Indigenous Self-Determination and Gender Justice

Abstract:This paper examines the complex relationship between collective self-determination and gender justice in Indigenous communities by focusing on the case of Indigenous women in Canada. Liberal theorists have argued that conferring on Indigenous peoples the collective right to self-determination would result in the oppression of their women. The situation of Indigenous women in Canada seems to provide evidence for this; under the Indigenous self-government regime granted by the Indian Act, Indigenous women have suffered from rampant discriminations in their own communities, including exclusion from band membership privileges when they “out-marry.” Some Indigenous women, however, strongly support the collective right to Indigenous self-determination even at the expense of women’s individual rights. I call these Indigenous women’s position traditionalist. Through careful examinations of relevant facts and philosophical analyses of key concepts, this paper demonstrates that the traditionalist Indigenous women’s position is a philosophically defensible position regarding the relation between Indigenous collective self-determination and gender justice.