Section 5.4: Intersectionality and the Native American Experience

Gender

Women and Power

Among Indigenous peoples, most tribes were patrilineal (tracing descent through the father’s line) while about 25% were matrilineal (tracing descent through mother's side). In many societies, women had considerable power and respect and often held positions of chief, physician, politician, and warrior (Benokraitis, 2014).

With European contact, the concept of land ownership was introduced to Indigenous peoples but given (European) historical laws of coverture which prevented women from owning/holding property only men were recognized as legitimate owners of land. This European-rooted concept (land ownership limited to males) directly opposed the power many Indigenous women held previous to colonization. For example, Cherokee land was passed down from generation to the next by the women. This matrilineal custom ended when the Cherokee attempted to acculturate to avoid relocation under the Indian Removal Act of 1830 (Evans, 1989; Healey & O'Brien, 2015). 

Furthermore, the Europeans did not like trading with women, a task in which they had traditionally participated. The arrival of missionaries in the nineteenth century further reduced the status of women, as they did not see trade as an appropriate role for women (according to the missionaries a woman's role was in the home, caring for children and obeying her husband's will, as well as serving God). As a result, the status of women became reduced.

Formerly, women were held in high esteem in many Indigenous cultures; for example, the Iroquois Women's Council could veto any policy set forward by the Iroquois Confederacy. Nations such as the Hopi were matrilineal and matrilocal (a newly married/created couple lives with the wife’s/woman's side of the family), and clan names were chosen by women and that land stewardship followed the mother. In contrast and as a result of the trade with Europeans, the chiefs (men) became richer and their political power solidified because the Europeans preferred to work with one individual they saw as being in power.

Despite the efforts to keep AI/AN women from positions of power, there has been a modern resurgence of Native American women elected to positions of power. In 1985, Wilma Mankiller became the first female Cherokee Principal Chief, which she sustained for 10 years (Nagel, 1996). Given the glass ceiling breakthrough by Wilma Mankiller, more Indigenous women were recognized for their leadership and elected to office. Some current notable examples are Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) and Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk Nation) both of whom represent the first two Native American women elected to U.S. Congress in 2018, as well as, reelected in 2020 (Aratani, 2020). Another important example is Winona LaDuke (Ojibwe) who was the first AI/AN woman to run on the presidential ticket, as the vice presidential candidate, with Ralph Nader both in 1996 and 2000 (Bitetti). The trend of AI/AN women in Congress continues as Yvette Herrell (Cherokee) was elected to the House of Representatives in 2020.

Women and Health

In the 1970s, medical doctors from the United States Public Health Service’s Indian Health Services branch, whose mandate is to provide health care on Indian reservations, forcibly sterilized more than 25,000 American Indian women on several reservations without their knowledge or consent. This practice of forced sterilizations continued into the 1990s. The rationale was that the women were too poor to manage children and that the doctors and nurses were providing indispensable help to these women by limiting their child bearing. A further argument was that sterilization was prevention for fetal alcohol syndrome in alcoholic American Indian women.

Women and Sexual Violence and Murder

The rise of missing and murdered Indigenous women and Two-Spirit in the United States and Canada, where British Columbia's Highway 16 referred to as the "Highway of Tears" (Palacios, 2016), is an issue under examination at this very moment. According to Carolyn Smith-Morris, "Native American women are murdered and sexually assaulted at rates high as 10 times the average in certain counties in the United States—crimes overwhelmingly committed by individuals outside the Native American community" (Smith-Morris, 2020). 

Gender Expression

Two-Spirit (also two spirit or twospirit) is a modern umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe gender-variant individuals in their communities. “Two-spirited” or “two-spirit” usually indicates a Native person who feels their body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit, or a different balance of masculine and feminine characteristics than usually seen in masculine men and feminine women.

Two-spirit individuals are viewed in some tribes as having two identities occupying one body. Their dress is usually a mixture of traditionally male and traditionally female articles, or they may dress as a man one day, and a woman on another. According to Dr. Sabine Lang (1998), a German anthropologist, many tribes have distinct gender and social roles.

Some specific roles sometimes held by male assigned at birth two-spirits include:

• conveyors of oral traditions and songs (Yuki);
• foretellers of the future (Winnebago, Oglala Lakota);
• conferrers of lucky names on children or adults (Oglala Lakota, Tohono O’odham);
• potters (Zuni, Navajo, Tohono O’odham);
• matchmakers (Cheyenne, Omaha, Oglala Lakota);
• makers of feather regalia for dances (Maidu);
• special role players in the Sun Dance (Crow, Hidatsa, Oglala Lakota).

The presence of male-bodied two-spirits “was a fundamental institution among most tribal peoples” and, according to Will Roscoe (1991), both male- and female-bodied two-spirits have been documented “in over 130 North American tribes, in every region of the continent."

Social Class

Approximately 25% of Native Americans live below the poverty line, whereas the poverty rate for the entire U.S. population hovers at 14%. Native Americans experience poverty at higher rates compared to the general population.

One possible explanation of the intersection between race, class, and to some extent, education is the split-labor market theory: a theory that suggests that the labor market is divided into two tiers in which the upper tier consists of higher wages, safer working conditions, job stability, and the opportunity to be upwardly mobile (often these jobs are disproportionately held by Whites). While the lower tier consists of lower wages, less safe working conditions, job instability, and very limited opportunities to be upwardly mobile (most frequently represented by BIPOC--Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).

The idea of land ownership, as a commodity, was not common among AI/AN tribes. Despite efforts to resist colonization and land theft, American Indians had to adapt to the patrilineal land ownership imposed by Euro-American colonizers and their government.  In the face of great discrimination, expulsion, and even genocide, AI/AN were systematically and intentionally stripped of their wealth, power, and prestige. Although the impacts of this historical mistreatment continues to affect Native Americans' social class, there has been a rise in upward mobility among some tribes.

Class and Education

According to various historical treaties, the federal government agreed to provide schooling to Native American children in perpetuity (without end), in exchange for tribes giving up their lands.  Historically, the school budgets provided by the federal government have manifested dismal environments for learning as well as under-prepared and unqualified staff. The statistics relating to graduation rates, underscore the state of education on reservations today. 

In the 2018-19 school year, 93% of Asian/Pacific Islander and 89% of White students graduated, whereas only 74% of Native American students graduated. A primary factor that scholars in the field have concluded is that school funding plays a major part in students success. Approximately, 30% of the total population holds a 4-year degree, whereas approx. 15% of Native Americans hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Experts say poverty is one of the biggest impediments for Native Americans earning a college degree.