Why Might Differences in Gender Roles and Expectations Have Contributed to Hostile Relations Between Native Nations and European Settlers?
European settlers comprised some diversified tribes and communities that settled from their origins due to e.g. war or a calamity in their country. The cultures and traditions of the settlers were compared in one way or another based on what was similar and what differed. One of the cultures between European settlers and the native nations is gender roles between men and women. The diverse societies had different perceptions of what activities women should do about what men were doing. Some of the activities were similar from one tribe to another. Therefore, the paper seeks to find reasons why differences in gender roles contributed to the hostile relations between the settlers and the native nations.
Different origins have differences in gender roles and expectations, especially women’s roles. As a result, relations between the societies become unfriendly since the individuals find it hard to adapt to one another. For instance, during their migration to North America, Europeans had different ideas on what women should or should not do. The reason is that Europeans saw how different their culture was from that of Native Americans. Considering the roles, women were influential when it came to survival. Women worked as gatherers and processed food to maintain a living for the family’s daily bread and future seasons. Apart from gathering and processing, they were also in charge of caring for their young ones, which the men could help with. Most Indian communities divided the activities between men and women in a sharp way. Women were gathering plants and responsible for farming, cultivating lands, and conducting household chores. When women handled so many activities, men were solely responsible for hunting and holding wars in case of attacks.
Gender discrimination was a big problem as women were assigned duties on their own and most times they offered themselves company as men separated their activities from women. In some communities for example, in Iroquois males were in charge of clearing fields while females prepared and cultivated the land cleared by the men. In some circumstances, both sexes carry on the duties but are still assigned based on one’s gender. The discrimination was unfair to women since they felt the separation from the men which was supposed to be there but working together as one family. Men often went away for an extended period, leaving women behind to conduct various activities such as farming while enjoying each other’s company. Similarly, the discrimination of women was also carried out at a marketplace where most women were trading just with their fellow females. Men saw women as betrayers in the trading center and excluded girls from trading near them.
Gender bias was not only in duty-related activities but also when it came to cultural religion and myths that the communities believed. As an illustration, North American Indians felt that women had supernatural powers that enabled them to communicate with spirits. Similarly, other cities excluded women on their menses from their daily roles. Instead, the menstruating women are ordered to isolate themselves from others by staying in a given room that specifically was in use for such cases. While some women would see the exclusion as unfair to them since menstruation was not a taboo, some took it positively with acceptance. The positivity among the women who accepted the prohibition was to give them a break from the many roles assigned and time to interact with fellow women. Also, some tribes allowed women to have a say on who they were getting married to when they felt in a position to get a marital partner. However, other communities had a culture that allowed only the elder to conduct marriage on behalf of women a process which robbed women of their rights.
In conclusion, gender inequality equality is a practice in the area of settlement by the Europeans and the Native Americans. The bias and discrimination made women suffer most by having the majority of tasks and responsibilities assigned to them. The business is the first accusation by the diversified cultures of the settlers in the areas. The inequality based on gender, as a result, created a relationship that is hostile among men and women who settled in North American countries. Gender wars are, therefore, a problem that is still even experienced In today’s society as women are less privileged in most areas with people basing their arguments on cultural beliefs of the past.
