The Indigenous Women's Network (IWN) is a nonprofit organization that provides a platform for Indigenous women in the Western Hemisphere. [1] The organization was founded in 1985. [2] IWN focuses on Native women, their families and communities and attempts to help them have sovereignty over themselves and their environment. [3] IWN has published a journal, Indigenous Women, since 1991. [3] This magazine is the first and currently the only magazine written by and for Native women. [4]
Winona LaDuke [5] and Janet McCloud were some of the co-founders of IWN. [6] Nearly 200 Native women activists created the IWN at a gathering hosted by the Northwest Indian Women's Circle in Yelm, Washington, in 1985. [7] LaDuke and McCloud felt that sexism which was present in the Native activist movements of the 1980s. This led to the creation of IWN. [2] [8] IWN also shared members with Women of All Red Nations. [9] Over the past 21 years, IWN has evolved into an international coalition of Indigenous women from rural and urban communities who approach the resolution of contemporary challenges from a traditional Indigenous values base. [10]
Winona LaDuke is an American economist, environmentalist, writer and industrial hemp grower, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development.
Food sovereignty is a food system in which the people who produce, distribute, and consume food also control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution. This stands in contrast to the present corporate food regime, in which corporations and market institutions control the global food system. Food sovereignty emphasizes local food economies, sustainable food availability, and center culturally appropriate foods and practices. Changing climates and disrupted foodways disproportionately impact indigenous populations and their access to traditional food sources while contributing to higher rates of certain diseases; for this reason, food sovereignty centers indigenous peoples. These needs have been addressed in recent years by several international organizations, including the United Nations, with several countries adopting food sovereignty policies into law. Critics of food sovereignty activism believe that the system is founded on inaccurate baseline assumptions; disregards the origins of the targeted problems; and is plagued by a lack of consensus for proposed solutions.
The White Earth Nation or White Earth Band of Ojibwe is a Native American band located in northwestern Minnesota. The band's land base is the White Earth Indian Reservation. Historically, the tribe was formed from the unification of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) bands from the northern part of the state who were displaced by European settlement.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is an American historian, writer, and activist, known for her 2014 work An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.
Paula Gunn Allen was a Native American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Native American, and Arab-American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo and childhood years. She drew from its oral traditions for her fiction poetry and also wrote numerous essays on its themes. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary works and wrote two biographies of Native American women.
Honor the Earth is a non-profit organization founded to raise awareness and financial support for Indigenous environmental justice. The organization was founded by Indigo Girls Amy Ray and Emily Saliers after meeting Winona LaDuke, and after consultation with members of the Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Women's Network and Seventh Generation Fund. Since 2016, Winona LaDuke and other members of Honor the Earth have been active in the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
The "Unplug America - Give Mother Earth a Rest Day" tradition was started in 1992 by Indigenous Peoples and is observed on October 13 each year. It is a day to live simply and off grid, enjoy the nature around you and breathe fresh air. Unplug your TV, computers... and take a walk. The campaign focuses primarily on America because of massively high per capita consumption in the US.
Andrea Lee Smith is an American academic, feminist, and activist against violence. Smith's work focuses on issues of violence against women of color and their communities, specifically Native American women. Formerly an assistant professor of American Culture and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Smith serves as a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside. A co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, the Boarding School Healing Project, and the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations, Smith has based her activism and her scholarship on the lives of women of color.
Janet McCloud was a prominent Native American and indigenous rights activist. Her activism helped lead to the 1974 Boldt Decision, for which she was dubbed, "the Rosa Parks of the American Indian Movement." She co-founded Women of All Red Nations (WARN) in 1974. The first convening of the Indigenous Women's Network was in her backyard in Yelm, Washington in August 1985.
A variety of movements of feminist ideology have developed over the years. They vary in goals, strategies, and affiliations. They often overlap, and some feminists identify themselves with several branches of feminist thought.
