The colonial roots of sexual control
“The root of oppression is the loss of memory.” - Paula Gunn Allen
Support Sister Song, women of color led reproductive justice collective, and support Trans Formations Project, a grassroots organization tracking anti-trans legislation across the country.
There is so much to discuss regarding abortion rights in the United States. For the purpose of this newsletter, I will share what I believe is one of the beginning points at the core of this struggle - the colonial roots of sexual control.
Through my Indigenous Feminism course, I learned how the United States has tried to control women through violence, domination, and shame since the colonial period. A patriarchal society, which naturalizes a hierarchical structure that positions men's power at the center with privilege and power over others, was brought to this land in conjunction with white supremacy (slavery) and genocide (the mass effort to replace Indigenous society). It's that naturalizing of (white, cis, hetero, wealthy) men in power that therefore naturalizes oppressing women, transgender, and gender non-conforming people. It's how we're at a place in the United States, in 2022, where people with less power are losing the ability to control their bodies and futures. Autonomy is the core struggle behind abortion rights.
Bodily autonomy is the ability to make decisions about yourself (i.e., your body and your future), regardless of outside circumstances and influence. It doesn't matter if we were (and we're not) a country that provided adequate healthcare and resources for pregnant people and parents. The ability to make our own decisions over our own bodies makes us free beings. It's the most fundamental principle of human rights.
Indigenous scholar Paula Gunn Allen critiques modern Western feminism for "forgetting" that there was a time before patriarchy, which can lead to us feeling hopeless. That's what this newsletter is about. The remembering. Expanding the conversation around abortion can sharpen our tools to fight against disinformation and violence.
Below is a condensed version of my final research paper from my Indigenous Feminism course, where I finally learned about colonization, Indigenous resistance, and what it was like in this land called the U.S. before European domination.
Let me know what you think!,
Adriana
Shame can be defined as "a feeling of embarrassment or humiliation that arises in relation to the perception of having done something dishonorable, immoral, or improper" (Cunic). It is an extremely powerful emotion because it latches onto one's feelings of self-worth and makes one believe they are inherently "wrong" or "bad." In a broader societal context, philosopher Hilge Landweer asserts the sense of shame requires particular conditions to exist, such as "the person must be aware of having transgressed a norm. He or she must also view the norm as desirable and binding because only then can the transgression make one feel truly uncomfortable" (Kämmerer).
Within the settler colonial reality of the United States, the norm is synonymous with white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and capitalism. Even if the norm is not viewed as desirable by all, the threat of violence is present when one seeks to go against the norm, thus making the norm the more desirable option.
The colonial construction of normal has been violently forced onto Indigenous peoples and nations since First Contact, threatening the very existence of Indigenous societies. Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer, academic, and musician, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson situates shame within the settler colonial framework at the intersection of society and intrapersonal,
"One of the mechanisms of settler colonialism applies to destroy Indigenous systems of reciprocal recognition is shame. Shame is a powerful tool of settler colonialism because it implants the message in our bodies that we are wrong" (185, 186).
This paper attempts to pick up Simpson's understanding of shame and apply it to gendered violence. Colonizers weaponized shame to oppress the core of Indigenous society by specifically attacking women, queer, and Two-Spirit Indigenous people's sexuality. By shaming sexuality and enforcing heteropatriarchy, colonizers sabotaged women's political and social authority and autonomy.
As a woman, I can relate to the feelings of shame regarding sexuality, violence, and agency. But as a white, cisgender woman born with American citizenship, I cannot relate to the themes of racism, genocide, or expansive dispossession (Simpson, 43). I recognize my analysis will miss the deep knowledge that lives within Indigenous people. In writing this paper, I intend to follow suit and disrupt the colonial knowledge production by listening and learning from Indigenous-based knowledge.
The foundations of colonialism directly oppose the principles of Indigenous society. Where many Indigenous nations are gynocratic, communal, and moved from a place of reciprocity with the land, colonialism predicates patriarchy, individualism, and exploitation of land and racialized bodies. Argentine feminist philosopher María Lugones succinctly compares how colonialism introduced a new world order; "A conception of humanity was consolidated according to which the world's population was differentiated in two groups: superior and inferior, rational and irrational, primitive and civilized, traditional and modern" (4). Within this consolidation of humanity grew the normalization of colonial society and the shaming of Indigenity. There was a hierarchy of race and gender in which white male dominance became naturalized (Lugones 10). The violent process did not occur in one short stint; instead, it was insidious, through acts of war, assimilation, and consistent attempts to "violently inferiorized colonized women" (Lugones 12).
A defining feature of many Indigenous societies is women's innate power and authority in social, political, and spiritual spheres. In Who Is Your Mother? Red Roots of White Feminism Gunn Allen details how gynocratic societies are egalitarian, holistic, pacifist, spirit-based, and normal (Gunn Alleen 212). It was normal and not an exception for institutions to centralize women. Women were "highly valued, both respected and feared" (212). Before colonization and in the absence of gender hierarchy, women, trans, and gender non-conforming people were leaders and heads of political institutions, which is extremely rare in the United States today.
