Indigenous feminisms constitute distinctive intellectual and political projects arising from Indigenous women’s long history of resistance to patriarchal and colonial oppression. Rather than importing Western feminist frameworks, Indigenous feminisms developed by addressing particular intersections of colonialism, heteropatriarchy and heteropaternalism within Indigenous contexts.
The field has moved from earlier discussions of sexism and patriarchy to sophisticated analyses linking settler colonialism with production of gendered violence, environmental destruction and disruption of Indigenous kinship systems. Indigenous feminisms demonstrate that gender systems Western feminists naturalise as universal prove to be colonial impositions disrupting Indigenous governance and social organisation.
Genealogy and emergence
Indigenous feminisms emerged from Indigenous women’s recognition that Western feminism inadequately addressed their distinct oppressions. Early figures like Beatrice Medicine and Paula Gunn Allen established in the 1980s that patriarchy was not intrinsic to pre-colonial Indigenous societies and that Indigenous women historically held power and authority.
Beth Brant and Chrystos, Mohawk and Menominee writers respectively, theorised and practised Indigenous feminism before contemporary terminology existed. Their work circulated through lesbian feminist publishing networks, creating spaces for Indigenous women’s voices when mainstream academic and commercial publishing rejected such work.
Lee Maracle’s 1988 essay collection highlighted inadequacy of Western feminism for Indigenous women’s needs. She articulated how white feminist movements marginalised Indigenous women and failed to address colonialism as central form of oppression. This critique established that Indigenous women required their own theoretical frameworks.
Linda Tuhiwai Smith and Ripeka Evans called for distinctly Māori feminist theories rooted in Māori language, women’s histories and cultural practices. Aotearoa-based scholars Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Kathie Irwin similarly articulated limitations of Western feminism and urgent necessity for Indigenous-specific theorising.
Distinction from Western feminism
Indigenous feminisms differ fundamentally from Western feminism in centring colonialism and land rather than patriarchy alone. Western feminism typically treats gender as primary oppression and other struggles as secondary. Indigenous feminisms insist that colonialism, land dispossession and racism cannot be separated from gender oppression.
Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s work analysed how white feminist practice perpetuated colonialism and white supremacy in Australia. She demonstrated that white feminists often reproduced colonial relations whilst claiming to support Indigenous women’s liberation. This included tokenising Indigenous women, appropriating Indigenous knowledge and opposing Indigenous sovereignty.
The critique extends to how Western feminism universalises particular experiences as women’s experiences generally. Categories like “woman” or “mother” carry different meanings and power relations across cultures. Imposing Western gender frameworks obscures how Indigenous societies organised kinship, labour and authority.
Many Indigenous women reasonably resisted identifying as feminist because Western feminism consistently failed to address Indigenous women’s distinct oppressions rooted in colonialism. The term itself carried associations with white middle-class concerns irrelevant to Indigenous struggles for survival and sovereignty.
Heteropatriarchy as colonial tool
Andrea Smith and others demonstrate how heteropatriarchy functions as colonial tool for restructuring Indigenous societies. Gender systems are not natural or universal but politically constructed and deployed to serve power.
Many Indigenous societies featured gender diversity and women’s political authority. Colonisers imposed patriarchal family structures and male-dominated governance. This served multiple functions. It weakened Indigenous political systems by removing women from decision-making. It facilitated land transfer through male property ownership. It disrupted kinship systems organising Indigenous life.
The imposition operated through missionary activity teaching Christian gender roles, colonial law privileging male authority, and economic transformation creating male breadwinner households. Jennifer Denetdale documented how democracy itself functioned as mechanism for imposing heteropatriarchy on Diné nation. The Indian Act in Canada systematically undermined Indigenous women’s status and authority.
Understanding heteropatriarchy as colonial rather than natural reveals that restoring women’s and gender-diverse peoples’ authority constitutes decolonial practice. Indigenous feminisms insist that sovereignty struggles must address gender justice rather than treating it as separate concern.
