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Title: A Real Feminine Journey


1
A Real Feminine Journey
  • Native American Women
  • in the Arts
  • Nancy Marie Mithlo, Ph.D.
  • Department of Anthropology
  • Smith College
  • Future of Minority Studies
  • Summer Seminar
  • Feminist Identities, Global Struggles

Pat Courtney Gold AntiBarbie Doll
2
Why Native American Women?Intellectually -
Provide models of active female agency,
interrogate established concepts of power, serve
as effective cultural brokers and community
protectors. Yet lives are also compromised by
poverty, substance abuse, political corruption,
religious, environmental and legal erosion of
rights, high rates of teenage suicide and
pregnancy, health problems including diabetes and
AIDS/HIV, lack of culturally-relevant education,
and internalized racism and sexism.
Structurally - I have community access, interest,
responsibilities and investments as a Native
American woman (local, regional, national).
3
Why Native American Arts? Native women are
iconic. They embody key cultural values of
nationhood, religion, and family as well as
navigate intersections of access, assimilation
and confrontation. These social arenas enable
women to make political claims and initiate
personal strategies. Henrietta Moore, Feminism
and Anthropology, 1988.
Mithlo feast 1994
Gathering of Nations Miss Indian World Pageant,
Albuquerque, NM 1996
4
Tammy Rahr, Cayuga Doll
Gender Representations
My research, teaching and activism stem from the
premise that images are essential in constructing
and conveying personhood. Native American
artists, as image-makers, struggle with the
economic, cultural and historical exploitation,
erasure and control of their cultural icons.
Demeaning oral (1 little, 2 little), visual (Land
O Lakes) and dramatic (Chief Illiniwek)
expressions are ingrained American symbols that
actively work to degrade and diminish
personhood. This colonial legacy is often
gendered, with the Native women as alter. In
the visual scheme of things, it is not the men
but the Indian women who are alter, and here
everything pivots on releasing the spirit powers
of appearance. Michael Taussig, Mimesis and
Alterity, 1993.
5
OutKast at the 2004 Grammy Awards, Hey Ya
Chief Illiniwek, Univ. Illinois
See Char Teters - National Coalition on Racism in
Sports and the Media. Film In Whose Honor?
See URLhttp//www.indianz.com/News/archives/00369
9.asp
6
  • The production and dissemination of more
    accurate and sensitive counter-representations
    are often dependent upon institutions such as
    colleges, museums, galleries non-profit
    institutions and international biennales.

Shelley Niro, The Shirt, 2003. Premiered at the
2003 Venice Biennale exhibition Pellerossasogna
sponsored by IA3.
Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, 1985
7
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10
Native Womens Stories (Expressive
Autobiographical Interview Technique, L.
Spindler) The theoretical models currently
available to feminist social scientists have
focused on structures and systems but paid less
attention to the complex process within which
gender and other forms of social inequality are
created, manipulated, and incorporated into
individual identities. By focusing on the
individual, we can gain a new perspective on the
contradictions within systems of social
inequality. Irma McClaurin-Allen.
Incongruities Dissonance and Contradiction in
the Life of a Black Middle-Class Woman, 1990.
Charlene Teters, SPK 40
Charlene Teters, SPK 24
11
  • Ive been talking about pottery making as a real
    feminine journey. And Ive been talking about my
    ties to my community as a very feminine, symbolic
    connection. Its all about...I dont know what
    its all about, but it has to do with femaleness
    in a big way. Femaleness, femaleness. My
    community is female. My culture is female. Im
    female. My art making is female. Everything is
    female and its very interesting and important to
    me that you can crown it all with one big bow by
    saying, Yeah, Ive got this cord that Im
    symbolically tied to my community, and by the
    way, my art work is a part of that symbolic cord,
    and I cant ever stray from it because I know
    where I belong. In the most I dont want to
    get away from it. Because I know who I am, and I
    know where Im at, and I know where Ive got to
    be.i
  • i Tessie Naranjo, Interview with author, April
    19, 1991.

