Tag: Native American

Is Chicana equality abnormal?

Is the want of Chicana women to be treated as equal their men absurd or an abnormal expectations? Based on their Native American background culture, equality between men and women was the norm for some indigenous tribes.It was understood in most Native cultures that men and women’s work was seen as complimentary to each other. While the men hunted game, the women would prepare the game that the men caught.The women had knowledge of plant life around them, they knew how to preserve food,and they also knew how to use plants for cures, just to list a few of their attributes. The objective of the men and women of the tribes were to work together for the betterment of the band.  There wasn’t the sense among such tribes that the man was greater than the woman, or vice versa, because the they both needed each others skills to successful survive. Women  even were able to give their opinion in political matters, and their opinions were all valued. There was an understanding between the men and women of these tribes that one did not function well without the other. To show the amount of respect and power that were given to these women of the tribes,many societies, including the Iroquois, Cherokee and Navajo were matriarchal and some were matrilocal.

After the Spanish colonizing of the Native Americans, the equality  men and women shared start to change for the Chicanos and Chicanas.In Latin America, which was the area of the indigenous people where the Spanish colonized, the role of women started to get restricted.  Women  for centuries started being treated by their fathers, brothers and husbands with discrimination.  In Latin America, including Mexico , women were seen as only child-bearers, homemakers and caregivers.  Womens expectation by men was restricted  to watching their children, performing household chores, and cooking for their husbands. Many men did not consider women to be capable of working outside the home, which is part of the reason why the term “weaker sex” was coined for women.

During the Chicano movement of the 1960’s, the Chicana women weren’t content with just doing secretarial jobs. When ever a Chicana women tried to voice her opinion for the Chicano movement, they were either shunned, ignored, or both. The Chicana women then started their own movement so their voices could be heard by creating autonomous woman-centered organizations that would facilitate their protest activities. In 1969, a group of Chicana university students started Las Hijas de Cuauhtemoc (Daughters of Cuauhtemoc), which served as a consciousness-raising organization,  and a basis for other feminist activities. The group started their own newspaper two years later and named the newspaper after their group.Other Chicano women groups were formed to give the women a voice to address their issues such as  The Comision Femenil Mexicana Nacional(CFMN, or National Mexican Women’s Commission), which was founded in 1970 as a result of a resolution written by a group of Chicanas at the National Chicano, and Concilio Mujeres (Women’s Council), a women’s support group based at San Francisco State University, formed by Dorinda Moreno just to name a few.

Even though the Chicano women roles became restricted after the Spanish colonizing of the Latin America areas, they naturally became who they were. It was not foreign for some Chicana women in their minds to think that they should have an equal voice and responsibility as men if they choose. The same way some indigenous women were viewed as equal to the men in their tribes and society is the same mindset that some of the women of the Chicana feminist movement believed they should also be perceived by men.