Women's Roles In American Indian Culture

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Pages: 6

Women have always played a role in society be it the giver of life, the teacher, the healer, child care provider or the one that had to clean up the mess of man. She has worn many different roles in her lifetime no matter the day or age of time in which she has had to live. It has however been the difference in how she has been treated that has either held her down or given her the wings that she has needed to soar above the expectations that God has expected her to achieve. As we look back to our history we can see how the female species can and has been treated differently by diverse cultures just in the American continent. You see we have the beauty of having still the ability of having a culture that still clings onto its old ways in some cases. A people that have persevered where many would have just given up; the American Indian. How one can push their way of life onto another and …show more content…
Look at the Iroquois Confederacy where the women played key roles in trade as well as council duties. Women even were warriors and leaders. That is because they were believers that the bloodline passed through mother to infant so therefore when a man married the woman he took her name. Men were still chiefs (Sachems) but it was common for a woman to be one either; specially if her father had been one. Women’s role in the European culture were that of the domestic. They were the weaker and inferior of the sex; both physically and mentally. Their role was to take care of the house and children as was dictated to them by the man or men in their household.
The woman of the colonial time was the property of her father or her husband and could not own property let alone herself; in some cases, not even her own dignity. She was not allowed to vote for she was not a citizen; but like livestock that her father had to pay a husband to marry her, with a