Doing Race, Doing Gender: First Nations, Sport, and gender Relations

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Doing Race, Doing GenderFirst Nations, Sport,
and gender Relations
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Race Embedded within Gender Relations

• Often peoples awareness of their race does not
  consciously shape the gender relations, even
  though the gender relations that result clearly
  have definable racial character!

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• Sport and games are an ongoing, important aspect
  of native and cultural life.
• The importance of first nations sport and games
  is identified through ceremonies, physical
  conditioning and enjoyment.
• Accounts of involvement in lacrosse, running, and
  traditional games festivals document primarily
  male participation.

1 FOOT KICK
HEAD PULL
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• History of female natives in sport states that
  they enjoyed various sports some being
  basketball, softball, track, cross country,
  rodeo, skiing, lacrosse and the traditional
  native team sport, double ball.

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• While sport has been an important aspect in the
  lives of both men and women the value placed on
  their involvement has tended to privilege male
  over female accomplishments.
• There was only one female recipient of the
  Canadian Longboat award in the first twenty three
  years that is was awarded.
• 1 in 57 inductees into the American Indian hall
  of fame was female in the first thirteen years of
  its existence.

Tom Longboat Award Richard and Gina
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Tlingit Culture

• Based on gambling games during the mid nineteenth
  century.
• Women participated less frequently than men
  because of the gender division of labor.
• Women had to work considerably longer to fulfill
  their culturally defined domestic and economic
  obligations than did men.

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• Gambling games usually resulted in an exchange of
  wealth.
• The personal property changing hands signified
  the wealth and status of each player, was owned
  by men, not women.
• Tradable items produced by women such as baskets
  and clothing were not used in gambling
• Consequently because items to be wagered in these
  games were owned by men almost exclusively, women
  did not participate.
• The games gave men the chance to symbolically
  express their rank and social status personal
  identity and prestige

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Inuit Culture

• In Inuit culture participation in sports such as
  hockey and volleyball was associated with high
  self esteem in male Inuit's.
• In a world where natives fell short of whites in
  areas such as education and employment male Inuit
  teenagers took great pride in their athletic
  abilities.

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• Gender differences in male and female Inuit's
  have persisted over time.
• Females were found to be more verbal, and tended
  to play more sportsmanlike.
• Males were found to be much more competitive than
  their female counterparts as well as more likely
  to engage in verbal and physical confrontations.
• Womens sporting event did not attract as many
  spectators as mens sports
• Although some of these women were excellent
  athletes they rarely received the attention that
  the male athletes did
• Women also tended to outgrow their sports
  involvement earlier than males.

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Iroquois Culture

• Iroquois women have traditionally structured
  their life on matrilineal principles.
• They have a history of involvement in sport both
  as organizers and participants.
• These women were active in a wide variety of
  sport in both Euro American and all-Indian
  leagues
• These women participated in an expansive sport
  system that included reserve leagues, organized
  leagues off the reserve, and national and
  international tournaments.

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Intragender Racial Hierarchies

• Race can sometimes be used as a marker of
  difference between participants in an activity.

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• 2 Native professional hockey players who
  experienced racism or conditional acceptance
• Ted Nolan
• Stan Jonathan

Ted Nolan
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• Individual and institutionalized acts of racism
  within sport help to construct hierarchies
  between groups of males and females.
• Media accounts of Native athletes often
  emphasize their race, establishing that they are
  Native first, and their race differentiates them
  form others of the same gender in that sport.

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• In North American sport, maleness is evaluated on
  a continuum.

__________________
Most Artistic Least Violent
Most Physical Most
Violent Represents masculinity best. Ex.
Football and Hockey
Represents masculinity least. Ex. Figure Skating
diving
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• There is a pecking order of masculinity within
  each sport
• Idea/view that physical abilities are more
  natural for athletes of colour than for white
  athletes reinforces a particular and racist view
  of masculinity.
• Ex. Tom Longboat

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• There is an intramale hierarchy based on styles
  of play in Inuit hockey.
• White southerners in the North claim hockey is a
  universal activity brings people together in a
  friendly, managed competition hockey is a
  universal language, easily spoken by all
  involved, regardless of race or culture.
• At the same time, however, they complain about
  Inuit style of play.. Inuit do not have
  well-developed skills and do not use teamwork..
  Game is often violent.. Problem is that they
  werent real men.

