Native American Iroquois Women's Roles

The Women of the Native American Iroquois tribes have enjoyed a much more active role in politics than that of their European counterparts. In fact, they had a form of equality that was unheard of in European society in the late 1700s, where women were normally considered inferior to men. In almost every instance, the wife was expected to be subordinate to the husband whose authority was absolute over her. They were thought to be weak; and expected to be subservient to their husband in all things. It was socially acceptable for a man to beat his wife if she did not obey him. In most colonies, women could not vote, preach, hold office, go to school or college, make contracts, or sue. (The exception was the Quakers, who had strong ideas about
gender equality.)
In contrast, Iroquois women were respected and valued as individuals. They were believed to be “linked to the earth’s power to create life, and therefore determined how the food would be distributed” . That might not seem like much, but in a culture and time without the conveniences of today’s lifestyle it was a big deal. In fact, a large aspect of determining the wealth of an Iroquois individual was by seeing how much food they had stored.
Iroquois men and women had very defined roles and rights that were gender specific but gave them equal amounts of power.
For example, if a man wanted to go on an extended journey and the women did not approve, they could deny him food and supplies for it. They were a matrilineal culture. Meaning that when a marriage took place, the family moved into the longhouse of the mother, and lineage was traced through her. The tribal leadership could also be called matrilineal because the sachem’s (chiefs/leaders) sister was responsible for choosing his successor. It fell to the women to nominate men into positions of power. They also had the power to vote a leader out if they felt that he was abusing his power or not fulfilling his responsibilities. He would generally get three warnings before the women would vote him
out. The females were also able to own land/property.
It was not owned in the way Europeans’ owned it with a deed of ownership until it was sold or passed on. It was more that a woman claimed a generally small parcel of land for herself or in some cases it was divided into sections among the women of the clan. If she abandoned that land it was free to any other woman that wanted it. The women also owned the Kanonsionni dwellings, also known as “long houses” or “extended houses”. In the English colonies, the rights a woman had to property were passed on to her husband when she got married. Divorce was very rarely an option for them and if it was the husband usually got everything including children over the age of seven. “If an Iroquois woman felt that a man was not being a good husband to her or a good father for her children, she could ask him to leave their dwelling and essentially divorce the man. The iroquois woman’s husband would normally live in the home of the wife’s clan and if the husband was asked to leave the family, the children remained with their mother.” The men owned their weapons, the clothes on their backs, and a few personal belongings; while women owned the farm equipment, cooking equipment, long houses and land that they
farmed. With these rights came a lot of responsibility. They were fully responsible for raising and teaching children in their younger years. It was the woman’s responsibility to farm the land she owned while the man hunted and protected the home. Women had to gather nuts and berries as they were needed and available while men made their own bows and arrows. Women made household items such as baskets, clay pots, and blankets while the men were responsible for making wooden utensils such as bowls and cups. The women were responsible for being “den mothers” and maintaining the spiritual balance within a household and clan. Women’s rights activists of such as Elizabeth Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Lucretia Mott, From Sally Roesch Wagner’s essay, The Untold Story of the Iroquois Influence on Early Feminists , all claimed to have drawn their inspiration of women’s rights from the Iroquois tribes. Their clothing also seemed to influence the style of colonists, from the layer upon layer of fabric that made up corsets to “bloomers” that were absolutely scandalous for that time period. It was said that many of the women of the Iroquois tribes did not want to be colonized because they didn’t want to lose their rights or identities as individuals and become extensions of a mans property.
Their equality was not all that was unique among them. The Iroquois tribes are said to have inspired revolutionary leaders such as Benjamin Franklin when he was pushing for unity among the thirteen colonies and helping to form the bicameral legislation system that is still in use today. Their were six tribes that made up the Iroquois; the Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, Mohawk, and Seneca Nations allied together to become the Iroquois Confederacy. Later they were joined by the Tuscarora. Benjamin could not help but point out how six different tribes of “savages” were able to come together and form a government of sorts that allowed each individual tribe to be heard while the colonies could not. He also went as far as to point out that the English colonies thought of themselves as the “height of civility” and the Indians as “savages” for their ways of life when really they were just different cultures and could say the same about the English colonists themselves. Than in fact, the Iroquois could view themselves as the “height of civility” .