In order to understand aboriginals’ culture, we have to recognize its diversity. Gender roles in the early contact period differed from group to group.

In most cases, there was a division of labour based on gender. The work of both men and women were equally valued, partly because women were respected for giving birth and/or raising the child. For example, iroquoians gave women the power to chose men forming the Confederacy Council and the authority to distribute food supply. At the opposite, Lekwungen males controlled the ressources and their status were inherited by their sons.

Some communities included the notion of two-spirit aboriginals that performed both male and female tasks. Those individuals were not well perceived by the europeans but were an accepted part of aboriginal groups’ lives.

In Europe at the time when explorations took place, gender roles were guided by the religion. Women were expected to obey their husband like a child obeys his parents. Marriage was a social institution based on its economic, political,religious role rather than romance. Inequalities were encouraged and kept by men in position of power.

After years of contact with religious figures from Europe, aboriginals started to realise the advantages for men of male dominance, and despite the women’s disaproval the relations between genders changed. Some groups adopted syncretic religious practices mixing christianity with their own beliefs and attitudes. Marriages bringing both cultures together also shaped today’s political and social relations between genders.

During the few days I spent in reserves, I noticed women were more shy and did not have many physical contacts with men of their age. While this may be because they are not encouraged to speak nowadays, it can also be attributed to other cultural aspects. Regarding elders, both genders were respected, but younger women did not necessaray have a place in the council. I remember people being proud that a women was finally designed as the chief in Waskaganish. If evolution occured in the reserves so did the rest of Canada. I have rarely felt discimination at school with people my age, but older people sometimes surprised me with their expectation. For example, my grand -father asking my boyfriend for help in the garden even if I could have done the same job if encouraged to.

In the short essay, “Gender and cultural diversity in the Early Contact Period, the author talks about the differences between some of the Aboriginal cultures and the shared responsibilities between the sexes.This text also talks about the differences between the Aboriginal cultures views on women and the early French and British’s views on women.

From my understanding of the essay, the role of women is extremely important in the Aboriginal culture. Even though man may seem stronger and in position of authority, the women rule the place. In the Aboriginal culture, women were treated with respect and given the same position in the social hierarchy as men or any other person of the tribe. In the European case on the other hand, these men thought of themselves as superior to everyone.The European thought that Aboriginal men were crazy and stupid to take their wives advice or listen to what they have to say about any decision.Just because the Native Indians thought of everyone as equal, that did not mean that everyone had the same responsibility. Just like we would imagine it, the men had more outdoor work to do.For example, men had to hunt and bring the food on the table as we would stereotypically imagine while women had to take care of the children ,prepare the supper that the men would bring home, cultivate and many more small yet very hard jobs.

Furthermore, as we ALL know how great the Europeans were to every other culture in the world… :):):):):):) (clearly sarcastic!), the Europeans saw these native mens as weaker and easier to control since they listened to the women in their lives and decided to take over control of these beautiful people.Obviously there were other reasons that the French and British conquered but this is one of the reasons too.

Kelly Graham-Wieferig

In our Western contemporary culture gender is a very big thing. Many activities are based on gender and if you are a man you cannot do this and if you are a woman you cannot do that. The Aboriginal culture do not really care and do not emphasize gender. People are seen as who they are, regardless of their biological sex. Aboriginal people are known to be very spiritual. They view people as souls and have very diverse cultures.  

Mi’kmaw societies are every egalitarian and the women have a lot of say in Aboriginal culture, and unlike here, in Western cultures, many women do not get shut down and they are listened to, which is pretty amazing. 

In Iroquoian culture, who are settled around the great lakes and the St Lawrence valley, have a very sedentary lifestyle. They farm and they live in semi-permanent villages. They have an egalitarian lifestyle. Women have a lot of status and authority. The women choose who the tribes consist of and who the councils consist of. 

In the Northwest territories, Nunavut and the Arctic work is distributed and both sexes are equally valued. Work of each genders is essential to survive as a group. Men do make most of decisions but women also help make decisions and anyone can become a shaman. 

Many North American aboriginals do not really look as gender, like I previously stated, and they mostly look at souls and spirits. Instead of looking at two genders they can think of it like two spirits. They think people can be masculine and feminine regardless of their sex. 

