Tracing The Womyn''s Labor Movement'

The women’s labor movement of the early 1920s classified women according to their skin color, who they married, were they of child baring age and then their skills. Specific struggles for all women started from the beginning of time, but some significant outstanding events increased women’s opportunities for paid employment and gave women recognition and validity. It seemed like whenever there was a war women’s duties expanded outside the home and women’s issues were pushed to the forefront of the work force starting in the 1920s after the men in their communities were sent to fight in the World Wars one and two. This was the era when women became recognized as persons and when they began to bridge the gaps between home and the world of work. The women’s movement at this time affected the First Nations women in a different way because of the cross cultural currents.
First Nations women, like women in general, were becoming more then just a commodity when they were sent into the factories, to replace the men who were going off to war. (www.womenmovement.ca) Women were moving into the paid work force to help keep the country’s industries going and keep up with the demands of Canada’s military needs until the men returned home. As a result of the important work they were doing, women were beginning to unearth their own power and understand the impact of the government body on both their personal lives and how they could use this to their advantage, and demand the right to vote in government elections.
The women’s movement continued on to the early 1970s existing on two separate paths, one for First nations women and one for all women, but going in the same direction and striving for the liberation their ancestors once had. First Nations women were united in resisting all forms of Canadian government legislation that they thought were denying them the rights to a decent living by their own standards. Their actions resulted in their voices being heard and a deeper understanding of one another’s issues and differences. After this achievement they formed their own wish list of declarations, reflected in Bill C-31, which included access to education, health care, employment, daycare and housing. The list also demanded the rights for fair treatment in the home, the community, the court rooms, the rights to be included in the procreation decisions, property titles and to be treatment with dignity and respect. In forming their demands, First Nations women drew on the experience and strength of their ancestors and the ideas of women from other races. Women like:
• Emily Gowan Murphy who was Canada’s first female magistrate, a social reformer and author. She helped win legal and political rights for Canadian women. The Famous Five).
• Nellie McClung who was energetically advocating for the rights of Caucasian women during the 19th and 20th century. (The Famous Five Readings)
• Zoe Haight (1987) “We are not idiots, not imbeciles.” We are women, and we are asking for equal franchise, not as a favor, but because it is just that we should have it. (Suffrage: The Women's Parliament ... The Women's Parliament Violet McNaughton, Zoe Haight, and Erma Stocking 56 KB In January 1914, the women ... the Women's Parliament (Herstory 1977). Nellie McClung ( Herstory 1974) played the premier, other women ...
Specific struggles for First Nations women have been happening since the beginning of time; with some significant world events influencing the movement’s progress. Although their struggles were identical amongst status and non-status women, each group was treated very differently by the presiding government and community, based on their status (non-status vs. status card holder, eligible for marriage), child bearing age and then their assets.
The first written reports of how valuable FN women were, were reported when the first European explorers had to use these women as cooks, nurses, doctors, guides and translators in addition to being considered cheap workers for the soon to be fish packing companies. FN women were not only used as an essential tool to our nation’s survival; they were also used as sexual slaves, bartering pawns and translators between all nations.
• While immigrant (Caucasian) women were struggling to be recognized as “persons” FN women had already had an existing women’s liberation tradition until the invasion of colonization. Their importance was recognized by everyone in their community which in turn would give them security for their children and themselves by insuring that they would have a home, some land and access to food and medicinal resources and other community amenities. First Nations women were once considered to have an elevated role in their respective communities (Albers and Medicine 1983. The Hidden Half) in the following areas:
• FN women had responsibilities for educating the children and managing the community’s affairs. As the givers of all life, they have always been their children’s first teachers and disciplinarians, but have now lost their rights to be included in discussion or decision making of issues which have direct connections to their well being and their communities.
• When the men of their communities went off hunting or fishing, the women were left behind to defend and manage their villages. This would put them in an elevated role of leadership.

