Gender Is Defined As A System Of Social, Symbolic, And Psychic Relations Essay

Women in European societies enjoyed very little social importance. In Native American societies, women also held inferior positions, but not to the degree instituted among European women. Native Americans determined family membership through the female line, contrary to the European patriarchal system. A woman could divorce her husband if she wished. Europeans regarded this reversal of sexual hierarchy as dangerous and peculiar. Senior women of a village instructed the men during decision-making, determined the chief of a clan, and retained impeaching powers. Europeans regarded this sexual equality as another example of the uncivilized nature of Native Americans.

The  status of women in Algonquian and Iroquoian society. The Europeans viewed the structure of Native American society lacking the complexity of their own community.  Their drawings and accounts  of the Indian people reveal that the tribe's division of labor and gender roles were actually very advanced, especially where the status of women was concerned. Since  married women in Europe held few rights to their property, family wealth, or even children, women of the tribes had  greater independence and discretion over their produce, conditions of labor, and property.  Native women even served as representatives in the tribal councils, and held  rights over the land they worked.  This  demonstrates that although “women’s work” was belittled in European cultures, Native women’s daily contributions were recognized by Native men and the tribe as a whole as vital to the prosperity of the community and worthy of respect. Analyzing the condition of women in America, a  woman's status in their community was directly related to the social hierarchy, religious culture, and natural environment in which they lived, and that the combination of those ingredients varied vastly  across the continent.

In The First American Women, Sara M. Evans describes the changing roles of the respective populations of indigenous, white European, and black slave women, from before Columbus’s arrival to the American Revolution, and how the perception of these roles were shaped by the sociocultural context of each group. For example, although indigenous women in North America had significant political and economic power, especially initially, most white European settlers did not recognize this power-- their Eurocentric lens conveying women as inferior-- and thus they instead saw these female political leaders as slaves, basing this conclusion on a comparison to black slaves.

     With Native Americans being the first inhabitants of North America, many people often question what traditions they have created on their own, before the ideas of the pale settlers. When taking a look into their interesting beliefs, it is obvious to see an intricate basis or animals and spirits that guide the lifestyles of Indians all over the country. Even their society had a special way of doing things, including gender roles of both men and women. There are many customs that have seemed odd to the average American throughout the centuries, but Indians found these a normal way of life. Even the lifestyles of Native Americans were unique, from hunting animals to tanning buffalo hides. Gender was a major

Gender has been described as masculine or feminine characteristics that encompass gender identity sex as well as social roles (Nobelius 2004). According to sexologist John Money, there is a difference between gender as a role and the biologically of differences in sex (Udry 1994). Within scholarly disciplines, cultures and contexts, gender frequently has its own mean, contextual frame of reference and the manner in which it is used to describe a variety of issues and characteristics. The sociocultural codes, conventions and the suggested and literal rules that accompany the notion of gender are vast and diverse. There has been and continues to be much scholarly debate regarding the idea of gender and how it has been viewed historically; as well as changes in the grammatical use of the

The relationship of men and women by one another was greatly influenced when Natives and Europeans encountered each other. From these stories men are in higher position than women for example God was a man who created the entire earth. In the previous creation stories “A women who fell from the sky” her father the chief was in charge of heaven who was also a man and then in “Ramon Pane” there was four men left who were not exposed to the sun and were left to continue man kind. Although the stories told by the Native Americans had a man or men being the start of the earth or creation they did have a woman helping in some parts. As in the Europeans story only God being a man created everything. This could affect the way the Europeans and Native Americans treated each other in there first encounter because the Europeans had men in charge of things and the woman did what they were told or what benefited the men. As in the Native culture the men were still in charge but the women had more responsibility and were used more. Both of these cultures would have thought the others were unusual and this would affect the way they would interact.

