"Many Tender Ties" Chapter 2 and 3
by Sylvia Van Kirk
These chapters were about Native American women and their role in the fur-trading business in Western Canada. Chapter 2 was about the marriages, or partnerships, that occurred between the men of the trade company and the Native women. The Third chapter was about the role the women played in the business itself. As far as interesting quotes go, in the second chapter when Van Kirk says,
"It did not take the officers of the Hudson's Bay Company long to realize that marriage to the daughter of a leading hunter or chief could secure not only the bountiful hunt of the father-in-law but that of his relations as well" (Van Kirk, 29).
This quote - and indeed, the whole chapter - makes it sound like the only people benefiting from this partnership was the trade company. The indigenous community must also have seen some kind of benefit from this partnership, such as a trade partner with something unique to the area or some other kind of bonus that we can not see from our perspective. It is interesting to me that this arrangement is portrayed as beneficial only to the trade company, not to the communities they were trading with. I attribute some of this to the perspective of the author, but also one of the views we have of history where the indigenous communities were merely tools used by the settling peoples to better themselves.
This view of history is continued in the third chapter, where this quote comes from:
"Both companies used women as interpreters to communicate with tribes of the rich Lake Athabasca region" (Van Kirk, 65).
To me, the word 'used' is key in that sentence. It implies no will or motivation on the part of the women, rather that they were no better than inanimate objects to be used when necessary by the companies. There is no way we can know whether the women wanted to be 'used' as interpreters or not, or what they thought of their situations. To use that kind of language requires a few key assumptions about the women, their culture and their position in the company itself, assumptions I do not think the author was prepared to make. While we may never know what the women thought, or what propelled them into the roles detailed in this book, it is a mistake to impose our suppositions on their lives. It does a disservice to history, and the memory of the women and their cultures.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Readings 9/22/08
"Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide" by Andrea Smith
Chapter One: Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide
This article was extremely difficult for me to read. I have a habit of putting my overactive imagination to work while reading to bring me into the story the author is trying to get across, which in this situation was very emotional for me. The extremely vivid pictures painted by the authors - and the sources she uses - were more than effective in illustrating how brutal the colonizing forces were in their abuse of women as a way to complete their take-over of everything else. It is one thing to "know" about the violence inflicted on entire populations, and another to be confronted with it. It was extremely powerful, and I am glad the author was that up front with her audience.
I learned a lot in this reading. One of the most astonishing to me was the quote on page 19, that said, "Furthermore, 70 percent of tribes did not practice war at all. For those that did engage in war, the intent was generally not to annihilate the enemy, but to accrue honor through bravery" (Smith, 19). I feel like that is one misconception people have about the history of Native Americans; they feel like the groups fought between each other all the time, so what's the difference between that and what the settlers did? The answer is immense and complicated, which I have a problem explaining to people who have this mindset. The idea of fighting for honor, not for some kind of immediate monetary gain (or some other kind of advantage) is something we do not really have in our society where there is always something we want, they have, etc. Also, the idea that there were hundreds (if not thousands) different groups and so cannot be so easily put into the "they" category is difficult for some people to comprehend.
Changing Ones, Chapter One and Two
Will Roscoe
These chapters set up the idea of gender and sexuality as we see them for what they are; they are socially constructed by the culture and people in that culture. Therefore, the idea that things have always been the way they are now is not only arrogant, it is blatantly untrue. No matter how revisionist our history books, people who we would call transgender (in the Native community two-spirit or some other term) have existed all over North America in practically every society that Western society documented. In many cultures, the people settlers and explorers called berdaches (which are now referred to as two-spirit) were seen in many cultures as either nothing out of the ordinary (and by that I mean it was not unusual for villages or families to have two-spirit people in their community) or very special people full of power, sometimes shamans or in other community-respected positions of power.
