Gender Roles In Noongar Communities

Human life as we know it has become primarily fixated on the notion of survival, nutrition and safety and although these factors are important, there is so much more to the journey of life. Life should not only be about living and but more importantly, thriving and humans thrive better when working together. Since the beginning of time humans have been situated in groups or what we commonly call ‘communities’. The term ‘community’ can be defined as a sense of belonging and the collective feeling of mattering to one another in a group setting, and within this setting have the shared faith that each persons’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together (McMillan & Chavis, 1986 p. 9). The reason we work together is because we need
Within Aboriginal communities the roles that each person plays can be dependent upon their gender. It is very common that women are the nurturers and feeders, whereby they are responsible for feeding everyone within their community by preparing the food and taking care of the children (Warning & Torres, 2007). It is up to the men to provide the food by going out to hunt as well as protecting their community from harm. It is also common for these practices to be separate in particular if discussing gender specific dilemmas, these matters are strictly not to be mixed and genders need to be separated when discussing them. These practices are called women’s and men’s business and they have firm regulations and penalties for breaking these rules (Aboriginal Services Branch, 2011). Within the Yoruba community men’s and women’s roles aren’t necessarily gender specified but more emphasis is placed on patrilineal status. This means that whoever’s bloodline is stronger in relation to a more senior figure within the community, is more leading. Women and men share identical responsibilities when it comes to taking care of children and surroundings but tend to divide responsibility when it comes to defense and protecting community
When it comes to the concept of conflict resolution within these communities there are differing approaches to retributive justice. In Noongar communities, if a ‘lore’ or custom is broken or dishonored, an appropriate justice is decided by presiding elders with the severity of this justice dependent on the weight of the custom broken (Gov. of Western Australia, 2016). An example of this is the concept of ‘payback’ when in the case of an at of murder, ‘a mans death has to be avenged before his spirit could rest’ meaning in a sense a death for a death. Payback for smaller broken customs or lesser offences such as theft would usually be punished by a spearing through the thigh or the individual who committed the offence would be ostracized from the community and instructed to leave their home (Green, 1984). Yoruba people have their own traditional methods of ‘criminal justice’ based on a body customary rules by which everyone abides by. What the Yoruba people define as a crime needs to be taken into consideration when they are deciding punishment. Dividing crime into two categories bring ‘social’ and ‘spiritual’ crime. Adultery, fighting, lying and stealing are examples of what is viewed as a social crime while a spiritual crime is seen to have consequences that affect the entire community as they are rooted spiritually to their beliefs (Oyewumi, 1997). These can include acts of