the normalization of patriarchy through the indian act
DESCRIPTION
In 2014, the RCMP released figures on violence against Aboriginal women for the first time. 1,017 Indigenous women were murdered between 1980 and 2012 This homicide rate is more than four times that of other women in Canada Moreover, this is an underestimate of the severity of violence against Aboriginal women, as police often fail to record whether or not the victims of violent crime are AboriginalTRANSCRIPT
The Normalization of Patriarchy through the Indian Act In 2014,
the RCMP released figures on violence against Aboriginal women for
the first time.
1,017 Indigenous women were murdered between 1980 and 2012 This
homicide rate is more than four times that of other women in Canada
Moreover, this is an underestimate of the severity of violence
against Aboriginal women, as police often fail to record whether or
not the victims of violent crime are Aboriginal How are Indigenous
women constructed in Canadian discourse?
How has colonial legislation placed Indigenous women outside the
protection of law? How has the marginalization of Indigenous women
rendered them prey for those who would abuse them? How have people
organized against violence against Indigenous women? How are
Indigenous women constructed in Canadian discourse? Victorian Model
of Femininity
Women unable to hold property Male as patriarch and female as
obedient wife Women as sexually submissive, docile Women
responsible for the family and social reproduction Colonial Model
of Indigenous Femininity
Indian women unable to hold property Indian male as patriarch and
Indian female as subservient wife Indian women as sexually
promiscuous, desiring Indian women not responsible for children and
social reproduction How has colonial legislation placed Indigenous
women outside the protection of law? Indigenous Women in Fur
Trade
Valued as intermediaries who could help traders negotiate
relationships with Indigenous leaders Traders routinely
intermarried with the daughters of prominent Indigenous leaders
These marriages helped place traders within Indigenous kinship
networks in Settler Colonialism
Indigenous Women in Settler Colonialism Constructed as a sexual
threat, undermining the morality of white men (and producing mixed
race children) Diffused criticism of white mens violence against
Indigenous women Justified use of Indian Act to impose patriarchal
gender norms on women Defining Indianness through Maleness I
Women who married non-Native men and any children from that union
lost their Status under Indian Act. This meant that they had no
access to rights under the Indian Act and no ability to return to
the reserve in the event of marital breakdown. Men who married
non-Indian women could keep their status, and their non-Indian
wives, in turn were automatically granted Indian Status. Defining
Indianness through Maleness II
A 1951 amendment stripped status at 21 from anyone who had both a
mother and a grandmother that married into Indian status (double
mother rule) In 1980, the government gave bands option of opting
out of double mother and marrying out provisions 54% of bands opted
out of the double mother rule; 18% of bands opted out of the
marrying out provisions Gender and Property Disproportionately
reserve property was granted to men Moreover, provincial family law
does not apply on reserve so women on reserve didnt have legal
entitlements to matrimonial property in the case of divorce until
2013 Human Rights Organizing
Lavalle and Bedard took Indian Act discrimination against women who
married out to SCC but lost as the court would not recognize
intersectional forms of oppression Lovelace took Indian Act
discrimination to United Nations and won international recognition
of discrimination Partial Reforms Bill C-31 introduced new status
provisions, providing partial non-transferrable (6(2)b) Indian
Status to children of mixed (Status and Non-Status) parentage
However, Indian women must prove the father is an Indian man It
also reinstated Status for women who married out and their children
(although 6(2)b status). The children of men who married out were
not dropped to the lesser Status category. This was challenged by
McIvor, although the subsequent solution was only to move the
discrimination down one generation Creating Vulnerability through
Law
Indigenous people marginalized by dispossession Indigenous women
doubly dispossessed: without access to property rights on reserve
if they married on reserve, and excluded from the reserve community
if they married out Indigenous women normalized as sexual deviants,
and thus normalized as victims of sexual violence How has the
marginalization of Indigenous women rendered them prey for those
who would abuse them? Helen Betty Osborne was abducted and brutally
murdered near The Pas, Manitoba, early in the morning of November
13, The high school student, originally from the Norway House
Indian Reserve, was 19 years old when she was killed. It was not
until December 1987, more than 16 years later, that one of them,
Dwayne Johnston, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment
for the murder of Betty Osborne. James Houghton was acquitted. Lee
Colgan, having received immunity from prosecution in return for
testifying against Houghton and Johnston, went free. Norman Manger
was never charged. Several months later Royal Canadian Mounted
Police officers concluded that four young men, Dwayne Johnston,
James Houghton, Lee Colgan and Norman Manger, were involved in the
death. While walking along Third Street in The Pas on that cold
Saturday morning, Betty Osborne was accosted by four men in a car.