The pictures in the book were fastinating, especially the one on page 29 featuring Osh-Tisch. Not only is that section of the book a particularly interesting view into the life of a two-spirit member of the Native community, I love how the story is from the 1900's. One thing I feel people do with this kind of subject is relegate it to the past, which creates this invisibility around the Native community today that is hard to break through. This goes double for the Native queer community, which is alienated from society both because of their ethnic idendity as well as their gender identity and/or sexual orientation. It is time to discard the notion of the two-spirit as an antiquated part of North American, but instead an aspect of history that has carried into the 21st century, with it its own set of challenges and joys to be recongized for what they are today, not how we saw them 200 years ago.
Chapter One: Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide
This article was extremely difficult for me to read. I have a habit of putting my overactive imagination to work while reading to bring me into the story the author is trying to get across, which in this situation was very emotional for me. The extremely vivid pictures painted by the authors - and the sources she uses - were more than effective in illustrating how brutal the colonizing forces were in their abuse of women as a way to complete their take-over of everything else. It is one thing to "know" about the violence inflicted on entire populations, and another to be confronted with it. It was extremely powerful, and I am glad the author was that up front with her audience.
I learned a lot in this reading. One of the most astonishing to me was the quote on page 19, that said, "Furthermore, 70 percent of tribes did not practice war at all. For those that did engage in war, the intent was generally not to annihilate the enemy, but to accrue honor through bravery" (Smith, 19). I feel like that is one misconception people have about the history of Native Americans; they feel like the groups fought between each other all the time, so what's the difference between that and what the settlers did? The answer is immense and complicated, which I have a problem explaining to people who have this mindset. The idea of fighting for honor, not for some kind of immediate monetary gain (or some other kind of advantage) is something we do not really have in our society where there is always something we want, they have, etc. Also, the idea that there were hundreds (if not thousands) different groups and so cannot be so easily put into the "they" category is difficult for some people to comprehend.
Changing Ones, Chapter One and Two
Will Roscoe
These chapters set up the idea of gender and sexuality as we see them for what they are; they are socially constructed by the culture and people in that culture. Therefore, the idea that things have always been the way they are now is not only arrogant, it is blatantly untrue. No matter how revisionist our history books, people who we would call transgender (in the Native community two-spirit or some other term) have existed all over North America in practically every society that Western society documented. In many cultures, the people settlers and explorers called berdaches (which are now referred to as two-spirit) were seen in many cultures as either nothing out of the ordinary (and by that I mean it was not unusual for villages or families to have two-spirit people in their community) or very special people full of power, sometimes shamans or in other community-respected positions of power.
The pictures in the book were fastinating, especially the one on page 29 featuring Osh-Tisch. Not only is that section of the book a particularly interesting view into the life of a two-spirit member of the Native community, I love how the story is from the 1900's. One thing I feel people do with this kind of subject is relegate it to the past, which creates this invisibility around the Native community today that is hard to break through. This goes double for the Native queer community, which is alienated from society both because of their ethnic idendity as well as their gender identity and/or sexual orientation. It is time to discard the notion of the two-spirit as an antiquated part of North American, but instead an aspect of history that has carried into the 21st century, with it its own set of challenges and joys to be recongized for what they are today, not how we saw them 200 years ago.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A Day of Thanks
Monday, November 10, 2008
Readings 9/17/08
Dissident Women, Chapter 3: Gender and Stereotypes in the Social Movements of Chiapas y Sonia Toledo Tello and Anna Maria Garza Caligaris
This chapter is about the difference in media coverage, and public view of, women in social movements in Chiapas throughout the years. The authors talk about how stereotypes are both used by the movement itself (taking advantage of the perceived helplessness of women when faced with police action by using women as a sort of barrier) or in the media coverage of the movements (showing the women to be helpless victims of violence, garnering support for the movement while encouraging sterotypes). It is an interesting dynamic, both in how drastically things have changed in 30 years within the movement and how little things have changed in terms of public perceptions of women and their roles in the movements. Women may play more of a leadership role in the movement now than they did before, having leadership roles within the Zapatista movement and representing indigenous women in their position in the movement, but one would not know that through the media coverage of these movements. Men are still seen as the leaders of the movement, with women either along for the ride or a nominal factor not worth exploring. Remember, I am talking about mainstream media, which tends to get quite a few things wrong, and not socially conscious media outlets.While not letting those forms of media entirely off the hook, it is the mainstream media largely responsible for propogating these stereotypes as reality.