Radical relationality
Indigenous feminisms articulate what Yazzie and Baldy term “radical relationality.” This encompasses vision of relationality and collective political organisation that is deeply intersectional and premised on values of interdependency, reciprocity, equality and responsibility.
Radical relationality extends beyond human kinship to encompass relations with land, water and more-than-human beings. Indigenous feminisms often foreground environmental justice, recognising that violence against land and violence against Indigenous women are interconnected rather than separate struggles.
This framework challenges both Western individualism and narrow kinship definitions. Indigenous feminisms understand persons as constituted through relationships rather than as autonomous individuals. Political organising centres maintaining and repairing these relationships across generations and species.
Leonie Pihama’s concept of mana wahine exemplifies this approach. Mana wahine theory emphasises that Māori women can proactively determine their futures and rediscover strength of Māori relationships. It grounds feminist practice in Māori language, women’s histories and cultural frameworks rather than importing Western concepts.
Violence and sovereignty
Sexual violence against Indigenous women constitutes attack on Indigenous sovereignty by targeting bodies, families and futures. Sarah Deer’s work demonstrates how five centuries of colonial policy produced epidemic rates of assault. This violence serves eliminatory functions within settler colonialism.
The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada provides stark illustration. Robyn Bourgeois applies Indigenous feminist anti-oppression frameworks to this crisis, showing how it emerges from intersection of colonialism, capitalism and heteropatriarchy. State indifference to Indigenous women’s murders reflects ongoing devaluation of Indigenous life.
Andrea Smith identifies three pillars of white supremacy: slavery/capitalism, genocide/colonialism, and Orientalism/war. Sexual violence operates across these pillars but particularly through genocide/colonialism logic. Attacking Indigenous women’s bodies prevents Indigenous reproduction and breaks kinship transmission.
Indigenous feminisms insist that addressing violence requires transforming colonial structures rather than merely prosecuting individual perpetrators. Tribal legal systems, community accountability and cultural revitalisation prove necessary for safety. This connects intimate violence to political sovereignty.
Kinship and governance
Indigenous feminisms understand kinship as political practice rather than merely personal relationship. Mishuana Goeman’s work shows how Indigenous communities, particularly Indigenous women, developed and renewed kinship networks in response to displacement and relocation.
These kinship practices enabled communities to maintain connection despite forced migration. Women used gendered kinship relations to create flexible, spatially mobile communities resilient to colonial policies. This demonstrates kinship as survival strategy and governance mechanism.
Contemporary Indigenous feminisms propose governance models centring women’s leadership and collective decision-making. This draws on traditional systems whilst adapting to current contexts. The emphasis on relationality and care challenges both settler state authority and patriarchal Indigenous nationalisms.
Joanne Barker analysed how sovereignty claims that marginalise women reproduce settler logics. When Indigenous nations adopt male-dominated governance or appeal to “tradition” to exclude women, this perpetuates colonial transformations rather than recovering Indigenous practices. Indigenous feminisms insist on interrogating which traditions get invoked and who benefits.
Gender diversity and Two-Spirit identities
Pre-colonial Indigenous societies featured diverse gender systems beyond binary categories. Deborah Miranda’s research documented extermination of third-gendered peoples in Spanish California. Colonisers targeted gender-diverse individuals through violence whilst imposing rigid gender binaries.
Contemporary Two-Spirit and gender-diverse Indigenous peoples reclaim these histories whilst navigating present realities. Wesley Thomas and Jolene Yazzie provide Diné perspectives on gender spectrum understanding embedded in language and tradition. Categories like Náhleeh and Dilbaa describe gender identities that colonisation sought to eliminate.
Indigenous feminisms insist that gender justice requires affirming gender diversity and challenging imposed binaries. This connects to broader decolonial projects of recovering suppressed knowledge and practices. Two-Spirit organising often operates at intersections of Indigenous sovereignty, LGBTQ+ rights and feminist politics.
The relationship between Indigenous feminisms and queer Indigenous studies proves generative. Kim TallBear and others advance critiques of settler sexuality and compulsory monogamy. Melanie K. Yazzie exemplifies queer Indigenous feminism grounded in land protection and kinship politics.