The Indian act, introduced in the 1876 by the colonizers, discredited First Nation’s (F.N.) women by removing their status within their own community. The Indian act gave the federal government power over FN communities. The male dominated European government’s tendency to treat their women as commodities was transferred over to how they expected FN men to treat their women. This new European government was not accustomed to dealing with women as equals. Yet, FN women’s work was just as valuable as their men’s work. Their value was not measured in dollars and cents. It was measured in their adaptability to their work and home environment; FN women did not make any distinctions between the two work sites.
The loss of the women’s traditional cultural status led to a lack of accessibility to community support and a lack of understanding of FN women issues. The results were a high percentage of them ending their own life prematurely or at the whims of another. Their deaths were only measured in the physical not the spiritual, mental, and emotional symptoms which usually precedes the physical, lack of adequate housing, food, and education has also hampered their well being. Criminal offenses against FN women were almost non-existent prior to European contact because FN women treated themselves and their communities with respect. Since the disappearance of respect the criminal acts against these women have been on a steady increase. It was a first time experience for FN women to experience this type of violation because there were no lessons taught to them by their elders about such abuse, since it had no place in their culture.
Community affairs such as the invasion of another race, government, apartheid and illegal child apprehensions were all introduced with the inception of a new community thus devaluing FN women’s lives.
• For First Nations women it would take until the late 1960’s for all women to be recognized as “persons” and be considered eligible to vote in any government elections, or to be considered as equals. It was during this era that folk singers like Buffy St. Marie (Cree Nation) and Cher (from Cherokee Nation) started pushing the issues of FN women’s concerns to the forefront causing them to create their own political body National Women Aboriginal Council (NWAC),within the Assemble of First Nations(AFN) in 1974. This women’s party had the following purposes:
• to be the national voice for Native women;
• to address issues in a manner which reflects the changing needs of Native women in Canada;
• to assist and promote common goals towards self-determination and self-sufficiency for Native peoples in our role as mothers and leaders;
• to promote equal opportunities for Native women in programs and activities;
• to serve as a resource among our constituency and Native communities;
• to cultivate and teach the characteristics that are unique aspects of our cultural and historical traditions;
• to assist Native women's organizations, as well as community initiatives in the development of their local projects; and
• To advance issues and concerns of Native women; and to link with other Native organizations with common goals. < http://www.nwac-hq.org/about.htm>
After establishing this foundation this group of women engaged in supporting women like Sandra Lovelace Nicholson when she decided to challenge the federal government and the Indian Act which had governed the First Nations community. Ms Lovelace-Nicholson was the woman who challenged the federal government to treat women as equals by removing the gender identity discrimination part of Bill C-31. This bill did not recognize their traditional roles. The failure of this bill has denied thousands of women and their children adequate housing, decent health care and everything connected to a person with status (Bill C-31).
FN women have been forced to form their own political body, which was a position that they were familiar within their own traditional community, but this time they have to do this with out the essential support of their men; nor did they have the support of their non-status community.
They have succeeded in attaining the rights to be recognized as a person by the non-status with different privileges.
Numerous people from both the Caucasian and First Nations women community contributed to the progress of FN women rights to be recognized for their contributions, for the past 200 years, to the main stream women’s movement. Amongst those who could be singled out for their historical contributions are women like:
The ones who were the guides and Fur traders of the early 1800s and women who worked in BC’s own fish factories in the 1920s, or who worked tirelessly for years out in the community for pennies a day. (www.indiancountry.com/firstnation-women leaders)
• Jean Goodwill who studied at the Holy Family Hospital in Prince Albert and graduated in 1954-the first Aboriginal person in Saskatchewan and one of the first in the country to become a registered nurse. www.indiancountry.com/firstnation-women leaders)
• Victoria Belcourt who decided her wealth of memories and experiences should be preserved for future generations, and she took on the role of Métis historian. She is credited with writing a number of articles for the Alberta Historical Review, chronicling her life as a young Métis woman on the Prairies in the 1800s, as well as relaying stories of even earlier times shared with her by others. She was the first reporter for a major news paper.
• Warrior women like Buffy St. Marie who risked their lives by going public and singing the political songs about the enslavement of women during the 1960s.
• Rreporters like Carla Robinson who is the first FN given an award winning journalist and news anchor on CBC News world and is the main reporter on a nightly news report, and a member of the Haisla and Heiltsuk First Nations. (CBC News World-Report-www.cbc.ca).
• Sandra Lovelace Nicholas, now 56, who is considered a seminal figure in aboriginal women's history because her complaint to a United Nations body shamed the government in 1985 into reversing rules that stripped women of Indian status when they married a non-Indian man. (www.turtleisland.org/women discussion).
First Nations women, like women in general, were becoming more then just a commodity when they were sent into the factories, to replace the men who were going off to war. (www.womenmovement.ca) Women were moving into the paid work force to help keep the country’s industries going and keep up with the demands of Canada’s military needs until the men returned home. As a result of the important work they were doing, women were beginning to unearth their own power and understand the impact of the government body on both their personal lives and how they could use this to their advantage, and demand the right to vote in government elections.
The women’s movement continued on to the early 1970s existing on two separate paths, one for First nations women and one for all women, but going in the same direction and striving for the liberation their ancestors once had. First Nations women were united in resisting all forms of Canadian government legislation that they thought were denying them the rights to a decent living by their own standards. Their actions resulted in their voices being heard and a deeper understanding of one another’s issues and differences. After this achievement they formed their own wish list of declarations, reflected in Bill C-31, which included access to education, health care, employment, daycare and housing. The list also demanded the rights for fair treatment in the home, the community, the court rooms, the rights to be included in the procreation decisions, property titles and to be treatment with dignity and respect. In forming their demands, First Nations women drew on the experience and strength of their ancestors and the ideas of women from other races. Women like:
• Emily Gowan Murphy who was Canada’s first female magistrate, a social reformer and author. She helped win legal and political rights for Canadian women. The Famous Five).
• Nellie McClung who was energetically advocating for the rights of Caucasian women during the 19th and 20th century. (The Famous Five Readings)
• Zoe Haight (1987) “We are not idiots, not imbeciles.” We are women, and we are asking for equal franchise, not as a favor, but because it is just that we should have it. (Suffrage: The Women's Parliament ... The Women's Parliament Violet McNaughton, Zoe Haight, and Erma Stocking 56 KB In January 1914, the women ... the Women's Parliament (Herstory 1977). Nellie McClung ( Herstory 1974) played the premier, other women ...