Don't Le the Sun Step Over You - Introduction, Chapers 1 and 2
by Eva Tulene Watt
A collection of stories from Eva Tulene Watt about her childhood, and her family's history, this book is a lot of fun to read. In the Introduction she talks about what a shame it is that all the books written about the Western Apache people don't actually talk about what life was like for them - it is an abstract view of life, without getting into details or specifics (and when they do go into those details, they mainly got them wrong). I'm glad this book was written, as a way for people to find out what life was actually like from a person who was there. Not to discount the worth of anthropologists and historians, but those professions can be very insufficient in telling an accurate story of a peoples history.
In one way these stories are depressing, just because learning about other peoples hardships makes me wish things had been different in so many ways. But that is something that we cannot change, and it is better that we lok at the real history of the people, not a Disney version that sugarcoats reality or ignores it entirely. That is why this book is so important, and why I'm glad we are reading it for this class.
This chapter is about the difference in media coverage, and public view of, women in social movements in Chiapas throughout the years. The authors talk about how stereotypes are both used by the movement itself (taking advantage of the perceived helplessness of women when faced with police action by using women as a sort of barrier) or in the media coverage of the movements (showing the women to be helpless victims of violence, garnering support for the movement while encouraging sterotypes). It is an interesting dynamic, both in how drastically things have changed in 30 years within the movement and how little things have changed in terms of public perceptions of women and their roles in the movements. Women may play more of a leadership role in the movement now than they did before, having leadership roles within the Zapatista movement and representing indigenous women in their position in the movement, but one would not know that through the media coverage of these movements. Men are still seen as the leaders of the movement, with women either along for the ride or a nominal factor not worth exploring. Remember, I am talking about mainstream media, which tends to get quite a few things wrong, and not socially conscious media outlets.While not letting those forms of media entirely off the hook, it is the mainstream media largely responsible for propogating these stereotypes as reality.
Don't Le the Sun Step Over You - Introduction, Chapers 1 and 2
by Eva Tulene Watt
A collection of stories from Eva Tulene Watt about her childhood, and her family's history, this book is a lot of fun to read. In the Introduction she talks about what a shame it is that all the books written about the Western Apache people don't actually talk about what life was like for them - it is an abstract view of life, without getting into details or specifics (and when they do go into those details, they mainly got them wrong). I'm glad this book was written, as a way for people to find out what life was actually like from a person who was there. Not to discount the worth of anthropologists and historians, but those professions can be very insufficient in telling an accurate story of a peoples history.
In one way these stories are depressing, just because learning about other peoples hardships makes me wish things had been different in so many ways. But that is something that we cannot change, and it is better that we lok at the real history of the people, not a Disney version that sugarcoats reality or ignores it entirely. That is why this book is so important, and why I'm glad we are reading it for this class.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Assignment
One topic I feel comfortable discussing in this class is the influence of corporatism on the foreign policy of the United States of America, using the example of the takeover of Hawaii on the part of the US government. I first became aware of corporate interests' relationship with foreign policy during the War on Terror and the massive windfall profits that are being generated for the military industrial complex through the government's actions. However, looking at the story of Queen Liliuokalani - the last queen of Hawaii - made me connect the dots that this has been happening all throughout history, not just in the present times.
The United States government did not take over Hawaii until Queen Liliuokalani made business more difficult for the sugar companies. She also started to work more for the rights of the people of Hawaii, though it is my opinion that those actions would have been easier to ignore if not for the business interests being threatened. Up until that point the government had made no real move to remove the Hawaiian government from power, which is one of the reasons why this example of corporate interests driving foreign policy is so striking to me.
One question I would pose to my classmates is what other examples you can think of through history of this kind of corporate influence on the United States's foreign policy?