Nation-building and gender
Indigenous feminisms address tensions between nation-building projects and gender justice. Some Indigenous nationalisms subordinate women’s concerns to sovereignty struggles. This reproduces patriarchal logics whilst claiming to defend tradition.
The challenge involves building strong Indigenous nations without replicating oppressive structures. Indigenous feminisms propose that nations cannot be truly sovereign whilst perpetuating violence against Indigenous women and gender-diverse peoples. Liberation requires simultaneous attention to external colonialism and internal gender hierarchies.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson emphasises centring gender in resurgence efforts. This means ensuring women’s leadership, addressing gendered violence and recovering women-centred practices. The Idle No More movement exemplified Indigenous feminist politics despite not explicitly identifying as feminist.
Critics like Emily Snyder, Gina Starblanket and Emma LaRoque question celebrations of gender complementarity and female spirituality. They argue these can obscure ongoing patriarchal violence within Indigenous communities. Indigenous feminisms require ongoing critical reflection rather than romanticising pre-colonial gender relations.
Environmental justice
Indigenous feminisms connect gendered violence to environmental destruction. Resource extraction on Indigenous lands produces violence against both land and Indigenous women. Man camps associated with extractive industries bring sexual assault and trafficking. This demonstrates how capitalism, colonialism and heteropatriarchy intersect.
Indigenous women often lead land defence movements. The Unist’ot’en camp blocking pipeline construction on Wet’suwet’en territories centres Indigenous women’s and gender-diverse peoples’ leadership. This exemplifies Indigenous feminism as lived practice rather than merely theoretical position.
Environmental justice frameworks developed by Indigenous feminists recognise land as relative requiring care and protection. This differs from Western environmentalism treating nature as resource or wilderness. Indigenous feminisms ground environmental politics in kinship obligations and reciprocal relationships.
Deborah McGregor and other Indigenous environmental scholars demonstrate that environmental crises cannot be separated from gender justice. Climate change disproportionately affects Indigenous women whilst they possess crucial knowledge for adaptation and mitigation.
Critiques and tensions
Indigenous feminisms face internal critiques and ongoing tensions. Some question whether feminism as term and framework can ever fully serve Indigenous liberation given its Western origins. Others argue strategic deployment of feminism proves necessary whilst remaining critical of its limitations.
Debates continue around authenticity and tradition. When patriarchal practices get defended as traditional, this raises questions about which histories to honour and how to evaluate claims about pre-colonial gender relations. Indigenous feminisms navigate between uncritical celebration and wholesale rejection of tradition.
The relationship between individual and collective rights generates tension. Liberal feminism emphasises individual autonomy. Indigenous political traditions often prioritise collective authority. Finding balance between protecting individuals from harm and respecting community governance proves difficult.
Class differences among Indigenous women create divergent experiences and priorities. Urban and reserve populations, those with and without status, and varying access to resources shape political perspectives. Indigenous feminisms must account for this diversity rather than presuming unified women’s interests.
Future directions
Indigenous feminisms continue evolving through engagement with contemporary challenges. Digital technologies, climate crisis and global capitalism create new contexts for organising and analysis. Rising generations bring perspectives shaped by different historical moments.
The field increasingly centres queer and Two-Spirit voices challenging heteronormativity within both settler and Indigenous contexts. This represents significant shift from earlier emphasis on restoring women’s authority within heterosexual frameworks.
Connections between Indigenous feminisms globally enable knowledge sharing across contexts. Pacific, African, Asian and Latin American Indigenous women articulate feminisms grounded in their particular struggles. These demonstrate both shared patterns of colonial gender violence and important differences.
Indigenous feminisms ultimately represent comprehensive projects asserting that liberation requires transforming gender relations, recovering women’s and gender-diverse peoples’ authority, and centring kinship and land in political struggle. This proves inseparable from broader decolonisation and sovereignty projects. Gender justice and Indigenous liberation constitute mutually enabling rather than competing goals.