Despite the expected nurturing role of women tied to the land, the settlers expected women to hold no power over politics, land, themselves, or men. When faced with instances in which women did hold power, such as the Pocasset leader, Weetamoo, who was then known as Namumpum, efforts were made to take away that power through intricately written deeds. Pocasset was one of the Wampanoag Confederacy, which was located in what is now considered New England. Weetamoo was the Pocasset leader through many issues, including the spread of disease from English settlers, and the violence that these Settlers and neighboring Native communities brought. This document discusses the differences in how the Confederacy and the settlers used the land. The confederacy used the land only as necessary, while the settlers cleared large areas of trees to build.

“…from the point of view from nature and women, [surplus] is not based on maternal surplus produced over and above the requirements of the community: it is stolen and appropriated through violent modes from nature (who needs a share of her produce to reproduce herself) and from women (who need a share of nature’s produce to produce sustenance and ensure survival).” Though a long quote from Vandana Shiva (1988), it does a good job relating the use and expectation of women and nature. Earlier, Brooks describes that there is an assumption for production, which, from the settler’s standpoint, means mechanical and/or direct production of sellable goods and services. “A stable and clean river is not a productive resource in this view: it needs to be ‘developed’ with dams in order to become so.” (Shiva, 1988). Women are given the same expectations. Especially before women had the rights we have now, women were essentially useless to the men and society that controlled them unless they had a direct purpose. Often, this purpose was childbearing or the exchange of familial power or money through marriage. To some extent, this idea remains in our flawed society and continues to hold women in the lowest regard when not directly benefit someone. A more current example of this continued expectation is the expectation of women to marry and have children by the time she is 30. Occasionally, it is also expected of women to pause their occupational development to be with the kids. Sadly, the expectation of future childbirth is put onto young girls as well. As a personal example, my mother would often comment on my “good birthing hips” and would dismiss my repeated lack of interest in having children of my own, saying, “That will change when you get older.” News flash! It hasn’t.

As previously stated, the expectation of reproduction is expected from the earth, too. Since the time of the settlers’ arrival, the continent we live on has been exploited for its resources. We use non-renewable resources like gold and oil in common day items like motherboards in electronic devices, and oil in cars. Almost everyone has at least one device nowadays, including young children. Even renewable resources like wood are being used and harvested excessively. Companies are only replenishing the necessary resources to continue their business, and do not have natural balances to maintain the natural harmony that nature sustained for so long. This can lead to multitudes of issues, such as, for wood, unclean air, animal and plant extinction, and unnatural and harmful flooding.

The Himalayan government discovered this firsthand when logging for the development of apple orchards was left unchecked. Women from nearby villages who scavenged the forests for food, ingredients, and other resources protested the logging of these trees through a means they call Chipko. You may not know that word, Chipko, but you’ve heard of the process more than once before. These unarmed women hugged the trees in protest. Small-scale, this process worked, but it wasn’t until a large, damaging flood swept through the Himalayan mountains that the government started banning logging. The government came to realize that the revenue from the forest was not enough to sustain what they had to pay for flood relief, which was amplified by landslides from the lack of trees. Trees are beneficial in forest ecosystems for multitudes of reasons and limit natural landslides both directly and indirectly. Trees foster the growth of other, smaller plants that, through extensive root systems, hold dirt and mud in place during heavy rainstorms.

The expectation of the illiterate village women to scavenge for resources in the forests taught them what greedy, educated men could not understand. I believe this does a beautiful job of showing where women have taken the role they are forced into, and are able to do what men, with the socially more respected role, don’t or can’t. It also depicts that, despite being socially forced or expected to adhere to a specific, more nurturing role, women are able to use their connection to their advantage and benefit others beyond just themselves. This connection to the land has been displayed in many ways, including in the example with Weetamoo and settlers. All of these connections also tie in to the excessive exploitation of resources that are vital for nature’s natural equilibrium. Land and gender, though mostly separated, have shown influence on each other sometimes, with the tie of how women and land are used and abused.

Resources:

The Seeds of Vandana Shiva. (2022). Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6neNyNu_U

Lisa Tanya Brooks. (2018). Our beloved kin: a new history of King Philip’s War. Yale University Press.

