Role of Women

Aboriginal

Gender Roles

• Spiritual Leaders
• Life Giver
• Takes care of Children
• Mohawks were matriarchal

Division of Power

• Spiritual Leader
• Caretaker of Children
• Motherly, center of family, social life

Fairness

• Both genders were treated equally
• Gender roles reflected physical ability ie. hunting vs housekeeping
• Mohawks were matriarchal, but Iroquois were patriarchal
• One gender's status did not rely on another's

European

Gender Roles

• Ornaments
• Expected to be chaste until marriage
• Literacy was required as women were religious figures
• Mostly domestic work
• Prostitution was common

Division of Power

• Women were legal incompetents
• Status depends on that of the husband
• Pleas for gender equality were dismissed most during the French revolution
• Almost no independant control over birth control
• Abortion was illegal

Fairness

• Men had control of the wives property
• Barred from being judges or lawmakers
• Taken less seriously in court
• Usually had shorter sentences when convicted of a crime
• Girls and women were barred from most of the schools and universities in the country

Modern

Aboriginal Influence

• Aboriginal teachings implied that women were life givers
• Took care of the Children

European Influence

• Women were inferior
• Indian act allowed women to marry out of status or tribe
• Several women raised the problem in court stating it went against the charter of rights
• All cases were lost, supreme justices were all men at the time
• First female justice was elected 1981
• Sandra Lovelace took the problem to UN Commitee of Human Rights

Modern Product

• Abortion was legalized in Canada in 1988
• First female aboriginal member of parliament was Ethel Blondin Andrews in 1988
• 51% of violent crime victims are women
• Women earn 79% of a man's wages on average
• 1 in every 3 aboriginal women suffer from domestic abuse

Kahoots