Our culture is different compared to most aboriginal cultures. We do have some similarities like men usually make most of the decisions. Women often get ignored in western culture but we also do get listened to and we can really help make decisions. It is much easier for women to get into power or to voice her opinion now compared to 50-60 years ago but we still have a lot of things to overcome. I strongly believe if our cultures do become more egalitarian and more similar to aboriginal cultures we really can make a lot of progress in western culture. 

While reading “Gender and Cultural Diversity in the Early Contact Period” we learn that prior to the arrival of the Europeans, each Aboriginal group had its own way of life.  Though some of the aspects were similar between groups, many were also different, depending on where they developed their communities.  One extremely common pattern on the other hand is their system of hierarchy. 

Gender is an obvious example of how power roles are distributed, nevertheless while reading this text, I learnt that not all Aboriginal women were not see as powerless.  Instead women in many groups were valued and respected.  One example of this is with the Mi’kmaq group, situated in the Atlantic region. While the men who are part of this group would hunt and fish the larger animals and prepare the weapons that they required, the women had many important tasks of their own.  They would fish, gather smaller foods like nuts and berries, transport food, cook, set up camp, make clothes and care for the children.  On the other hand, you have the Coast Salish societies, who were richer and developed a social hierarchy where men were seen as powerful and made the decisions. 

Upon the arrival of the Europeans, Aboriginal communities, which were indeed here first ones here were treated badly and not respected at all.  They were not given a voice and seen as the enemy and overall an obstacle to the French and English in their attempt to take over the land.  The same hierarchy that was seen with the Coast Salish societies was now being seen with the Europeans.  The Europeans were rich and compared to the Aboriginals, they were technologically advanced, putting them at the top of the food chain, which in many ways in completely unfair. 

Due to the fact that I was unable to attend the talks read an separate article and the article illustrated by Agata Nowicka said “the chiefs are always men, but it is a woman who grooms them for leadership” (2015).  Gender roles are only present if you imply them.  We are not born knowing our gender roles, instead we are taught them which limits our growth as humans.  The article written by Agata Nowicka,  about Jody Wilson-Raybould was empowering to read as a woman.  It showed us that we can excel past what the boundaries that society sets for us.  During one of her interviews with The Globe in 2016, Ms. Wilson-Raybould says. “For me, as long as it gets talked about, all the better, but in my experiences, some voices are listened to more than others”.  Here she is implying that in her position, even with all the power she had, the voice of a man, many times would be listened to more than hers. Nevertheless, she also explains that this cannot silence us as women.  

Many Aboriginal groups had their social hierarchy system down packed because they saw their men and women as equals.  We today have diverged from this path and our system, for many of us is based on patriarchy which is not right. Instead both women and men should fight for equal rights because many men wouldn’t be who they are today if it weren’t for their mothers.  

By Stephanie Mallick-Pilon

Gender Relations In Indigenous & Contemporary Western Cultures

Gender relations in aboriginal culture are not what is prioritized, unlike contemporary western culture that likes to put an emphasis on gender. In our society we impose gender roles and use masculinity and femininity to characterize worth. Those who don’t follow the ‘’expectations’’ of how their biological gender is ‘’suppose’’ to act are often oppressed for it. When you don’t conform to stereotypes this often angers people because they don’t know what to expect from you. What infuriates them is not knowing how to respond to you.

This can connect to indigenous people not being respected, simply by being themselves. For aboriginals spirituality has to do with where your place is in the world. How you fit in your environment and how your surroundings shape you as a person. A concept believed by aboriginals is that ‘’ the door is never locked’’ they are very welcoming individuals , its in their nature.

Whereas Caucasians\ others tend to be more possessive and want to own materials, land and anything valuable to increase the power\authority that they have. Their perspective was less about connecting with their environment and more about finding ways to make the most profit. In regards to gender relations europeans had a more patriarchal view on what gender represented. You had to be heterosexual and the wife had to obey the husband. The husband was in charge and the wife\ wives were inferior.

In a reference to the article with Jody Wilson- Raybould “in her tradition the Chiefs are always men but it is a woman who grooms them for leadership. The woman is known as Hiligaxste which means one who corrects the Chief’s Path.” I interpreted this passage as female empowerment for some reason. It demonstrates that the men had the authority but it was as if women guided them along the way.

