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Essay On Aboriginal Families

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Canadian Policies and Their Facilitation in Aboriginal Families Violence
Aboriginal families are often negated within society. Even when media places the important and attention to understanding the struggles that Aboriginal people face, they are often seen as a broken, alcoholic and violent community. The struggles that Aboriginal people face are purposefully painted and structured in a way that individualizes and blames them for their own situation. What this narrow societal view of Aboriginal people’s lives is that it allows for an escape from the uncomfortable reality that what they face have been shaped by design. It allows for their histories to be erased from the past history of European colonialism to the land. It negates the evident …show more content…

Even though they had held this power, it was also shared with men, children and elders. Women were placed at a higher value than men which was evidently exhibited in how Aboriginal communities operated (Pedersen et al., 2013). The communities were organized by matriarchal, matrilineal and matrilocal structure which positioned women at the seat of power within the family and the community (Pedersen et al., 2013). Through colonization and the introduction of patriarchy, Aboriginal women were stripped of their power in their family and societal structure (Cannon, 2006). Violence against women in the family that was previously not present within Aboriginal families became an accepted and a well-known association for Aboriginal families (Pedersen et al., 2013). It was through the conquering their land, Europeans consistent oppressive regime has now become so deeply entrenched that it has been normalized and justified (Monture, 1999). Although the physical extraction of Aboriginal sovereignty and land took place many years ago, colonialism is still an ongoing process that is done in many forms (Monture, 2006). This is to the extent of political structures that keeps women in abusive relationships (Cannon, 2006). However, these policies paint violence in Aboriginal families as their own individual failures rather a systemic

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