A Real Feminine Journey
Tessie Naranjo, Santa Clara Pueblo, NM, 2001
12
What constitutes Indigenous Feminism in the
Native North American context?
  • Is it?
  • Content womanhood. No, appears to advance the
    universal womanhood theory
  • Form - feminism intersectional. The experience of
    women still privileged
  • Method - recuperate womens agency. No, cannot
    claim representation for others
  • Structural marginalized status. Yes, identities
    constricted stereotypes

While feminists and Natives experience
marginality in reference to Western patriarchy
and exploitation, Native American women may or
may not experience significant marginality within
their own communities.
13
Can one assign Feminist identities when Native
American women do not self-describe as
such? (Short answer No, but Feminist
methodologies may be applied)
  • Issues of self-representation are primary in
    Native communities. Rampant exploitation leads to
    legal enforcement of Native control.
  • Indigenous research methodologies and Indigenous
    knowledge systems explicitly articulated, but not
    feminist ideologies

This control is exercised in federal legislation
(NAGPRA, AIRFA, IACA, ICWA)
Brenda Holden MIW 36
14
What relevance do Native North American women
have for feminist anthropology?
  • Universal oppression questioned (womens agency
    demonstrated by Iroquois women)
  • Complementarity questioned (historically situated
    research advanced)
  • Every woman experience deconstructed (tribal
    diversities)
  • Communalism (Individual rights vs. group rights)
  • Public/private divisions dismantled with
    ethnographic evidence

15
What relevance does feminist anthropology have
for Native North American women?
  • Parallel uses of methodological
    intersectionality - Refusal to separate gender
    from race, class and other divisions
  • Universality questioned
  • Critiques of hegemonic feminisms illuminates
    tribal diversities vs. pan-Indian ideologies,
    universal humanism and sovereignty
  • Insider research advanced (Identity) Feminist
    research (has) made the insider methodology much
    more acceptable in qualitative research (ppr
    realism). Multiple ways to be an insider and an
    outsider, constant need for reflexivity. Linda
    Tuhiwai Smith. Decolonizing Methodologies. 1999.

Nora Naranjo-Morse, The Beginning of Victors
Universe
16
  • What relevance does feminist anthropology have
    for Native North American women?
  • LEGITIMIZATION
  • The theoretical or political aspirations of
    feminist ideologies legitimize Native womens
    lives.

What relevance do Native North American women
have for feminist anthropology? LEGITIMIZATION Nat
ive women themselves are the data. Native
womens lives legitimize the theoretical or
political aspirations of feminist ideologies.
Problem in comparison levels theory and
community. Whereas theory needs legitimization,
lives do not. Both the lack of a need to be
legitimized and the sense of appropriation of
Native womens history lead to Native American
womens alienation from feminist ideologies.Gail
Landsman, The Other as Political Symbol
Images of Indians in the Woman Suffrage Movement
Ethnohistory 393 (1992).
17
Structural issues
  • Within feminist anthropology
  • Research access limited (tribes exercising
    control of research, gender not a stated research
    priority for tribes, anthropologys interest in
    Native American topics waned)
  • Ethical codes of conduct differ Not individual
    rights but collective rights and responsibility
  • Within tribal settings
  • Cultural values/political concerns may curtail
    public exposure of sensitive gender issues
    (INCITE! Gender oppression as denialsilence)
  • Sovereign separatism - Until white women can
    come to us on our own terms, we ought to leave
    the door closed
  • (Lee Maracle, I Am Woman, 1996)

18
Survivance (Gerald Vizenor)
Nascent concerns about discrimination against
Indian women often are overshadowed by the need
of all tribal members to band together against
political and legal attacks. (Susan Williams
and Joy Harjo Readers Companion, U.S. Womens
History, 1998) Because group survival through
independent action is a dominant ideal in
Athabascan culture, the traditional Athabascans
did not foreground gender status as a cultural
theme in survival situations. (Phyllis Fast,
Northern Athabascan Survival Women, Community,
and the Future, 2002)
Tammy Rahr
For a critique of survivance see
www.incite-national.org, Naming Abuse
19
Feminist ideologies must have direct bearing on
tribal concerns L.T. Smith Decolonizing
Methodologies
  • For most American Indians, women as well as men,
    gender is not the central focus in research on
    health, education, employment, and resource
    development. Rather, class and ethnic variables
    take priority over sex-linked ones in the
    analysis of critical problems in native
    communities.
  • Patricia Albers in Patricia Albers and Beatrice
    Medicine The Hidden Half Studies of Plains
    Indian Women. New York University Press of
    America 1983.
  • In recognition of the importance of women in
    sustaining tribal cultures, community takes
    precedence over individual womens rights, yet
    conversely there are no human rights until
    femaleness is respected and venerated.
  • Susan M. Williams and Joy Harjo, The Readers
    Companion to U.S. Womens History, 1998.