How Indigenous societies rule threatens the normalization of violence and exploitation that define our current society, allowing for the criminalization of bodily autonomy and commodifying human rights. Paula Gunn Allen illustrates the stark contrast by sharing the jarring experience of Iroquis observers when they traveled to France in the colonial period. The observers were horrified by the extreme wealth inequality, suffering, and differences in lifestyle between the rich and the poor (219). The Indigenous gynocratic society could not have a society of domination and subordination, wealth and poverty, as it is not in their foundation or values. Compared to the guiding principles of Euro-centered, capitalist society, colonialism shamed the essence of gynocratic societies and positioned them as outrageous, immoral, or improper.
A specific, modern-day example of how ingrained exploitation and violence are in American society was the response from former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki when asked about the availability of at-home COVID tests. Journalist Mara Liasson of NPR asked, "Why not just make 'em free and give 'em out, make them available everywhere?" Psaki responded in a sarcastic scoff, "Should we just send one to every American?...Then what happens if you, if every American, has one test? How much does that cost?". Psaki infers that the idea of just giving people life-saving medical aid is an idea so ridiculous; how could it have ever been suggested. Conversely, providing health resources for free to every person is precisely what a gynocratic society would do.
Another defining feature of Indigenity is the relationship with the land. The idea that nature is separate from humans and commodified is a colonial construction. Understanding the connection between Indigenous land, body, and sovereignty is fundamental to understanding Indigenous society and the destruction. Simpson details the inherent connection between body and land and explains the coordinated colonial effort of dispossession,
"A great deal of the colonizer's energy has gone into breaking the intimate connection of Nishnaabeg bodies (and minds and spirits) to each other and to the practices and associated knowledges that connect us to land because this is the base of our power. This means land and bodies are commodified as capital under settler colonialism and are naturalized as objects for exploitation" (Simpson 41).
The colonial effort to break the connections between Indigenous society and the land should be considered genocide. Simpson goes on to explain how exploiting land in conjunction with sexual and gender violence against women and 2SQ (Two-Spirit Queer) people are vital to dispossession because they present alternatives to colonial norms, "They represent alternative Indigenous political systems that refuse to replicate capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and whiteness" (41). Settler-colonialism cannot reign with the presence of an alternative structure. It needs dominance to exist, and through that domination is the propertization of land, sexual violence against women, and erasure of Two-Spirit people.
As shame poisons the mind, body, and spirit, it's not unlike how pollution poisons the Earth. Before colonization, sexuality wasn't shameful, nor was gender a hierarchical, binary construct. Qwo-Li Driskill, two-spirit, queer (non-citizen) Cherokee, trans scholar, teacher, and activist writes that European settlers interpreted Cherokee people as disruptive, strange, "gender-nonconforming and sexually deviant" because Cherokee women had the same sexual power, social authority, and autonomy as men (41). Therefore Indigenous men were feminized, women's bodies were controlled, and Two-Spirit people were invisiblized. Equality and egalitarianism were threatening to the colonizers as they served as a natural resistance to the colonial conception of normal and the foundational principle of cisgender, white male dominance. Indigenous women specifically were seen as a threat to conquer.
In Indigenous societies, women took up space. They were sexual, wore little clothing, laughed loudly, were prideful, boldly nurtured children, and in certain spaces, they were more powerful than men (Gunn Allen 217). Colonizers took the sex-positive nature and deemed Indigenous sexuality as out of control (Smith 89). Patriarchy imposed a set of beliefs and behaviors of what constitutes appropriate feminine conduct regarding sexuality and power. By deploying sexual violence and specifically rape, colonizers kill Indigenous women's power.
Although rape and sexual assault are present both within Indigenous communities and settler-colonial society, the ways in which Indigenous and American societies view them are very different. Within the patriarchal structure of American society, women are considered subordinate to men. Only in recent history have wives been legally viewed as their own person rather than the property of their husbands. This is an important point because the rape of a woman was considered an attack against a man's property, and spousal rape was legal (Deer 17). Women's autonomy within settler colonialism didn't really exist. The devaluation of women was not only culturally acceptable but also legal. Compared to Indigenous society and law, which centers and respects the sexual assault survivors, women were inherently valued, and historically rape was rare (Deer 22). Within settler-colonialism and heteropatriarchy, gender violence is seen as inevitable (Smith 89).
Ultimately, under heteropatriarchy, women's sexuality is something to be controlled and abused. An alarming example of how ingrained sexual violence against women is within settler colonialism is the fact that European men were stunned when Indigenous men did not rape women who were held captive as prisoners of war (Deer 20, 21). Settlers couldn't accept the sexual autonomy of Indigenous women; it even frightened them (Deer 20). Indigenous women were made to feel ashamed, marginalized, and punished for simply existing within their power (Deer 20). By shaming women's sexual autonomy, their political power was undermined, and therefore the essence of gynocratic societies was deemed unnatural and wrong.