Another important section of this chapter was simply called “Texas”. The author provides the context of the Great Plains in 1720 including the French-Spanish rivalry and the corresponding rivalry between the Pawnee and Wichita Indians and the Apache and Pueblo Indians. The Spanish colonies were populated mostly with unarmed missionaries, while the French-controlled regions

Today, women are believed to be equal to men however this was not always the case. During colonial times, women did not have the same roles as women do today; men and women had fixed roles in society. Roles between men and women do not exchange due to strict gender roles. Additionally, married women were not exactly considered as companions instead, as the husband’s property. Although gender roles were a significant issue among women in early America, another issue was the background of these women. Factors such as race, religion, geography/region, and social class were substantial to the extent of control a woman had over her own life. These factors significantly shaped the lives of these women. For instance, white women had differences

Some aspects of the lifestyle ancient civilizations lived almost seem appalling or intolerable when compared to the very developed and carefully shaped the world inhabited today. One of these characteristics of previous societies that prove to be rather challenging to conceive in current times consists of the lack of rights, privileges, and equity women had. Society maintained this assumption of a man’s superiority up until the women’s rights movement of the early twentieth century; yet with the two sexes essentially equal in America today, imagining a restricted life as a female proves unfathomable. Looking back at the history of human kind, men almost always subdued women and treated them as property. When focusing on the first

When European settlers arrived, they had a pre-decided vision of what women ought to behave like based on the European women, which the indigenous women didn’t align with. Indigenous women were comprehended and characterized in ambiguous and conflicting terms. They could firstly be viewed as “noble savages” where they were seen as classic Indian Princesses, virginal, childlike, naturally pure, beautiful, helpful to European men, and open and willing to

For Native Americans there were females, males, berdache, and fourth gender. “The evidence of multiple genders in North America offers support for the theory of social constructionism, which maintains that gender roles, sexualities, and identities are not natural, essential, or universal, but constructed by social processes and discourses.” (SCT P2) Multiple genders were not limited to the Eastern Tribes alone as they were documented in over 155 tribes. In a third of these groups, females taking on a male’s lifestyle were referred to by the same term as male berdaches or by a distinct term- fourth gender.

Zinn explains different forms of equality towards men, women, and children in Native American tribes and compares them to the equality in Europe and the colonies. When Columbus and his successors were not coming into an empty new world, but into a world which places was as populated as Europe itself, where culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children, and nature were more worked out than perhaps any place in the world. Zinn said “the status of women in Indian tribes are equal, it was better than the status of women in Europe” (5). Women were important and respected in Iroquois society, the senior women in the village named the men who represented the

Women’s lives were different compared to other countries because women were open to do such tasks, premarital sex, marriage, and divorce. Men, on the other hand, contributed in communities by hunting and played a sort of role model of what a successful leader is like. Society wasn’t really a patriarch yet because women contributed in religious ceremonies as tribal leaders. Because of these different ideals and beliefs, the Europeans perceived the Native Americans as “noble savages,” as opposed to their first encounter describing them as “beautiful of stature and build.” However, as time went on, so did the Europeans desire for conquest, which resulted in the conquering of their lands.

The perception of inequality was evident in the colonial Spanish America, man belief that women were lacked in capacity to reason as soundly as men. A normal day for European women in the new world was generally characterized by male domination, for example marriage was arranged by the fathers, women never go out except to go church, women didn’t have the right to express their opinions about politic or society issues. Subsequent to all these bad treats European women try to find different ways to escape from man domination and demonstrate their intellectual capacities, for example women used become part of a convent, write in secret their desires and disappointments, and even dress as man to

The history of the world is a complex arrangement of happenings and occurrences that have shaped the current state of civilization. At a fundamental level, history is the driving force behind every element of society that exists today. Within history, there are several factors that have and continue to determine the way in which our society functions. One of the most significant of these factors is gender. Today, conceptions, viewpoints and ideas surrounding gender are always changing. It is this fluidity of thought that ultimately allows society to progress forward and create change. However, gender has not always been as openly discussed. Tracing back through history, gender has consistently been a point of identity among humans.