The Intrusion of Male Supremacist
Values
on Matrix-Traditional Cultures
Maliseet Nation, eastern Canada
The Maliseet land base has shrunk to
the tiny Tobique Reserve in New Brunswick, just over the border from
Maine. Eastern Canada was colonized by the French and then the English
over centuries. Not only land was taken, but the settler society intruded
in a variety of ways on the First Nations. In the 20th century a Canadian
law stripped basic rights from Indian women, their very identity and
legal status as Indian people.
The Indian Act defined this status as necessarily patrilineal, depending
on relationship “to a male person who is a direct descendent
in the male line of a male person…” This was not something
theoretical. It meant that aboriginal women who married white men
or other non-Indians were legally defined as non-Indians themselves.
The law also cut off women's property rights, designating sole ownership
to males. In practice, men were throwing their wives out of the house
and moving in their girlfriends. According to the provisions of the
Indian act, the white women married by some of these men, were legally
considered Indians! [Silman, 11]
The first to challenge this law was Mary Two-Axe Early, a Mohawk from
Quebec, in the 1950s. By the '70s, First Nations women were mobilizing
around the country. Jeannette Lavell and Yvonne
Bedard challenged the Indian Act as unconstitutional in 1973, but
the Supreme Court of Canada simply ruled that the country’s
Bill of Rights didn’t apply to them. Back on the res, “Indian
women who supported Lavell and Bedard were attacked by Indian leaders
and labeled ‘white-washed women’s libbers’ who were
undermining their Indian heritage. [Silman, 12]
But in reality that heritage was centered on motherlines,
as Bet-te Paul of Tobique Reserve explains. “We didn’t
come from a male-dominated society—it was matrilineal. Some
of us have been digging to find out our old culture, and one document
about relationships shows there was a special relationship between
the elder women and the young girls. Also, the elder women were the
ones to hold places in council and to guide the men. We had chiefs,
but the elder women were behind the men; they were listened to and
held in high respect.” [Silman, 226]
Cheryl Bear says the same. "Some people say that
traditionally Maliseets were matriarchal, that women had more of a
say. I don't know too much about that, but in the household I was
raised in, it was true. It was my grandmother; she always had the
say—what was right or what was wrong—and my grandfather
seemed to almost automatically honour or respect it." She added
that this grandfather gave a lot of support to the women as they fought
for their rights and always told them not to give up. [Silman, 111]
[Source: Enough is Enough: Aboriginal
Women Speak Out, as told to Janet Silman, Toronto: The
Women's Press, 1987]
Nivaklé, Paraguay
Nivakle women express their dissatisfaction with the
“chauvinist manners of the Paraguayan men," so different
from the ways of their historically matrilineal/local society.
"In the old times, among the Nivaklé, women were the owners
of all sexual initiative in their relationships. Invested with a certain
aggressiveness for love, she could choose the man she preferred."
The influence of European culture has changed the values and behavior
of Nivaklé men. “Imitating the white patron, now he dares
to compel women for love.” [Hughes, 7]
Laos
In Laos, the majority of cultures have
been matrilineal and matrilocal right up to the present day. This
includes not only the minority indigenous peoples but also the main
Lao ethnicity, among whom the youngest daughter traditionally inherits
the land and cares for the parents in their old age.
However, like other matrilineal societies, Lao mother-right
is under severe pressure and has been slowly giving way. Even though
women still inherit, husbands’ names now appear on most land
titles. The Lao Women’s Union is taking action to stop this
drift.
Lao women have a powerful economic role and significant
social-structural supports but are “politically and socially
subordinate” to men. Some, such as Lao Theung and Hmong, are
patrilineal.
Source: CEDAW report on Laos