Canada’s history is dominated by a white male archetype due to the colonial and patriarchal standard of a Eurocentric society. This colonial society has marginalized many distinct groups of people over the course of its history. The most severe marginalization would be that of the colonized Indigenous women, who have been doubly affected for they are both female and apart of a colonized culture. Contemporary Indigenous women in Canada have undergone an identity crisis because the patriarchal perspective of the colonial culture has skewed how colonist people view them and how they view themselves. Gender discrimination is highly apparent in the patriarchal focus of the Indian Act, a colonial imposed legislation, where women’s traditional roles of power were either reduced or eliminated. Now, gendered discrimination is common in Indigenous communities because the patriarchal practice of the colonial policies has coerced Indigenous women into sexist and racist caricatures. This coercion has helped progress and enforce the cultural genocide which continues today. My argument is that the outdated patriarchal model, imposed by a colonial society, perpetuates and sustains the marginalization and violence towards contemporary Indigenous women within Canadian society.
