The following opinion by Sunny Clifford appears in the latest issue of the Native Sun News. All content © Native Sun News.
Feminist is not a bad thing
By Sunny Clifford
“Are you one of those feminists? Does that mean you hate men?” It baffles me that I have been asked those questions on more than one occasion when someone unfamiliar with the term figures out I’m a feminist. It took me a while to identify with feminism. I was not born into it, but in a way I was simply because I am an indigenous woman and I come from a long line of women who made choices for themselves.
I was not always proud to say “I am a feminist.” I used to have the belief that feminism was meant for privileged white women. The women who could afford to take time out of their lives and protest corporations and challenge the government. I am not a privileged white woman. I am a woman born on an Indian Reservation, in one of the poorest counties in the nation. In a way even today feminism is for those privileged enough to have this time. But aren’t we in a way privileged if we can read and write, articulate, and have access to the internet or computer?
So when I answer those types of questions I laugh and say no, I am not a hateful person. I do get angry about the inequality women face, particularly Native American women, or women on Indian reservations. Why what do you mean, Sunny? We have our rights, we can go to school! [Insert wrong answer buzzer sound]. What rights? Why do we have to oblige by men (and some women, mostly white) in congress telling us what we can or cannot do with our bodies? Yes, we do have the right to education, thankfully because of ancestors who fought for that. However, I do not think those men who were given the right to sign off for everyone was thinking about women and their reproductive rights. And it’s not their fault, mostly because they did not fully understand the English language. Also because previous to colonization the men had nothing to do with what the women were doing with their bodies.
Now we have feminism. First wave feminism (1800s-early 1900s) brought about the right to vote. American women had the right to vote before the indigenous people. I have a lot to be thankful for feminism, but yet I have a seated anger that says this would all never have happened if it were not for Manifest Destiny or colonization. Ah, the inevitable westward expansion that screamed greed. Second wave feminism (think after WWII) insisted that women were more than capable of household duties, and we are. Third wave feminism has expanded to include not only women of color (such as my brown self) but also transgender, queer, lesbian, bisexual and also addresses the struggles of these people as well as gender violence, reproductive justice (I love reproductive justice), derogatory language (think Redskins) and sexual harassment.
Often I feel where does all this leave me? I know traditionally and even in Lakota there is no word for feminism. Our ancestral women [prior to colonization] did not have to fight for their ‘rights.’ So, what does that mean today? Ever since colonization our women have been faced with laws trespassing their bodies like the land. Today, there are many laws that say what is right for us and what is not. In reality, only we know what is truly good and righteous for ourselves. We need to be able to choose what we want for our own lives. Whether that is to have children or not have children or to decide when it is right for us to have children. That to me is true freedom. I wish everyone in the world were feminists because that would mean women were respected.
Sunny Clifford is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. She has traveled the country advocating for both the rights of women and Indigenous people and can be reached at s.clifford@live.com
This is part four of NSN’s Native Women Columnist series.
Copyright permission by Native Sun News
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