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Readings 9/15/08
"Gender in Inuit Society"by Lee Guemple
This article looks at the levels of equality between gender in Inuit society. It realized that there is a strict gender separation in terms of labor and who performs what. There are two separate realms that people inhabit, for the men it is mainly hunting and performing labor outside the home, while women perform labor inside the home and also deal with the family.
However, within their spheres the two genders are recognized as the "experts". The men do not come home and tell the women what to do in terms of governing the house or dealing with things on a day-to-day basis, and women do not tell men what to do in terms of hunting. It makes the term "separate but equal" actually make sense, because that is what they seem to be.
Men do have more power when it comes to the society as a whole, however. They are recognized as the authority in public life. That is not to say women have no impact on the public life, however - it is widely recognized that women are just as important on the public life, though they do have different roles. They operate much more behind the scenes than men, an unseen force that still need to be reckoned with.
I thought that was interesting just because it seems like that is how the world of politics seems to run at times. There are the people at the forefront (usually white men) but then there is everybody else behind them (often their spouses or campaign) that actually get the ball running and drum up support from other people. I just thought that was an interesting comparison.
"Mother as Clanswoman: Rank and Gender in Tlingit Society" by Laura F. Klein
This article was extremely interesting to me because I am from the area the Tlingit tribe is in, and because I did not learn much about them in school, unfortunately, I feel like a newcomer to the subject. Some of the things I read resonated with me, making me realize how much of my town and its society actually has taken on some of the characteristics of the Tlingit tribe.
Wealth was status. Kinship and wealth were what made the world go around, and were seen as the criteria for individual rank, respect and authority. And according to the article, "In this highly rank-conscious society, then, both men and women had access to all the ranks and were by the definition of the ranking system itself equal as categories" (Klein, 38). That is a direct contrast to the Inuit society, where men and women had their own separate spheres but men were the dominant authority of public life. In this lifestyle, where subsistence was mainly through foraging and fishing, both men and women were involved in the entire process of both. That is, again, something that was very different from the Inuit society.
Overall, the article looked at the fact that the private life was still different from the public (in private it was a matrilineal system, in the public both men and women had equal opportunity to rise in status) as well as how different clan and house groups interacted with another based on that system. This article is also careful to point out, as the other one was too, that contemporary standards of "equal" and "private vs. public" may not do full justice to the societies we are looking at.
This article looks at the levels of equality between gender in Inuit society. It realized that there is a strict gender separation in terms of labor and who performs what. There are two separate realms that people inhabit, for the men it is mainly hunting and performing labor outside the home, while women perform labor inside the home and also deal with the family.
However, within their spheres the two genders are recognized as the "experts". The men do not come home and tell the women what to do in terms of governing the house or dealing with things on a day-to-day basis, and women do not tell men what to do in terms of hunting. It makes the term "separate but equal" actually make sense, because that is what they seem to be.
Men do have more power when it comes to the society as a whole, however. They are recognized as the authority in public life. That is not to say women have no impact on the public life, however - it is widely recognized that women are just as important on the public life, though they do have different roles. They operate much more behind the scenes than men, an unseen force that still need to be reckoned with.
I thought that was interesting just because it seems like that is how the world of politics seems to run at times. There are the people at the forefront (usually white men) but then there is everybody else behind them (often their spouses or campaign) that actually get the ball running and drum up support from other people. I just thought that was an interesting comparison.
"Mother as Clanswoman: Rank and Gender in Tlingit Society" by Laura F. Klein
This article was extremely interesting to me because I am from the area the Tlingit tribe is in, and because I did not learn much about them in school, unfortunately, I feel like a newcomer to the subject. Some of the things I read resonated with me, making me realize how much of my town and its society actually has taken on some of the characteristics of the Tlingit tribe.
Wealth was status. Kinship and wealth were what made the world go around, and were seen as the criteria for individual rank, respect and authority. And according to the article, "In this highly rank-conscious society, then, both men and women had access to all the ranks and were by the definition of the ranking system itself equal as categories" (Klein, 38). That is a direct contrast to the Inuit society, where men and women had their own separate spheres but men were the dominant authority of public life. In this lifestyle, where subsistence was mainly through foraging and fishing, both men and women were involved in the entire process of both. That is, again, something that was very different from the Inuit society.