Shiva, V. (1988). Staying alive: Women, ecology, and development. North Atlantic Books.

To have Citizenship, one must first be recognized, and yet, to be recognized, one must have a level of citizenship. In this instance, I do not mean citizenship strictly of a nation or country, but instead the position or status of agreed participation and acceptance into a group. In an attempt to explain my point, I will use a personal experience of mine. I am in the choir group Vox Astra at NAU. This group started as an all-women’s group, but we now have multiple members who do not identify as female. Vox Astra is made up of many different majors, but consists of about half vocal performance and music education majors. These students exist primarily in the Kitt School of Music on campus and see each other in most of their classes. This means that about half of Vox Astra is incredibly tight-knit (commonly referred to as “the clique”). The other half-ish of Vox Astra consists of majors ranging from engineering to education to art history, and are much less tight-knit with and overall looked down upon by the students studying in the Kitt School of Music. Using loose terms, we non-majors are fighting for recognition and citizenship in Astra. All of the students in leadership positions are vocal performance majors, meaning we (non-majors) lack representation in the places of power. The students who are shown on the Astra social media pages are often vocal performance or education majors, meaning we also lack representation in the group’s displayed media. At the same time, students not in “the clique” are looked down upon by clique members with the assumption of a lack of effort to grow in their singing abilities. To “the clique” members, non-majors are not true singers, and to an extent, not true members of the group. This means we are not recognized by leadership or media, and are not accepted as true “citizens” of the group.

This, of course, is a college choir class, but these issues occur on a larger scale, in national and worldwide politics as well. Before I correlate my college class to real-world issues, I want to define majority and minority. In instances and discussions of inequality, the majority does not necessarily mean the larger group, but instead the group that holds the most power, where minorities hold less. Examples of this include women and groups of color being minorities under men and white people, despite there being a higher ratio of women and people of color to men or white people in the world. We know that people of color and women have a harder time receiving the same treatment and being understood for the hardships they have faced, but women of color have lived with the doubled discrimination for centuries.

In Malissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen, she discusses how women of color have had to modify themselves and their actions to give as little correlation between them and the harmful stereotyped depictions, Mammy, the sexless caregiver, Jezebel, the sex-crazed black woman, and Sapphire, the mean, loud, and overbearing black woman. Harris-Perry describes this feeling as similar to that of trying to fit in a crooked, or tilted, room; Should one stand tilted with the furniture, or straight as gravity compels them? “When they confront race and gender stereotypes, black women are standing in a crooked room, and they have to figure out which way is up. Bombarded with warped images of their humanity, some black women tilt and bend themselves to fit the distortion.” (Harris-Perry, 2011) By my definition of recognition and citizenship, these women are not truly recognized or accepted for who they truly are: hardworking, dedicated, loving women who are fighting for their recognition in a beyond-flawed society. These women are given legal citizenship, but because of the lack of true recognition, are given only partial citizenship to the locations, groups, states, etc. that they occupy. Never to say that these women deserve this treatment, but instead to say that the flawed society or the crooked room they exist in is made and upkept to spurn them, keeping these women outcast.

Commonly, we focus on the individual both in terms of ourselves and the individuals that surround us. Not enough, do we discuss groups as wholes. Harris-Perry defines recognition and citizenship in terms of groups beyond the individual. “Taking recognition seriously means understanding that groups are as important as individuals for specifying the correct relationship between the state and its citizens. Citizenship is more than an individual exchange of freedoms for rights; it is also membership in a body politic, a nation, and a community.” This statement hit me hard both in a positive way and also one I learned from. I grew up in spaces that dripped with white superiority and had to teach myself how to let go of these harmful views and ways of thinking. A common sentiment that I remember from my childhood was the idea that we (as white people) need to treat people of color with different, higher levels of respect for the sole reason of the color of their skin; Hold the door for a black person even when you wouldn’t for a white person. This way of thinking is harmful for many reasons, but upon hearing this quote, I was reminded of the way of thinking I was brought up with. Opening the door for one black woman may assist her in that moment, but what about the minoritized groups she finds herself placed into? Unless the whole of a minority gets the same recognition and understanding and the same treatment that holds an understanding of the systematic hardships this minority faces, the movement holds no true power. When one individual of a minority receives harmful treatment, even after the majority would not, there is still improvement to be made. We as individuals are important for issues like this one, but beyond individuals, we need to come together as united groups (willingly or forcefully), including those of high power, to overcome this war. The hardships of minorities need to be recognized and accepted to truly allow for undeterred citizenship.