20
Critique of academic FeminismsAlso a critique of
literary analysis AIQ
  • Many Native women agree with the concepts that
    Native women are influential and powerful tribal
    members but they do not often assign labels to
    their positions.
  • An alternative term to describe Native women
    instead of feminism may indeed be tribalist.
    But the majority of Native women go about their
    daily business with little appreciation of what
    scholars decide to label them.
  • The reality is that most native women whether
    full-blood or mixed-blood, living on or off
    tribal lands, activist or indifferent- are
    concerned about both racial and gender
    oppression.
  • Devon Abbott Mihesuah. Indigenous American
    Women Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism.
    2003.
  • AIQ - American Indian Quarterly is seeking
    submissions on policy, environmental protection,
    treaty rights, forestry, economic development,
    oral histories, recovering indigenous knowledge,
    AIS programs and activism. Submissions dealing
    with literary criticism must include discussions
    about the authors ability to impart messages
    about nation building, empowerment for Natives
    and hope for the future.

21
Cross-over applications between Feminist Theory
and Indigenous Knowledge Systems
  • Intersectionality
  • Holism
  • Universality
  • Community
  • Identity claims
  • Art Making/performance

Roxanne Swentzell, Such are the Dreams of the
Everyday Housewife
22
Intersectionality(But not at the expense of
complimentarity)
  • My community is female. My culture is female.
    Im female. My art making is female. Everything
    is female and its very interesting and important
    to me that you can crown it all with one big
    bowTN
  • Indigenous ideology reflects a holistic
    expression of identity that is not termed race,
    class, gender but as community, culture and
    art-making. These reference points reflect a
    sensibility that foregrounds human beings, social
    belief systems and self-expression.
  • When I am out there, I am woman, I am an
    artist, I am a mother. I am Indian. I am all of
    those things. If I can reach someone we are all
    related somehow. If I can utilize that, I will.
    TR

23
Commmunalism with a Small cVariant of
Universalism, Nationalism
  • Ive got this cord that Im symbolically tied
    to my community, and by the way, my art work is a
    part of that symbolic cord. TN
  • The existence of sovereign nationalism is a
    positive attribute in many tribal settings.
    Tribal membership carries many material realities
    including housing, employment and income. This
    identification is also symbolic as Naranjo
    states, in that her worldview and value system
    are defined by a specific location and history
    relating to her art practice. As with
    universalism, community is also a highly debated
    space of inclusion and exclusion.
  • I thinkwomens time is owned by others.
    Youre not, you dont belong to yourself. You
    belong to your family, your clan, your mother,
    your parents, your relations. They all have
    demands on you and you have to respond if you
    want to maintain your place in that social
    fabric. If you want to be honored and respected,
    you have to respect others, too. And part of
    respecting others is giving up your time.
    Right? GE

24
Identity with a Large I(that happens to be
gendered)
  • Im symbolically tied to my community I cant
    ever stray from it because I know where I belong.
    In the most I dont want to get away from it.
    Because I know who I am, and I know where Im at,
    and I know where Ive got to be. TN
  • Art-making and imagery critique are central
    factors in self expression and therefore
    self-definition and self-valuation. These
    expressions of self-hood are definitive,
    politically-charged, gendered and rarely draw
    from the contingent identity practices associated
    with mainstream post-modern arts. Contemporary
    Native artists are often compelled to reject
    ethnic qualifications in the Artist First,
    Indian Second rationale. Women artists tend to
    foreground concern with community over
    individualism.
  • I think as women we always think about the next
    generation or how it impacts future generations.
    Where I think its pretty apparent to me that our
    colleagues who are male, you know think more
    about how this is going to impact me. You know,
    right now, how this is going to help me. CT
  • Paula Moya, Learning From Experience, Minority
    Identities, Multicultural Struggles, 2002.