In As We Have Always Done, Simpsons proposes this question, "what if no one sided with colonialism?" (177). In this context, she is explicitly addressing the Indian Act and asking what if Indigenous nations had mobilized around the refusal of heteropatriarchy as it is an attack on women, and the enforcement of heteropatriarchy is a direct threat to the sovereignty of Indigenous nations. I want to borrow this question and frame Indigenous women's reclamation of their sexuality as a productive place of refusal by refusing colonial norms and patriarchal shame.
Simpson continues, "what happens, then, when we build movements that refuse colonial recognition as a starting point and turn inwards, building a politics of refusal that is generative?" (177). Reclaiming sexuality and its natural, spiritual essence can challenge the normalization of sexual shame. Due to the patriarchal attempt to violently shame and suppress Indigenous women's sexuality, the very existence of Indigenous women, let alone the act of sexual pleasure, is a form of resistance. It's not a simple concept, as the persistent presence of settler colonialism has actively worked to teach Indigenous women to hate and shame their bodies and sexual desires. Christie-Peters confronts the pain of settler colonialism by weaving together the spiritual, natural, and sexual disposition of masturbation as a form of challenging shame and reclaiming her Indigenity. She writes,
"Kwe touches herself at night, and as she does, her ancestors tell her she is beautiful, perfect, and worthy. They wrap her in the certainty and warmth of her homelands and remind her of the teachings she carries in her body, whisper sweet visions of the future into her ears. Kwe becomes the moon often now, touches herself so she can feel full again. She is full. She is whole."
Through her masturbation is the reclamation of her Indigentiy. She goes further, "Falling in love with my body is falling in love with all of the elements of creation that I come from. They can never comprehend the fullness of our universe." Sex positivity and self-love as an Indigenous
woman is a clear act of resistance as the settler colonial attempt to destroy her, her body, and the connection to nature cannot succeed when she masturbates.
Another way Indigenous women are disrupting the normalization of the colonial interpretation of sex is by discussing sex through the Indigenous lens. The All My Relations podcast is hosted by Matika Wilbur, Swinomish and Tulalip, and Adrienne Keene, Cherokee Nation. In their episode "Sexy Sacred," they identify how colonized thinking makes sex a taboo topic, filled with shame. They call on their ancestral knowledge to reimagine how we culturally think about sex. The hosts are already laughing within the first few minutes of the episode. As mentioned earlier in this paper, laughter and humor about everything are innate qualities of Indigenity. Wilbur and Keene recall their aunties, uncles, and grandparents making jokes and using humor to talk about sex. They remind the audience that sex isn't a rigid binary that has to be taken seriously. It's fluid, funny, and filled with love and joy. Colonization needs to shame sex because sex is freedom (Wilbur and Keene, All My Relations). Simpson sums up the intricate, insidious colonial conquest to shame women's sexuality as a means to solidify itself as right and normal,
"A large part of the colonial project has been to control the political power of Indigenous women and queer people through the control of our sexual agency because this agency is a threat to heteropatriarchy, the heteronormative nuclear family, the replication and reproduction of (queer) Indigeneity and Indigenous political orders, the hierarchy of colonialism needs to operate, and ultimately Indigenous freedom. Indigenous body sovereignty and sexuality sovereignty threaten colonial power" (107).
Colonization deployed shame to decimate Indigenous sovereignty. By asserting cisheteropatriarchy, women's political power, value, and sexual autonomy were dismantled. Before colonization, gynocratic societies governed many Indigenous nations, centering women's power and spirituality in organizing the community. When white Europeans enforced settler colonialism, sexual violence, rape, and sexual shame were utilized to undermine the core of Indigenity. Reducing the influence and power of women was key to disrupting Indigenous reproduction and futures. The colonial structures of violence cultivated a new normal (Rape Culture) and established the United States. The disturbing legacy of sexual violence is the intentional trauma it inflicts, but the resilience and resistance of Indigenous culture have survived. The very existence of Indigenous women and Indigenous queer people is resistance. Acts of sexual desire, pleasure, masturbation, love, and sexual joy are forms of resistance.
It's important to disrupt the normalization of settler colonialism. The structures of white supremacy, capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy that govern law in what is called the United States and are carried out by American culture aren't "normal" nor are they sustainable. Violence, shame, racism, and exploitation are insidious and uncovering how they infiltrate society is vital for change. Indigenous feminism teaches us that the current state of America is a mere blip on the continuous lifeline. We're encouraged to imagine a better future that isn't fueled by violence. Imagining a better, egalitarian society through Indigenous knowledge, mobilization, and traditions does not seem as impossible as it sometimes can feel. It already exists within Indigenous knowledge. We just need to create the space and conditions for it to thrive.