-‘’No separation of science, art, religion, philosophy or aesthetics exists in indigenous thought; such categories do not exist ‘’

-Battise and Henderson , 2000

This quote is from the presentation of Diane Labelle, It truly captured my attention. It made me think how in our society we are always labelling things and people, we create divides that differentiates us from one another.

Modern system does not regonize indigenous education where their schools are being ignored. Our society does not recognize the way the aboriginal schools teach and marginalizes them.

Diane considers education as a transformative process of change for both learners and teachers.

Every individual has their own needs and wants ,not everyone has the same schedule. Education doesn’t only happen within a program but outside of the program as well. We don’t just learn within strict guidelines but by our own mindset as well. Learning is an individualized life-long process, what works for you might not for someone else. How learning correlates with gender relations is many gender roles are taught. If we understand how it is we learn ourselves this may help us keep an open mind to new perspectives. The indigenous teach their students in different manners, yet this does not mean their education is less valuable then our own contemporary western education.

Mathilde Caille

In the reading “Gender and Cultural Diversity in the Early Contact Period”, the author informs us on the place gender relations hold in the Aboriginal culture. In this text, we can see that gender relations vary within cultures. The Europeans that colonized Canada at first, had a very different view on the role of women than the Aboriginals did. 

In the Atlantic region, the Mi’kaq had a relatively egalitarian society. There was a division of labour between men and women, but each of the roles were complementary and essential. Major leaders were often men, but women’s opinions were valued and respected. For the Innu of the Northern Quebec, shamans could be either men or women. On another hand, Iroquois societies were matrilineal and matrilocal. Women had status of authorities and were the ones who chose the members of the Confederacy Council. They also exercised power in the household and were responsible for decision-making.  All these societies are based on cooperation and gave important tasks to both genders. “The work of both men and women was seen as essential for the survival of the group” (19). Aboriginal societies were also very open to same-sex relationship or marriage. Two-spirit people could marry or have sexual relationship with either sex. These people had often a special social and cultural role such as heelers, seers, or bearers of oral tradition. In the Blackfoot, it was current for men to have multiple wives. This allowed women to share the work and resources of the household. All these examples, show the culture’s open-mindedness, the equity between men and women, and the respect towards women. 

On the contrary, the European societies are based on a patriarcal system. When they arrived in Canada., Europeans tried to replicate the social and cultural system of their homeland. Marriages were between a man and woman only, and emphasized the role of power the husband held over his wife and children. Women worked hard, but were never acknowledge for their efforts. Even women of high ranks that took care of social events and charities were perceived as subordinate to men. Europeans saw Aboriginal women as hyper-sexual and were shocked by the sexual autonomy in the communities. This clashed with the patriarchal, monogamy and masculine self-control of the Europeans’ culture. 

During the conference on Wednesday March 6th, Diane Labelle did not focus enormously on gender. However, she presented how the educational system works in Aboriginal communities. Aboriginal societies have a unique way of educating their youth. For them, learning is an individualized life long process. Education is not a “one size fits all”. Each individual who comes in at the center has its own schedule due to their needs and wants. Learning needs to be a transformative experience, and therefore you need to develop your own sense of identity. They value personal experience and believe that education from an indigenous perspective does not schedule things because you do not know the time it will take to learn something compared to someone else. You must learn at your own pace. Labelle believes that learning is a never ending process, and that education has to become more than just a diploma. I find that this conference allows us to see the open-open-mindedness of the Aboriginal education system.This community has a lot of great ideas to offer, and I truly believe that we should consider changing our society to be more like them. 

By Stephanie Mallick-Pilon

Sophie Labelle is a cartoonist from Montreal that is well known for her comic series “Assigned Male” that have been out since 2014. Sophie grew up in a small town in the south shore. She has had to face plenty of obstacles, at only 13 years old she was kicked out of the house by her stepfather. Labelle then moved to Montreal when she was 16, where she found lots of support that helped her cope with bullying. Later on she studied at UQAM to become an educator. Sophie’s interest in teaching started because she wanted to help those whose feel marginalized at school, lgbt individuals, gender non conforming students etc feel like they were in a safe space. How her cartoonist career began ,was simply just simple fun with students,then the kids asked her to translate comics into English which caused the comics to gain popularity.

