Conquest

Some things that stood out to me in this article was how talked about how Native American women have been dubbed rapable. These women have been turned into something that they're not in order to benefit the majority. To this day Native women have been looked over, and put in a 'dirty' sexual place. They are not truly recognized and that is something that desperate needs to be remedied. 

Gender in Inuit Society

There were a few different things in this article that jumped out. The first thing was that women and men have very different roles in society. Each gender has their specific role, and are separate from the time they are children on.  Women are expected to fill the role of the domestic worker while men fill the role of hunter/gatherer. The second point that I noticed was the similarity between the last reading in "Many Tender Ties";intro and CH.1 and this article. Husbands trade their wives or just 'loan' them out to other men for any length of time, even permanently. I feel that this is an example of early prostitution. The fact that the same thing happens in both societies makes me wonder whether or not it is prevalent throughout North America. 

Coffee Video

This video really brought out the idea of gender division. Women and men in this movie have very specific roles of they're supposed to be doing. Each has their own job that they need to get done. Children play a role in this also. You can see that the children help (or try to) the workers with what they are doing. It's somewhat suprising to see small children doing jobs and working along side the grown ups. These people want a fair system, but they're not getting it. They're not always getting the money that they deserve, the land that is rightfully theirs, or benefits that they need. I want to find ways to change and challenge this system.

Many Tender Ties: Into,CH.1

These two sections in the book that I read were very interesting to me because I was able to learn about some native american women's experiences. In some tribes they were not treated very well, or even as human it seems. What I found most suprising is that some husbands would willingly trade their wives or 'lend' them out to strangers for any period of time. I feel that this is an early form of prostitution. In some cases, men would wrestle to trade wives, or win a wife from another man. Women were often put up as the prize; therefore considered as property. Their life was very hard from what I've read. My question is, are there tribes where women were considered an important part of the economic, political society?

9/8/08 - CH.4+6

I grew up very close to Canada and never was able to learn about its history. Chapter 4 was interesting to me for several reasons; I never knew much about what happened in Canada during the Revolutionary War, and how it came to be an abolitionist country. The second point that was brought up was the 'the cult of womanhood'. I think that it's interesting that the British were so adamant that women should be frail, submissive, etc. when there was so much work to be done. In reality, women were hard laborers working on the farms, teaching, cooking, mothering, etc. Not only were women a driving force for the economy at that time through their hard labour. When  talking about hard labour it's also very important to remember the Aboriginals. When they were no longer needed for their labour or indigenous commerce they were pushed out of their land by series of treaties and acts.     

In Chapter 6, I found it interesting in the discussion of ethnicity in Mexico. In the twentieth century the term 'mestizo'  was reconstructed therefore causing a 'fusion' of the ethnicities.  By doing this urbanization was embraced, the Spanish language was used, and heroes were acknowledged. My question is, was this to raise people's spirits and create proactive people to look up to. Of course this has something to do with some of the choices that were made, but is there an anterior motive to these changes than the obvious, by this I mean... who is benefiting from these changes? 

Week 1 Reading

In the reading I thought a few points were very interesting. One in particular jumped out at me; the four nations who opposed the declaration of indigenous peoples.  It's ironic that the U.S. says its a free country, and is the super power of the world, yet there are these injustices going on. If the U.S. is not developed enough to recognize it's mistakes,  how is everything going to pan out? What I mean by this is, if we're not able to look back on our history and correct mistakes how are we going to move forward?