During the 1980s the women’s movement seem to reach a plateau where everything that they and their ancestors had fought for had either been achieved or gone so far to the way side that the women of this decade have forgotten about the issues that affected other women. Our issues seem to have become diluted with less of a status of importance with the evolution of instant products and services and population’s growth. But they are still in existence for many women who are considered as under privileged women in third world countries. They are laden with oppression, depression and sedation of prescription drugs which only mask the problems of women needing to be freely able to support one another through the humanistic connections that has bound so many women together.









WORKS CITED

”Colonization and Traditional Roles”From the Fur Trade to Free Trade: Forestry and First Nations Women in Canada.” Status Women Action Group. 13th December 2004. 16 September 2005
< http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/pubspr/0662363779/200404_0662363779_7_e.html>
Albers and Medicine 1983. The Hidden Half.

< http://www.nwac-hq.org/about.htm
Important changes were made to Canada's Indian Act on June 28, 1985, when Parliament passed Bill C-31, an Act to Amend the Indian Act. Bill C-31. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

www.indiancountry.com/firstnation-women

Tehaliwaskenhas - Bob Kennedy, Oneida. ”Problem continues, so does the studying of this key women’s' and human rights issue for First Nations. . . “. Turtle Island Native Network 8TH April 2005. 15TH September 2005 .


”Colonization and Traditional Roles”From the Fur Trade to Free Trade: Forestry and First Nations Women in Canada.” Status Women Action Group. 13th December 2004. 16 September 2005
< http://www.swc-cfc.gc.ca/pubs/pubspr/0662363779/200404_0662363779_7_e.html>

Tehaliwaskenhas - Bob Kennedy, Oneida. “Aboriginal women who earn a mere 46%.” Online discussion on Pay Equity. 15 Feb. 2005. Native News. .


“Bill C-31”. 19 Sept. 2005. JOHNCO Ottawa Business Promenade. .