Haudenosaunee Women and Equality
The women of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy have been held in esteem and living in equality with men for centuries. The freedoms enjoyed by Haudenosaunee women during the 19th century were very glaringly not experienced by the non-Native women of the same time period.
In her book Sisters in Spirit: Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Influence on Early American Feminists, Sally Roesch Wagner, Ph.D., succinctly spells out the differences between the two groups in the following excerpt:“Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the major theoreticians of the woman’s rights movement, claimed the society in which they lived was based on the oppression of women. Haudenosaunee society, on the other hand, was organized to maintain a balance of equality between women and men.”Shown here are the contrasting differences between the two worlds of women who lived side-by-side in this region of upstate New York in 1848.
Haudenosaunee:
Social
Children are members of the mother’s clan
Violence against women not part of culture, and dealt with seriously when occurs
Clothing fosters health, freedom of movement, independence
Women’s responsibilities have a spiritual basis
Economic
Work is satisfying, done communally
Responsible for agriculture as well as home life
Work done under the direction of the women, working together
Each woman controls her own personal property
Spiritual
“Sky Woman” the spiritual being, catalyst for the world to see
Mother Earth and women spiritually interrelated
Women have responsibilities in ceremony
Responsibilities in balance with those of men
Political
Women choose their chief
Women hold key political offices (E.g. clan mothers)
Confederacy law ensures women’s political authority
Decision making by consensus, everyone has a voice
EuroAmerican:
Social
Children are the sole property of fathers
Husbands have a legal right and a religious responsibility to physically discipline wives
Clothing is restrictive, unhealthy and dangerous
Women’s subordination has a religious foundation
Economic
Work is drudgery, isolated
Responsible for home, but subordinate to husband
Work done under authority of the husband
No rights to her own property, body or children
Spiritual
No female in the godhead
Spirituality not connected to the earth
Women forbidden to speak in churches
Responsibilities subordinate to the men’s authority
Political
Illegal for women to vote
Women excluded from political office
Common law defines married women as “dead in the law”
Decision making by men, majority rules