Reference: Harris-Perry, M. V. (2011). Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. Yale University Press.

Harvey Milk was a gay man on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but was killed in November 1978. There is a fascinating documentary about Harvey Milk, which describes his rise to power. In it, many people discuss that upon meeting Milk, they were put off by his outgoingness. According to these reports, Milk was unafraid to demonstrate his opinions and feelings, which included anti-war demonstrations, Coors Beer boycotts, and political ideas like the “oneness of man” (The Times of Harvey Milk, 1984). The Coors Beer boycotts are important because, at the time, Coors Beer was owned as being “Nazi-sympathizing fascists determined to turn the United States on a hard-right bent” (Loomis 2022). Milk was a powerful force in the boycotts, getting every gay bar in San Francisco to stop selling Coors Beer in the midst of a largely unsuccessful boycott. His influence here, and one he demonstrated among his peers and other activists, improved his image with potential voters and his employees. Despite his win on the board of Supervisors, many people were nervous about a gay man being in power. To them, a gay man was infiltrating their lives and their politics, influencing others to join in his queerness. Despite this, Milk kept the level-headed pride of his accomplishments, knowledge, and dedication to who he was. To me, this is a good way of defining a healthy manhood. Someone true to themselves despite what others may think. It consists of caring for others beyond how they benefit or assist you and not letting others’ insecurities affect your own.

This spread of insecurity was common during slavery and heavily affected white folks. Slave owners were threatened that the loss of slave ownership came with the loss of masculinity or manhood. This worked well and influenced many slave owners to continue to keep their slaves in tight quarters and not give up ownership and control. A similar argument was and continues to be used to control women. Women have been seen as property and as something to be owned for centuries. Men used the argument that giving a woman more power in the home, voting rights, and other aspects of her life would mean that they, as men, had less manhood and thus less power and influence. In this way, many of the issues that women and slaves faced were interconnected.

On social media platforms such as Instagram or TikTok, it is common to see fragile masculinity and manhood being discussed at great length. When thinking about what I would write on this topic, I searched up the term manhood on Instagram and found many different posts and accounts that had many opinions on the topic. Often using the terms “masculinity” and “manhood” interchangeably, these posts call to both men and women. Often depicting women, and specifically, their femininity as soft, and men as brute and strong. They use this analogy to indicate that women need a man’s inherent strength to be able to thrive in their natural femininity. These posts often teeter between stating a blatant need for control over women and stating that their (controlling) expectations are only put in place to protect the woman from outside influences, including their own masculinity and the masculinity of others.

These men claim they are displaying and promoting “the best” and traditional masculinity with a good manhood. On the contrary, these are, overall, negative displays of Manhood. In comparison to people like Harvey Milk, with a more level-headed understanding of himself, without the direct and obvious influence of others’ insecurities about his sexuality and beliefs.

The Times of Harvey Milk. (1984). Kanopy.com. https://www.kanopy.com/en/nau/watch/video/113043

Loomis, E. (2022, August 19). When We All Boycotted a Lousy Beer. HNN. https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/when-we-all-boycotted-a-lousy-beer

Flynn – The Master’s Tools… by Audre Lorde

Avalon – A Black Feminist…

Kaila – Invisibility is an UnNatural… by Mitsuye Yamada

Dakota Mraz – La Guerra by Gloria Anzaldua

Rowan – Gee, you don’t seem like… by Barbara Cameron

Payton Bataoel – …And Even Fidel… by Aurora Levins Morales

Elizabeth — It’s in My Blood… by Rosario Morales

Max — Lesbianism: An Act of Resistance by Cheryl Clarke

A patriarchy is a form of governing of which the oldest male holds the title of leader. When this leader dies, it will go to the next oldest male in their bloodline and so on. This style of governing was very common in most households up until fairly recently, when women started gaining more rights and autonomy, which allowed them to fight unjust ruling and oppression. More rights and freedom are often how widespread oppression is fough,t and autonomy is seized.

