Native American Gender Roles

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In the 17th and 18th centuries, gender roles were crucial to the efficiency of Indian and European societies. No matter where one stood it was important that men and women knew their positions in their communities and how they could best serve them. Nevertheless, if you were a Native American or a European colonist influenced what those roles may be. In colonial societies, a married man oversaw the family’s property and did all the work outside the home, and a wife had no legal or personal sense of self (Foner 10). Native women were different because they were given responsibility for the agriculture of the land, raising children, maintaining group continuity, and gave formal judgement on issues in the community. Hunting was viewed as leisurely …show more content…
In Native societies production of things like corn, squash, or beans were often crucial to their survival (Foner 6). Due to this reliance of agriculture women had an important role in the survival of their kin.Women could also hold religious positions as “keepers of faith” or shaman in their clans. As a result of this power given to them, native women had a strong sense of autonomy and were highly respected in native cultures. Indian men were in control of hunting and warfare. Since this required them to be gone for long periods of time, women were more sedentary and in charge of maintaining group continuity. This meant that native society was matrilocal in many senses. Depending upon the region and how much a group relied on either agriculture or hunting decided which gender held more power. Europeans, however, each gender had their own sphere of social duties and this decided where the power lie. Women were meant to be submissive to men in all manners. They were not allowed to hold any powerful positions and were not legally recognized . When Europeans began interacting with Native peoples they were appalled at the fact that the men allowed women to have such freedom and control. This created tensions between the two different worlds. Europeans saw native men as “effeminate, lazy; Indian women as beasts of burden…”(Berkin …show more content…
Both sides of this divide felt the strain of coming into contact with new cultures. The power that Native women could have was foreign and repulsive to the colonists. They believed that women should not be able to have legal identity or have a significant role in the functions of their government. As a result of this our current representations of Native culture is distorted into something it very likely was not. In the attempt to impose their own patriarchal lifestyle on the Indians, European settlers created conflict and spread misunderstanding for
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