In V. Spike Peterson and Laura Parisi’s article, Are Women Human? It’s Not an Academic Question, they explore how heterosexism and the gender binary that underlies it are inextricable from western state making, and argue that, as a result of the pervasiveness of heterosexism, human rights are “problematic terrain for women and all who are stigmatized by association with the feminine” (Peterson & Parisi 154). Over the course of their critique of human rights, Peterson and Parisi make the claim that while heterosexist practices within social groups “afford a number of identifiable advantages for the coherence, commitments, and continuity of groups, they do so at the expense of alternative gender and inter-group relations” (139). Put in simpler
…show more content…
The authors mention how one factor in this unequal system is the “battle of the nursery” (138), where women, as the primary cultural transmitters, are tasked with instilling the group’s world view (which, Peterson and Parisi assume, includes the normalization of heterosexism and all that it entails) in the next generation. What they neglect to expand upon is how some of the ‘traditions’ and beliefs that the group’s women are passing on may not have been wholly influenced by the group, but rather instilled in the group by outside forces. For example, Cherokee nation leader Wilma Mankiller writes of how “women have always had the responsibility and privilege of choosing the leadership among our people. When there is a difficult decision to make, they always call on the woman for their opinion." (Mankiller 98). However, the erosion of women’s standing in Native society is increasingly evident on many of today’s reservations, where domestic violence and sexual assault occur at astronomically high rates. Some scholars argue that the authority that Native women possessed previous to European contact declined because of the cultural assimilation that occurred …show more content…
The US government’s oppression of Native Americans is reflective of the relationship between many dominant groups and subgroups in society, and the human rights implications that these relationships have were worthy of mention in Peterson and Parisi’s critique of human
The authors mention how one factor in this unequal system is the “battle of the nursery” (138), where women, as the primary cultural transmitters, are tasked with instilling the group’s world view (which, Peterson and Parisi assume, includes the normalization of heterosexism and all that it entails) in the next generation. What they neglect to expand upon is how some of the ‘traditions’ and beliefs that the group’s women are passing on may not have been wholly influenced by the group, but rather instilled in the group by outside forces. For example, Cherokee nation leader Wilma Mankiller writes of how “women have always had the responsibility and privilege of choosing the leadership among our people. When there is a difficult decision to make, they always call on the woman for their opinion." (Mankiller 98). However, the erosion of women’s standing in Native society is increasingly evident on many of today’s reservations, where domestic violence and sexual assault occur at astronomically high rates. Some scholars argue that the authority that Native women possessed previous to European contact declined because of the cultural assimilation that occurred …show more content…
The US government’s oppression of Native Americans is reflective of the relationship between many dominant groups and subgroups in society, and the human rights implications that these relationships have were worthy of mention in Peterson and Parisi’s critique of human