Even without these rights and freedoms, the oppressed are still able to push back and make an impact on the oppressors. In our country, we are currently dealing with an example of mass and blatant oppression. The government-issued Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, is killing and detaining people on the street because of speculation that someone is not a legal United States citizen, or as retaliation for ICE protesters. Many people who ICE would detain in the towns, cities, and states where ICE runs rampant are finding refuge where possible and are relying on people who are at less risk of being detained for food, resources, safet,y and, in many ways, the fight for power. These harmed minorities have the support of the majority in the United States and are being given support from those who can offer it. Unlike today, the minorities in the 18^th century did not have the approval and understanding of the majority, so they had to do the dirty work themselves. How does one fight unjust power with seemingly none of your own and no assistance from others? You find the little things you can do, and you unite with those who share this experience with you. “[Women] evidenced a critical awareness of the importance of their femaleness in determining their experiences, began to think of themselves as united by the fact of their sex, and, most important, exhibited considerable discontent with their womanly lot.” This shows that groups of women started uniting themselves as early as the early 1800s and were making the early stepping-stones for a feminist movement in the 1830s and 40s.

As we discussed in my HIS 295 class, historically, women did the majority of the work in the home, which included shopping. While shopping, these women have the opportunity to only shop from businesses and people of whom they can agree on politics, this makes political statements over time and with unity. Through habits like these, women could make their own statements, mostly undefined by men. This quote from Women’s Rights Abolitions depicts other ways and places of which women would share common views. “…in church-affiliated benevolent societies, the domestic novels written and read by women, pioneers of women’s education, and the prewar popular health movement.” In this book, it explains that many of the women who worked towards a women’s or feminist movement also advocated against slavery. Much of the anti-slavery and early feminism movements occurred simultaneously, working off of each other. Despite this, it is important to remember that many white women who were fighting for more rights for themselves were still slave owners, so they approved of, benefited from, and contributed to slavery. These women’s lack of willingness to support other minorities likely hurt their importance and success as a movement, potentially stalling the feminist movement.

The common patriarchal government commonly found in our history books is very different from the leadership found in horticulture-based communities like Weetamoo’s, where “…female leaders, were not uncommon, particularly in communities reliant upon horticulture, where oral traditions emphasized the power of women.” In communities such as this, the female leaders outnumbered the male leaders. There were also not male heirs, like there are in patriarchal governments. Another difference between Weetamoo’s community is that this community’s diplomatic council invited someone who was not native to this land or their community to join willingly, while in the 21^st century, we still fight for something as simple as citizenship. The differences are high in number, as a third difference is in a typical patriarchal government, a singular person holds all power, while in these other communities, the leadership is unevenly amongst many different people. Though uneven, leadership is still distributed and allows many people to hold authority in a community. When leadership is distributed, community members have more say in community issues, and thus, the community will better represent the population.

Here are three quotes from Women’s Rights Abolitions that depict positive and feminist ideas that are strong words from even stronger women who stood up for what they needed and deserved. Many people could benefit from reading and internalizing what these quotes say and mean.

· “Men and women were CREATED EQUAL! They are both moral and accountable beings, and whatever is right for man to do, is right for woman”.

· “Do all you can, no matter what, to get people to think on your reform, and then, if the reform is good, it will come about in due season.”

· “Only by heightening the level of intellectual attention to women’s oppression, and therefore only by ideological attack, was enduring reform in women’s position possible.”

The hope is for everyone to have full and readily available bodily autonomy, but still, many minorities are not granted this right. An incomplete list of these minorities includes women, people of color, queer people, people with disabilities, children, and people in detention. Though important and valid, I will not be focusing on children and people in detention in this essay. We as Americans could talk for hours about instances in which the media has discussed or captured times when someone’s autonomy was disregarded or taken away, but, these issues used to be much worse. It was many of the same groups as today, but given even less autonomy than is allotted today. Many experienced much less or no bodily autonomy.