25
Potential research questions using cross-over
applications between Feminist Theory and
Indigenous Knowledge Systems in fine arts
contexts
Intersectionality - How are racial and gender
codes read by producers and consumers? What are
the ramifications (pro and con) of collapsing
variations of visual interpretations rather than
holding them in concert? Universalism Will a
critical awareness of Native women as
contemporary artists be achieved more
productively by re-interpretation or eradication
of demeaning icons? Identity Any discussion of
a feminist aesthetic should take the process of
aesthetic choice into account and include the
artist as a proactive selector of what to say and
how to say it. Susan Crowell, Reflections on a
Feminist Aesthetic Studio Potter 20 (1) 1991.
Emmi Whitehorse Chromium Pool 1998
26
Emmi Whitehorse, 2000
I live with another male artist who happens to be
European. When people walk into our spaces, they
would look at his paintings, and then they would
look at my work. And people would automatically
go, OK, hes the male, the real male, his work
really shows the male side and your work is very
feminine. I dont know, with native artists, but
I think there is to some degree that female,
male. You know, my work, I tend to be very low
key, theres not very much bravado. When you
look at the work its very inward, its very
reclusive. You really have to kind of follow the
work. And then it releases itself to you or it
opens up these secrets to you. Its not
something that says Here I am! I think with
Native male artists you get a sense of that
bravado. I think there is definitely a difference
between how males and females treat each other in
life and its much different than the Western
ideal. Its still very male, always dominant.
27
Tammy Rahr, 2000
Oh yea, you get frustrated. Theres no doubt. I
get asked the dumbest questions. I was told
there was no such thing as a dumb question, but
these people need to be educated. You know, if
someone has a misconception about Indian squaws,
well, you need to set them right. You need to
let them know where its at. You know, Hey, I
can speak English I can speak very good English.
As a matter of fact, I can even write it. I
went to school. Im not ignorant. Im a very
caring, loving person. Ive had people thank
me. Theyve sent me gifts for taking the time to
talk to them.
28
NM - I remember you used to tell me they would
pat you on the head because they thought you were
so young.RS - Mm Hmm.NM - Do they still pat you
on the head?RS - In a way (laughter). Well now
Im getting older so Im curious as to how that
will change as I get older and older. Will they
still go Ohh! I can see them doing that to an
old lady, too. Our little Indian woman.i
i Swentzell, Roxanne. Interview with
author. September 12, 2000.
I remember one Indian market I got to my booth,
it was still kind of dark and there were all
these people there and I was still trying to wake
up because it was still early. And I was
preparing myself to open the door and get out and
face all these people and, um, and I had not put
on my shoes yet because it was too early. So I
decided I will just unload without my shoes so I
dont trip. So I got out and I started unloading
and then it became this thing that I was this
barefoot sort of artist person. It fed into
these peoples ideas of who I am. In their mind
(was) that I was so earthy or, so, and they
really liked that. And maybe I am and I dont
see that. But it wasnt done for an image, I
think women are seen as much more as, uh, it
doesnt really matter so much for men what they
look like. They can still be artists and make
it. But sometimes I think its harder for women.
I think theres much more of a pressure on what
you can do.NM - What is it about the art, the
southwest art that would make that even more
different?RS - To add the Indian thing. The
pretty Indian princess.
Remote Woman, Roxanne Swentzell, 1998
29
Tammy Rahr, Wounded Knee Memorial, 1990
Patricia Albers and Beatrice Medicine. The Hidden
Half Studies of Plains Indian Women.
1983. Kimberle Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins
Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and
Violence Against Women of Color. 1991. Susan
Crowell, Reflections on a Feminist Aesthetic.
Studio Potter 20 (1) 1991. Phyllis Fast. Northern
Athabascan Survival Women, Community, and the
Future. 2002. Gail Landsman, The Other as
Political Symbol Images of Indians in the Woman
Suffrage Movement. Ethnohistory 393 1992. Irma
McClaurin-Allen. Incongruities Dissonance and
Contradiction in the Life of a Black Middle-Class
Woman. In Uncertain Terms ed. by Ginsburg and
Tsing. 1990. Lee Maracle, I Am Woman.
1996. Henrietta Moore. Feminism and Anthropology.
1988.
Devon Abbott Mihesuah. Indigenous American Women
Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism.
2003. Paula Moya, Learning From Experience,
Minority Identities, Multicultural Struggles.
2002. Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Decolonizing
Methodologies. 1999. Susan M. Williams and Joy
Harjo.The Readers Companion to U.S. Womens
History. 1998.
30
Indigenous Research Methodology(not codes of
conduct for researchers, but cultural terms for
Maori researchers)
  • Values based on the way we behave moral
    messages
  • A respect for people
  • The seen face, that is present yourself to people
    face to face
  • Look, listenspeak
  • Share and host people, be generous
  • Be cautious
  • Do not trample over the mana of people
  • Dont flaunt your knowledge

Denise Wallace
Kaupapa Maori Practices as defined by Linda
Tuhiwai Smith in Decolonizing Methodologies, 1999
(talk at Berkeley 2004)
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