a lot about violence in our communities - violence against women and kids. This is often described as a "women's issue" or a "women's problem." It's not just a woman's problem. It's an issue for the entire community and it has a big impact on our kids. It is equally a man's problem. After all, when we as men sit back and watch a woman being treated badly and do nothing, it says something pretty profound about each and every man in the room.

Is this the way we want to be known?

As not much more than bullies?

That's not what protecting our communities and our families are about.

Maybe I think I am "hen-pecked". Maybe I am. Maybe we need to spend a little more time thinking about the women and listening to what they are saying. Each and every one of us came from women. They suffered for us to be here.

The way we treat women (including our daughters) is really all about self government. It's all about responsibility. What good is governing yourself when you have left more than half the people behind.