Overall, the article looked at the fact that the private life was still different from the public (in private it was a matrilineal system, in the public both men and women had equal opportunity to rise in status) as well as how different clan and house groups interacted with another based on that system. This article is also careful to point out, as the other one was too, that contemporary standards of "equal" and "private vs. public" may not do full justice to the societies we are looking at.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Readings 9/10/08
"Many Tender Ties" Introduction
In the introduction of "Many Tender Ties" the author talks about the creation of a different kind of society when the fur-trade was introduced in the territories. Neither Indian nor European, the families were multi-racial and combined different cultures and traditions. Van Kirk talks about how vital the family system was for the fur traders to survive life so far away from home, which created an interesting multicultural situation that was unlike other settler situations.
That is the thing I find most interesting about this book, is how different the relationships were for such a long period of time compared to other settler societies that were formed a short time later in different parts of the country. The fact that relatively peaceful relations were kept for such a long time, and that the two societies started to depend on one another, is an interesting possibility to me that I had never really thought about before.
"Many Tender Ties" Chapter One
The thing that struck me most while reading the chapter was the practice of "wife trading" that was discussed in the chapter, with women being traded to different men, either traders or other Native American men. It was something I haven't heard of before, but it seemed like a pretty awful practice. Then again, we don't really have the full records of what went on, whether the women had a choice in the matter or how they even felt in that situation. So I know I need to be careful before judging or making any assumptions about what is written in books that reflect pretty much only the point of view of the traders or settlers.
But still, it's hard to read about a practice and then hear about how if women committed "adultery" (although with completely different social norms I am not sure what that means in the context of this book) women could be physically mutilated or even killed. Again, I'm not sure how much I should trust these sources and what the traders perceived to be going on. However, one thing this book does note is how closely the traders worked with different tribes and groups of people, learning the languages and customs while marrying women from the different groups. That makes me think that they can still provide an accurate account of what life was like in the societies, because they had more than a passing opinion on what life was like, which comes from working with them so closely. All in all, it's an interesting thing to think about while looking at the accounts provided in the story, and something definitely on the top of my mind while I read from this book.
In the introduction of "Many Tender Ties" the author talks about the creation of a different kind of society when the fur-trade was introduced in the territories. Neither Indian nor European, the families were multi-racial and combined different cultures and traditions. Van Kirk talks about how vital the family system was for the fur traders to survive life so far away from home, which created an interesting multicultural situation that was unlike other settler situations.
That is the thing I find most interesting about this book, is how different the relationships were for such a long period of time compared to other settler societies that were formed a short time later in different parts of the country. The fact that relatively peaceful relations were kept for such a long time, and that the two societies started to depend on one another, is an interesting possibility to me that I had never really thought about before.
"Many Tender Ties" Chapter One
The thing that struck me most while reading the chapter was the practice of "wife trading" that was discussed in the chapter, with women being traded to different men, either traders or other Native American men. It was something I haven't heard of before, but it seemed like a pretty awful practice. Then again, we don't really have the full records of what went on, whether the women had a choice in the matter or how they even felt in that situation. So I know I need to be careful before judging or making any assumptions about what is written in books that reflect pretty much only the point of view of the traders or settlers.
But still, it's hard to read about a practice and then hear about how if women committed "adultery" (although with completely different social norms I am not sure what that means in the context of this book) women could be physically mutilated or even killed. Again, I'm not sure how much I should trust these sources and what the traders perceived to be going on. However, one thing this book does note is how closely the traders worked with different tribes and groups of people, learning the languages and customs while marrying women from the different groups. That makes me think that they can still provide an accurate account of what life was like in the societies, because they had more than a passing opinion on what life was like, which comes from working with them so closely. All in all, it's an interesting thing to think about while looking at the accounts provided in the story, and something definitely on the top of my mind while I read from this book.
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