Canada’s Shame: The Oppression of Aboriginal Women in the Indian Act

Barker, J. (2008). Gender, Sovereignty, Rights: Native Women's Activism against Social Inequality and Violence in Canada. American Quarterly, 60(2), 8. Retrieved fro m http://search.Proquest.com.Ez proxy.library.yorku.ca/docview/61688929?Acc ountid=15182.

Congress later passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 which granted citizenship to all Indians. This citizenship decree was the logical political manifestation of the assimilation program, and brought with it the expectation that Indians would be brought in line with other Americans in the areas of civil and criminal law. The Indian Citizenship Act supposedly gave Indians the privilege of voting, the obligation to perform compulsory military duty when called, and to pay taxes on off-reservation revenues. It is estimated that two-thirds of the Indians had acquired citizenship before the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act. Still, some Indian nations did not recognize the Citizenship Act because they did not feel that one sovereign nation

The rights and freedoms of Aboriginals have improved drastically since 1945 with many changes to government policy, cultural views and legal rules to bring about a change from oppression to equality. Unfortunately on the other hand, some rights and freedoms have not improved at all or have even worsened.

Throughout history, women have been the victims of oppression in society. In specific, Aboriginal women have suffered through racism, sexism, domestic violence, and over-representation. Through the implementation of the Indian Act, Aboriginal women have been forced to abandon their culture in order to assimilate into Canadian society. The effects of colonization has changed the way Aboriginal women are treated; emotionally and physically, and therefore are the source of oppression today.

The Indian Act was an attempt by the Canadian government to assimilate the aboriginals into the Canadian society through means such as Enfranchisement, the creation of elective band councils, the banning of aboriginals seeking legal help, and through the process of providing the Superintendent General of the Indian Affairs extreme control over the aboriginals, such as allowing the Superintendent to decide who receives certain benefits, during the earlier stages of the Canadian-Indigenous' political interaction. The failure of the Indian Act though only led to more confusion regarding the interaction of Canada and the aboriginals, giving birth to the failed White Paper and the unconstitutional Bill C-31,

According to the Indian Act (1876), we determined someone’s status by one’s parentage of blood quantum to know how much Indian were they? A First Nations woman, who married with white man, lost her entitlements as Indian, so did her children. However, regardless of race or ethnicity, if another raced woman married a First Nations man, she gained “status” under the terms of the Indian Act. I feel that was completely unfair, and obviously discriminatory, that horrific situation continued until 1985.

Oppression also occurred on a political level when the Canadian government imposed systems for the Aboriginal peoples to govern them- selves. Aboriginal people were no longer allowed to follow their traditional forms of governance and the Indian Act Chief and Council System.

The Indian Act was a challenge by the Canadian government to adjust the aboriginals into the Canadian culture including bring in residential schools, separating every First Nations in trying to “improve”, and practice them for standard society (Emberley, 2009). First Nations people were also not allowed to possess any land or offer the land that used to be theirs before the Indian act as this segregation put limits maintaining or even owning anything (Emberley, 2009). This lead to the point on everything being restricted for the First Nations including losing history, practicing

Although this course is about global women’s movements, the overall argument in which I intend on taking for the purpose of this book review is that besides women, First Nations men are also victims of oppression. In addition to oppression, first nations are often stereotyped by society. Rice’s book does a good job on reflecting this idea once again, through the use of first person point of view stories. It allows the reader to really understand how these stereotypes affect the everyday lives of First Nations people. Before getting into how stereotyping affects the lives of these people, we will begin with looking into oppression and how it relates to the textbook.

Two sections of the Indian Act are particularly discriminatory against Indigenous women. Section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act states that women who marry outside of their band were to lose status, seize association with their own community, they lose ownership over any property located on the reserve and any property inherited that is located on the reserve land (Lawrence 2004: Jamieson 1978). These women would also lose access to any rights they had with status, including taking part in any band business or voting (Lawrence 2004: Jamieson 1978). Any children born to a woman who married outside her community would not be granted status or considered “Indian” in the eyes of the government and this woman and her children may be prohibited from returning to live with her family regardless of illness, need, divorce, death of her husband or separation (Jamieson 1978). Finally, through this section of the Indian act, upon marriage of an “outsider” an Indigenous woman loses her right to be buried on her reserve land with her ancestors (Jamieson 1978). Section 12(1)(a)(iv) also known as the “double mother clause” states that an “Indian born of a marriage entered into after September 4th, 1952 lost entitlement to registration at the age of 21 years if his/her mother and paternal grandmother were not entitled to registration as Indians before marriages” (Sterritt 2007).

all who reside on the reserves. It was then that the distinction between Status Indians and

In the article “Domestic violence against indigenous women is everybody’s problem” domestic violence is depicted as a serious social problem that involves “unspeakable acts of violence” that leaves victims experiencing fear and despair (Taylor 2014). More specifically, the social construction of domestic violence will be discussed with an emphasis on Aboriginal women and a typology of intimate partner violence. The social construction of domestic violence has serious implications for victims of domestic abuse because there is a failure to address the processes that perpetuate the violence. Instead, domestic violence is addressed through the illusion of social support. What is evident is that domestic violence is a social problem that requires comprehensive services, particularly for indigenous women, to address the complexity of the interaction between the individual’s social location and the causes that lead to the violence.

Different laws like the Indian Act and other treaties played an outstanding role in shaping Aboriginal relationship in Canada. The Indian Act led to a huge conflict of interest following its effect on the Indians living in Canada during its implementation. The Indian Act was a mechanism that strengthened the eviction of Indians ad also a means of displacing Indians from their tribal lands. On the onset of the 19th Century, land hungry Canadian settlers clustered in the coastal south of Canada and slowly moved into the neighboring states. Since most of the tribes occupying that area were the Indians, the Canadian settlers petitioned the Canadian government to remove them as they perceived them as an obstacle to expansion towards the west. The rationale for the Indian Act was that the southeast Indian tribes had no attachment to any particular land. However, this rationale ignored the fact the Indian tribes had vast crops of corn and lived in settlements.

She also talks about the Native feminist ethics, which brings understanding of the cultural perspectives of leadership under the spotlight. In this respect, I think understanding of Native women’s traditional gender functions, roles and responsibilities is crucial in perceiving Indigenous feminism. This is because I think in many tribal societies such as the Pashtun tribal societies in the northwestern FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) perceive gender roles and responsibilities as complementary. The FATA areas and the colonial government system were creation of the British colonizers. This example is very much relevant to the case of Native societies that were/are colonized in North America because the British colonial rulers applied the similar methods to control and regulate Pashtun tribes in the FATA areas. In comparison to the CFR Courts to implement the Code of Indian Offences in Canada, the colonizers introduced and enforced the FCR (Frontier Crimes Regulations) in the FATA areas on the Pakistani side of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. In this colonial structure, the Political Agent system implemented the FCR in which, for example, because of one tribal individual the entire tribe was punished. Unfortunately, the FCR is still very much alive and is being used the way many colonial laws are currently implemented in Canada and

This created an inconsistency in beliefs and therefore a set of laws that didn’t relate to the people it was governing. It also left the First Nations at a disadvantage because the Indian Act gave the majority of the power to the writers, the only people this system functions correctly for.