A key message I interpreted from the presentation was about being strong even when all the odds are against you. What I am implying by this is that over her life time Sophie had many haters, but she didn’t let that stop her. She even thought of them positively saying that “ my haters were my first dedicated readers, the haters did the work of advertisements”.

I spoke to some friends that attended the presentation. They agreed that sex is more of spectrum then a binary. That the majority of society believes that sexual oreintation is often attached with behaviour and how it is expressed via féminin or masculin or a mixture. People reacted quite well to the presentation, several years ago this event may have not even been possible.

After this event I became more informed about the injustices that trans people still face today. I was already aware that trans people are more marginalized then people who behave according to their biological gender. It was a shock to me, when I learned that trans people wouldn’t be able to have access to public services like healthcare just because they are trans. Trans people need these services often times even more then cis people do. There are also issues related to marriage, where people invalidate their identity, example a trans man and cis women marry and people label them as ‘’lesbians’’.This is invalidating his identity. This is terrible, but much worse can and has happened to trans individuals there are\have been many cases of murder.

The disclosure of being trans is a controversial topic. The debate of whether you should come out and say you’re trans and how the world reacts. You might not want to ‘’come out’’ for your own safety. If you’re in a transphobic environment that unwanted attention is undesirable. Some indivuals disclose that they are trans because when you’re part of a minority anything you do can be seem as educational. (Evidently,there are many reasons to not come out or to come out ,however it ultimately is subjective to the indivual and their current life situation. I wrote what I interpreted from the talk.)

The only aspect I think could be improved was the organization of the presentation. There could have been more structure with the information, but it was also that factor that made it more relatable. Yes, I would recommend this event to my friends, Sophie Labelle brings humor in LGBTQIA+ education. I believe that its important to inform the youth of today about the LGBTQIA+ even if they don’t associate themselves with the community.

In this short chapter, we are introduced to several aboriginal cultures along with their view on gender relations within their several communities. Having learnt gender roles in within these communities in high school, I was still very surprised to understand their relations more in dept regarding how they viewed both men and woman.

Similarly, in several aboriginal cultures, women and men were viewed as interconnected souls where both their roles were vital for the survival of the community. Although they had separate roles for example, most men hunted large game while women gathered berries, and made clothing etc… it was evident that they needed each other to survive. Therefore, they respected each others’ roles and natural abilities to provide for the community.  

What surprised me was the political power woman had in these cultures from the beginning. Unlike European cultures where woman had struggled to even get into politics and are still struggling because they have this bad reputation of being unhappy, hardcore feminists who hate men. It brings me a sense of calmness knowing that it was never acquired in those communities. Rather it was a natural part of life where two souls, two genders were equal and would contribute to the well being of this planet.

I believe this is the most logical way we can view gender roles; both essential to our survival and wellbeing thus should both be respected. This idea has always made sense to me and after reading this short article I finally realized I share this idea with many aboriginal cultures which I highly respect.

To my understanding the main differences early on were simply the roles the Europeans placed on women and men and how they viewed men as superior. This was mainly due to the catholic religion, where God and Jesus were men and held the highest power. Therefore, European men natural acquired this sense of power and dominance because they share gender with their highest forces. As opposed to the aboriginal culture, nature and its several spirits were not based on any gender but on natural ability to heal regardless of their roles.

When the Europeans came to the aboriginals land, they used their religion to rule and support their ways of life. Men were the ones who made the decisions, married off their daughters etc… while women were the child bearers and were essential baby popping machines as means to increase the population and nothing other than that.

To this day I believe this ideology of women representing life and nurturing care stems down to their natural ability to produce offspring’s but more because of their created gender roles during the French revolution. I believe the aboriginal cultures were the true starters of feminism. Therefore, more individuals should be informed of this matter because it was not created by Europeans but influenced by nations that were indoctrinated and treated very unfairly. As I mentioned, I have always viewed both men and women as equals and now I am happy to know and share this idea with a community who have built the movement far before it was seen as an injustice in our present day society.