In the 21^st Century, what is defined as an intersex person, in early America, was defined as a Hermaphrodite, or something like it. See, according to Hermaphrodites and “Same-Sex” Sex in Early America, “A hermaphrodite was defined as an individual with a perfect set of both male and female genital organs …” Because the social expectation of people was that one would only have intercourse with the other sex, this meant that hermaphrodites could use the opposite organ to the one they were copulating with. The only issue was that hermaphrodites that followed that definition didn’t exist. Since people could only copulate with the other sex, and these people were neither one nor the other, they needed to define what sex/gender they were, as then it showed who they could or, more importantly, couldn’t copulate with. An example of this is a person in early America, named Thomas/ine Hall. Hall was androgynous enough for many years that they identified as different genders depending on what benefited them the most for a decent amount at a time, for example, they cut their hair and joined the military for an undisclosed length of time, and afterwards resumed their life as a woman. Hall was taken to court to determine their sex, and if the courts had determined which of Hall’s characteristics were most prominent, Hall would have to conform to the lifestyle of that sex. When the courts could not determine a prominent sex in Hall’s characteristics, they were required to wear a costume that had the intention to “warn” others and to reduce the likelihood of Hall’s coupling. “It prevented any sexual autonomy and ability to blend in with the populace.” Hermaphrodites and “Same-Sex” Sex in Early America [MF1]. If Hall had autonomy over their body, they could live however they wanted. The courts would’ve had no right to check their body to see which sex they represented the most. Hall would only have to disclose any aspect of their body to an intimate partner, not the whole town, through their dress. Similarly, if Hall preferred the world to perceive them as intersex, they could have dressed however they wanted. Many people now have and use their bodily autonomy to dress androgynously or with “contradicting” clothing styles and genders. Unlike in the time that Hall was alive, clothing has a lessened expectation of gender, which allows for more people to dress how they please and without an assumed gender when observed.

Women’s bodily autonomy is also questioned often and is a hot topic in politics. What is being questioned, especially currently, is whether a woman should be able to have an abortion. To answer it simply, if a woman has bodily autonomy, she, herself, can choose to or to not have an abortion. The woman having this opportunity does not mean she will exercise it; it means that if she needs an abortion, she will get one safely. Hall was stripped of their sexual autonomy through dress, while many women, then and now, are stripped of their sexual and bodily autonomy through action alone. Many times, women are denied their autonomy because someone else, often a man or a group of men, wants something. In both pieces of propaganda shown above, women are being put below men. In the first, the woman is being given an unfair safeword. A safeword is a word given to the people involved in sex that, if said, will stop any and all actions without question. In this instance, it is an uncommon word that is difficult to say, especially in rigorous activity. This means that the person’s partner will have a greater chance of disregarding the safeword and/or of having the affected party not say it at all for a number of reasons. The second piece of propaganda has a similar connotation. “If a man wants you, he will make it happen” could be taken sweetly; the man will put the effort to be in a relationship with you, but a more sinister and misogynistic meaning is that if you don’t want to have sex, but a man does, he will disregard your desires and have sex with you anyway. Both of these pieces of propaganda disregard a woman’s bodily autonomy in what are disrespectful and dehumanizing ways. [MF2]

Another minority that has been fighting for their autonomy is people of color. During times of slavery, people were bought and sold like cattle to do the work on farms, in the house, and much more. People would have been sold heartlessly and only with the intention of money gain. In the excerpt of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, we see multiple instances of this. For instance, Maria was sold away from her family. If she had bodily autonomy, she would be able to choose what she wants to do with herself. She would not be a slave, and she would not be separated from her father and family. I don’t have as much space to discuss this book in as much detail as it deserves, but it is a touching read if one ever gets the chance. [MF2]

These people and minorities have suffered horrible things, but show resilience and autonomy in their actions. Hall was no longer on public records after their sentencing, so we can hope and assume that they left and started a new life as their preferred gender. In similar ways, women and people of color take their autonomy into their own hands, fight for their rights, leave bad situations, and make people take accountability for their wrongdoings. We can all learn from these strong people and groups who fought for their descendants and the other people in similar situations.

[MF1]https://canvas.nau.edu/courses/59296/modules/items/3992816

[MF2]https://canvas.nau.edu/courses/59296/files/17808935/download?download_frd=1