Houghton, who was driving, stopped the car and Johnston got out,
attempting to convince Osborne to go with them to "party." She told
them that she did not wish to accompany them. She then was forced
into their car and driven away. In the car Osborne was assaulted by
Colgan and Johnston as Houghton drove. In spite of her screams and
attempts to escape, Osborne was taken to a cabin belonging to
Houghtons parents at Clearwater Lake. At the cabin she was pulled
from the car and beaten by Johnston while the others stood watching
and drinking wine. Osborne continued to struggle and scream and,
because her assailants were afraid they might be heard, she was
forced back into the car and driven further from town to a pump
house next to the lake. At least some of her clothing was removed
by her assailants in the car. At the pump house she was once more
taken from the car by one or more of her assailants and the beating
continued. Her clothes, those which had not been removed earlier,
were taken from her. Wearing only her winter boots, she was
viciously beaten, and stabbed, apparently with a screwdriver, more
than 50 times. Her face was smashed beyond recognition. The
evidence suggests that two people then dragged her body into the
bush. The four men then left, returned to The Pas and went their
separate ways. Police focused on Osbornes Aboriginal friends as
murdered
An anonymous letter to police in 1972 implicated Colgan, Houghton
and Manger. Examination of the Colgan family car revealed traces of
hair and blood as well as a piece of a bra strap. Another informant
told police the fourth man in the car was Johnston. The men refused
to speak with the police, and the investigation stalled. While
there was no progress, in the late 1970s, Colgan told a sheriff
that he was drinking with of the murder. This information was not
conveyed to the police. In 1983, an officer renewed investigation.
This eventually resulted in charges being laid against Houghton and
Johnson (with Colgan receiving immunity in exchange for his
testimony). Only Johnson was found guilty. Police
Discrimination
In the Pas in 1971, Aboriginal youth were routinely stopped by
police without cause (and the same harassment was not experienced
by white students) Police heard stories about white men throwing
Aboriginal men off the bridge into the Saskatchewan River; but the
stories were never investigated Police were aware of white youths
cruising the town, picking up Aboriginal girls for drinking parties
and sex; the police did not stop cars to see if the girls were of
age or if they were going willingly, nor did they address it with
members of white community or warn members of Aboriginal community,
nor did they raise it with the host families of Aboriginal students
and Dept of Indian Affairs who were responsible for the care of
Aboriginal students The RCMP failed to check the Colgan car
properly in their investigation Dispossession Norway House
developed as an HBC fort, and during the fur trade developed an
economy based on freighting cargo With the decline in the fur trade
and the emergence of steam shipping on Lake Winnipeg, the Cree
sought to treaty to secure a place within the developing economy,
signing an adhesion in 1875 Treatying with the Cree provided a
legal basis for the development of settler colonial mining,
lumbering, and fishing interests Norway House remained isolated
from development Dispossession The Indian bands around The Pas
signed an adhesion to Treaty 5 in 1876 In 1882 the reserve was
surveyed, although The Pas Band claimed the government did not
allocate its full entitlement of reserve land In 1906, when the
railway was being extended to The Pas, the band surrendered 500
acres which now make up a major part of the town site The land was
divided into lots for sale to those who would settle in the area
Displacement / Isolation
Norway House Roman Catholic school did not teach beyond grade eight
In 1969, Osborne had to leave the community to complete her
education She spent two years at Guy Hill Residential School, then
moved into The Pas to attend Margaret Barbour Collegiate The
Department of Indian Affairs arranged room and board for her with
William and Patricia Benson in their home on Lathlin Avenue. One of
Osbornes friends, Eva Simpson, said: [W]e tried to cover up our
feelings because we were lonesome to go home and yet we knew we had
no way to survive if we were in Norway House so we kind of hung
around together. ... [W]e were very lonesome. Osborne did not have
had any close white friends Displacement / Isolation
The Saskatchewan River separates the town of The Pas from the main
part of The Pas Indian Reserve Few Aboriginal persons were employed
in town Neither community encroached far into the life of the other
or felt welcome in it. At the movie theatre, each group sat on its
own side In at least one of the bars, Indians were not allowed to
sit in certain areas In the school lunch-room, Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal students ate apart Even in their homes there was
separation: the intent the government in placing Indian children in
community homes was to give them a home environment, many were
treated like boarders not like family members The disruption and
dispossession of Aboriginal relationships with the land worked to
(and relied upon) the displacement of traditional gender relations
and imposition of new patriarchal models The strategies of spatial
containment to which colonial authorities made Aboriginal peoples
subject also worked through gendered lens (gendered teaching at
residential school, gendered definitions of family in Indian Act,
gendered structure of the margins of the settler economy The bodies
of Aboriginal people were further subject to gendered regimes of
violence, sexualized as deviant and available to fulfill white mens
desires How have people organized against violence against
Indigenous women? Georges stepfather Peter Sangwais "Hundreds upon
hundreds of our sisters and daughters have gone missing or been
murdered. Putting a few dollars into the kind of police work that
happens anyway is not a solution. We need a concrete national plan
of action that will bring real change in our lives." - Bernadette
Smith, sister of 21-year-old Claudette Osborne who vanished from
Winnipeg in July 2008. Pressure from the families and communities
of missing and murdered Aboriginal women, as well as supporters,
have pressured the police and government to account for the
patterned marginalization and neglect of Aboriginal women. This has
resulted in: A provincial inquiry in British Columbia into the
missing and murdered Aboriginal women; A provincial inquiry in
Manitoba into Aboriginal peoples relationship to the justice
system; Increased accountability and reporting from the police.
Communities have been calling for a National Inquiry into the
Missing and Murdered Women and the development of a national action
plan on the issue Responding to lacking action from the police and
government, activists have also launched an online database
documenting deaths and disappearances of Aboriginal women in Canada
Cindy Gladue suffered her last indignity at murder trial
Read the CBC article: Cindy Gladue suffered her last indignity at
murder trial How does the Canadian court system treat Indigenous
women today?
How are Indigenous women, and their bodies, portrayed in the
courtroom? Are there still circumstances in which we can consider
Indigenous Women outside the protection of law?