Feminism and The Indigenous Woman's Struggle

Here's another piece except this time it was written for my History of WORLD Civilizations class. We had a prompt that required us to tie feminism to a topic in our textbook. I decided to compare it to the struggles Indigenous women have had to face for decades. Please enjoy!

Supporters of Feminism, or feminists, advocate for women's rights and seek to establish equality of the sexes. While modern Americans hear about feminism regularly, the loudest voices they hear, and the voices generally amplified by the media, are from a small, homogenous sample of women. From its start as a newfound western concept blooming in the 1960s, piggybacking off of the 1920s suffrage movement and bringing on new ideas, including “the value of housework, discrimination in the workplace, media portrayal of women,...” (Working With Evidence Global Feminism) American feminists focused on the needs and ideas of women of higher socioeconomic status who were predominantly white.  Initially, this was an amazing step forward, expanding women’s rights to empower women who were mistreated and deemed unequal to men by societal norms. Female voices started to be heard and taken seriously, and the movement acquired a fast global reach in a small matter of time. Yet for a movement focused on equality for women, not all women were included.  Rather than an inclusive chorus of diverse women with wide-ranging experiences and perspectives, the voices were predominantly Western, expressing an American-centric viewpoint.  Due to the privilege afforded to them by their socioeconomic status, by the year “1900, upper- and middle-class women had gained entrance to universities, though in small numbers, and women’s literacy rates were growing steadily.” (ww Ch 16 Feminist Beginnings) Consequently, the people being heard were upper and upper-middle-class white women, and a movement allegedly founded to advance the status of all women, overtly neglected to include the viewpoints and prerogatives of women of color, which did not go unnoticed by African American and indigenous women.

While middle-class white women sought freedom from their domestic labor, many women of color saw domestic responsibility as a sort of freedom from the life that was assigned to them due to their race. For example, Black American women had worked outside on plantations and were sharecroppers by that point in history, unable to experience the privilege of having a nuclear family and live like a true American. Subsequently, these women felt that the white women demonstrated blatant ignorance of the racism and sexism faced by women of color in the United States. We see from this point of view that feminism has so many multifaceted layers that to advocate for one thing and disregard the other accomplishes nothing for women as a whole. Alongside African American women, indigenous Latino women also got the short end of the stick.

The people of Mesoamerica have not had it easy for the past 500 years. For centuries, since colonialism from the conquistadors with the Aztecs and Incas, from the Spanish having conquered the Mayans, and the increasing amount of Western influences on their society and damaging their culture. Indigenous people have been pushed aside, discarded, and forgotten about completely in some areas of Mesoamerica. Mexico has a very complicated history, filled with colonization, oppression, poverty, and harsh discrimination. When Napoleon invaded South America and exiled the Portuguese royalty to Brazil, revolution spread all across the continent. The indigenous people were fed up with the oppression and poverty. 

 Finally, “a peasant insurrection, driven by hunger for land and by high food prices” (WW Ch 16. Latin American Revolutions) sparked revolution in Mexico. Mexico had had enough of Spanish rule and wanted independence to form a state where they could thrive as a people. The indigenous people had been brutally colonized to the point of total culture erasure, and women joined them, men, to play important parts in the revolt. Women raised money, created safe havens for revolutionaries, and cooked for the rebels even at risk of execution. Even with a successful rebellion, indigenous men gained power, but the women were left with crumbs. Despite putting their lives on the line with everything at stake, “Latin American women continued to be wholly excluded from political life and remained under firm legal control of the men in their families” (WW Ch 16. Latin American Revolutions). It’s disheartening to understand from the history we have learned that even when women fought as hard as men and were crucial cogs in the clock that was the revolution against colonialism, they were still left hung up to dry. 

Undeterred, the women fought on. In 1994, there was a 12-day uprising in Chiapas, Mexico known as the Zapatista Rebellion. This uprising was partially led by indigenous women, specifically Mayan citizens. Different from American feminism, these women were highlighting injustices not only regarding gender relations but about multiple sources of oppression faced by both men and women. These feminists were not just fighting for equality for women, but for better treatment for their Mayan brothers as well. The Indigenous Women’s Petition, written by  Mexican Zapatista feminist serves as a primary source outlining how feminist indigenous women raised their voice to the oppressive Mexican government during this rebellion.  These feminists were not just fighting for equal rights for women, but for better treatment of their Mayan brothers by standing up to the government that marginalized their indigenous citizens. An excerpt from the petition reads, “We, Indigenous campesino women, demand the immediate solution to our urgent needs, which the government has never resolved:” (Source 22.5A WW Chapter 22). When things need to change, especially for women, the only way to do it is by standing up, making sure your voice is heard and to never back down and that is exactly what these women did. In this petition they demanded child care facilities, gynecology clinics, schools, food, dining halls and things that most Americans take for granted.

The urgent needs outlined by the Indigenous campesino women in 1994 remain the urgent needs of indigenous women today.  This source is the most urgent because of the fact we as a country seem to be regressing to a place where an uprising like the Zapatista rebellion is needed. Women's rights are at stake now more than ever, with access to gynecological clinics and women's health facilities like Planned-Parenthood being shut down and moved to being completely erased, to abortion being outlawed in 12 states in the U.S., birth control being limited for women of all ages, and so much more rights being infringed upon for women specifically. For millions of women who came to this country to find schools for their children, an option for a stable domestic life, and child care if they work, the fight is not over, and the gains they had made are being erased with the current trends in America.  We have learned throughout this class how this has been an ongoing issue for women for centuries. Women have always been controlled and dominated by men and the government. By merging the voices of all women into a collective song, we are better together. 

We see parallels with this issue now in our current age of 2025. American women with indigenous ancestry are still trying to reclaim their roots and fight for equality and dignity. With Latinos being rounded up and swept up off the street, put in cars and carted away across the country and stored in inhumane conditions as if they are inanimate ship cargo, all under the guise of making our country great again and putting them back right where they started. Once again, Latinos are facing impoverished conditions, lacking basic human rights in their own land. It is more important now than ever to hear the voices of the indigenous people, and especially the women, who historically have always been treated the worst. It is an extremely urgent topic, and as a woman who lives in the United States, this is extremely damaging to my family and me. Knowing that women and indigenous people of this land are being treated the same way they were centuries ago is devastating. The Indigenous Women’s Petition is a crucial piece of history that should not be forgotten. If we analyze and understand our history, we may save ourselves from repeating it. 

Cited Sources:

Ways of The World Chapter 16 Sections Latin American Revolutions & Feminist Beginnings

Working With Evidence Chapter 22 Global Feminism Source 22.5 Mexican Zapatista Feminists  & 22.5A