Heid E. Erdrich is a Turtle Mountain Ojibwe writer and editor of poetry, short stories, and nonfiction, and maker of poem films.
Native American feminism or Native feminism is, at its root, understanding how gender plays an important role in indigenous communities both historically and in modern-day. As well, Native American feminism deconstructs the racial and broader stereotypes of indigenous peoples, gender, sexuality, while also focusing on decolonization and breaking down the patriarchy and pro-capitalist ideology. As a branch of the broader Indigenous feminism, it similarly prioritizes decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and the empowerment of indigenous women and girls in the context of Native American and First Nations cultural values and priorities, rather than white, mainstream ones. A central and urgent issue for Native feminists is the Missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.
Spiderwoman Theater is an American, Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. Their mission was to present exceptional theater performance, and to provide theatrical training and education in an urban Indigenous performance practice. Spiderwoman theater was an early feminist theatre group that sprung out of the feminist movement in the 1970s. They questioned gender roles, cultural stereotypes, sexual and economic oppression. It was founded in 1976, the core of the group is formed by sisters Muriel Miguel, Gloria Miguel, and Lisa Mayo. It was the first Native American women's theater troupe and is named after the Spiderwoman deity from Hopi mythology.
Indigenous feminism is an intersectional theory and practice of feminism that focuses on decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and human rights for Indigenous women and their families. The focus is to empower Indigenous women in the context of Indigenous cultural values and priorities, rather than mainstream, white, patriarchal ones. In this cultural perspective, it can be compared to womanism in the African-American communities.
Aileen Moreton-Robinson is an Australian academic, Indigenous feminist, author and activist for Indigenous rights. She is an Aboriginal woman of the Goenpul tribe, part of the Quandamooka nation on Stradbroke Island in Queensland. She was the first Aboriginal person to be appointed to a mainstream lecturing position in women's studies in Australia. She has held positions in women's studies at Flinders University and Indigenous studies at Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology. She is currently Professor of Indigenous Research at RMIT and formerly Dean, Indigenous Research and Engagement at the Queensland University of Technology and Director of the National Indigenous Research and Knowledges Network. She completed a PhD at Griffith University in 1998, with a thesis titled Talkin' up to the white woman: Indigenous women and feminism in Australia. The thesis was later published as a book in 1999 and was short-listed for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards and the Stanner Award.
Joanne Barker became a faculty member within the American Indian Studies Department at San Francisco State University, in 2003. Much of her work focuses on indigenous feminism and the sovereignty and self determination of indigenous peoples. Her work takes a transnational approach, making connections between and across the borders of countries. Barker makes historical and scholarly connections between the oppression and resistance of marginalized communities. An example of this transnational approach can be seen by the work that Barker has done to show connections in the struggles of Palestinians in Israel and indigenous communities in the United States.
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is a Kanaka Maoli woman born and raised in California with ties to family in Anahola on the island of Kaua`i and throughout the islands. She is an author, editor, radio producer, educator, serves on advisory boards, and is one of six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). She was awarded a Fulbright (1994-1995) at the University of Auckland in New Zealand where she was affiliated with the Māori Studies department. Her research areas focus on indigeneity and race, settler colonialism, decolonization, anarchism, and gender and sexuality.
Native American women influenced early women's suffrage activists in the United States. The Iroquois nations, which had an egalitarian society, were visited by early feminists and suffragists, such as Lydia Maria Child, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. These women discussed how Native American women had authority in their own cultures at various feminist conventions and also in the news. Native American women became a symbol for some suffrage activists. However, other white suffragists actively excluded Native American people from the movement. When the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920, suffragist Zitkala-Sa commented that Native American still had more work to do in order to vote. It was not until 1924 that many Native Americans could vote under the Indian Citizenship Act. In many states, there were additional barriers to Native American voting rights.
Shari Huhndorf is an American academic specialising in Native American Studies. She is Class of 1938 Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Berkeley.
indigenous women's network.