-Andrea Massarelli

  At the beginning of the text they gave an example of a French man, talking to an Innu, and trying to convince him to send his son to Catholic school. When the Innu informed him that he has decided “no”, because his wife did not agree with it, the French man could not believe what he was hearing. Unlike the Aboriginal, the French culture gender relations are different. The women decision in the family is not worth anything, it is not even taken into consideration. While for the Innu’s, the women decision is not only taken into consideration, but their decision can overrule their husband’s.

If there is one obvious point that this text has shown is that the Aboriginal women are not seen as powerless, or useless, or non-valued. They are equal, even though they both have different tasks and responsibilities. For instance, men usually hunted large game, fished, gathered, and brought meat home. While women usually where in charge of growing the vegetables, produced clothing, in charge of taking care of the house and kids, and the cooking. Even though these seem like typical gender roles that the women had, they were the ones in charge of distributing the food. The men were the ones that gathered, and hunted it, but the women were the ones that distributed it throughout the multiple households. Even though the roles for men and women were not duplicated for all the Aboriginal tribes, one thing that was the same amongst these tribes were the respect that men had for women. Even if some tribes’, men had more political power over women, they were never oppressed by men, they still had an opportunity to voice their rights, this was viewed as an “unnatural” relationship in the eyes of the Western Culture.   

Not only did the Europeans judge the Aboriginals relationship between men and women, but they also took over their land. A lot of people seem to forget about this, that this land did not belong to the Western Culture, specifically to the French and English, but it belonged to the Aboriginals. The fact that they are presently forced to live on a reserve, just because the French and the English did not agree with their cultural norms, and beliefs, even if they were on this land at first. The way the Europeans treated the Aboriginals, are the same way they treated their wives. Just like the Aboriginals, their wives had no voice, or any consideration to voice their opinions. Therefore, presently our society is still under control of the patriarchy, but as well we still seem to isolate the Aboriginal culture , from the rest of the population. Just as Diane Labelle presented to us, that we can never truly understand the ancestry of an Aboriginal, unless it’s spoken from an Aboriginal themselves. Therefore, when we learn about the history of Quebec, and Western Civilization, it is not their story to tell, they are the ones that are in control of the stories that we hear in school, but it should not be like that. Our education system should have a new curriculum that is taught by an Aboriginal itself and hear their side of the story.

Karina Veloce

Sophie Labelle is a transgender cartoonist who is very inspirational in the lgbtq community. She draws comics which portray trans teens as normal teens. The reason why this is important because a trans teen is not seen as a normal teen.But what exactly is a normal teen? Who gets to decide who is normal? Most people would argue that being trans is messing with biology and that it is unnatural. People even think that Sophie’s cartoons in particular are imposing, thinking that no teen in there right mind would be transgender, and that she is pushing these images on people,trying to persuade teens into being trans. The message she is sending is that it is okay to be transgender. It is okay to be who you are, and identify as what you want.

Around Vanier people seem to be very accepting. Students engaged in conversation with Sophie and seemed to be intrigued. My friends and I thought she was a very inspirational women and that her talk was actually interesting. But when I walked into Jakes on the day of the trans celebration people seemed uncomfortable. Nobody was really engaging in the activities and people watching the performance were far away from the state. Usually when there is a concert we all gather around closely but this distance just proved how uncomfortable people were.
With this in mind it really put into clarity the things that Sophie was talking about. The HATE! Sophie mentioned the term TERF which means trans exclusionary radical fucker. This term is very briefly about discarding trans women as women.
Sophie has the opportunity to travel and talk about her cartoon but most importantly about her story. All it takes is to inspire one person who will go and inspire someone else. Sophie is a very inspirational women for the trans community. Her alongside many other trans women inform people inside and out of the lgbtq and I think it helps reduce the stigma on the trans community.

After the presentation I went to on to find out more about transgender teens.
In 2016 a survey was conducted by Williams institute concluding that only about 0.6% of the population of American Adults identify as transgender. Stats also showed that lgbtq teens are four times more likely to attempt suicide then a teen who is heterosexual. (Ryan,H, Diaz & Sanchez.2019) This is shocking to me because such a little amount of people are transgender and that is because they are scared to come out. The LGBTQ coimmunity is threatened and discriminated daily. As Sophie mentioned, trans teens are physically and verbally abused, many trans people are not hired at a job, are not able to rent an apartment, or go into the bathroom they please.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States
https://egale.ca/backgrounder-lgbtq-youth-suicide/