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Inuit Style of Play

• Hitting people from behind and skating away,
  instead of dropping the gloves and fighting it
  out on the ice (which is perceived to be more
  manly by non-Inuit) reflects traditional Native
  methods of violent expression, which rarely
  involve face-to-face confrontation.

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• Non-Inuit layers create a hierarchy of masculine
  behaviors that emphasizes confrontational and
  aggressive masculinity.
• Inuit athletes construct different norms of
  masculinity. Inuit skate faster than non-Inuit.
• The characterization of the behavior of First
  Nations man in sport as less civilized.

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• The present game, improved and reduced to rule
  by the whites, employs the greatest combination
  of physical and mental activity white men can
  sustain in recreation. And is as much superior to
  the original Indian game as civilization is to
  barbarism, baseball to its old English parent of
  rounders, or a pretty Canadian girl to any
  uncultivated squaw
• W. George Beers

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Racial Hierarchy in Women Sport

• Rodeo cowgirls were part of a culture that
  celebrated athleticism, skill, competitiveness
  and grit as appropriate female traits.
• Emma Blackfox
• Good Elk
• Princess Redbird

• While a racial hierarchy among female rodeo
  competitors did exist during the early years of
  rodeo, there is some evidence that opportunities
  for rodeo competitors have expanded in recent
  years.

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Class Discussion

• Do you think the use of Native or Indian
  mascots creates a stereotype that reflects
  differences in power between the Natives and
  Non-Natives??

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Explicitly Symbolic Race/Gender Relations
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• When cultural practices lie within the control of
  Native individuals, activities are sometimes set
  up to emphasize their racial uniqueness in
  relation to mainstream activities.
• This reproduction of a desired racial identity
  has particular notions of gender embedded with
  it.
• For First Nation individuals ceremonial dances,
  powwows, traditional games and sports (lacrosse)
  are symbolic declarations of a distinctive
  racial identity for their culture.

Indigenous Games
Lacrosse
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History of Lacrosse

• The native Indian tribes originally played it as
  a method of training for war. It was thought
  that if you could survive the game of Baggataway
  (Lacrosse today) you could survive in battle.
• The Native Indians believed that the game was
  given to them by the Creator. Even today, the
  game still has a very strong spiritual importance
  for the Natives.

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History of Lacrosse
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Lacrosse A Vehicle for Expression

• Lacrosse has been used a a vehicle for the
  expression of racial uniqueness.
• In the early 1970s the Iroquois formed their own
  league for box lacrosse, and it was from this
  organization that the impetus came in 1983 to
  form a national Iroquois team. This team
  included players from six Iroquois nations.
• In 1990 they competed in the Lacrosse World
  Games, using their own Haudenosaunee passports.

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• When you talk about lacrosse, you talk about
  the lifeblood of the Six Nations. The game is
  ingrained into our culture and our system and our
  lives.

• Oren Lyons is one of the principal figures of
  the Iroquois Nationals. He sees this team as a
  highly visible expression of
• sovereignty.

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Racial Identity Powwows

• Native athletes, both male and females say that
  experience dancing is something that is beyond
  sport.
• Powwows are clearly delineated by gender.
• Powwows were initially held by the male warrior,
  however, today men, women and children compete in
  the event.

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• Women were originally only involved in a
  supportive dance role, and men a more vigorous
  style of dance.
• This male dominance in powwow organizations,
  reflected broader male leadership.
• Women over time with keeping with gender
  relations now have expanded roles at powwows, and
  increased the vigor of some of their dance events.

Dancing is something beyond sport.
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Race/Gender Relations Symbolic of the 'Other'

• Native athletes suffer stereotyping in the
  media.
• They are thought of as part of the natural world
  and not always treated as people
• Native athletes have been portrayed as belonging
  to a distinct, exotic, inferior race who could
  not be civilized.
• Natives are looked at as the other in North
  American life.

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• For example, when native lacrosse players went
  on tour in England in the late 1800s they were
  displayed as a spectacle
• They were not seen as athletes, but as wild
  savages.
• These event were popular with the non.-native
  crowd
• The white players were looked at as amateurs and
  as being more civilized

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• This began construction of the ideas of
  civilized masculinity
• This idea was shown to the public as savage
  natives versus white amateurs.
• Although race was privileged over gender as a
  marker of difference for these athletes, images
  of gender were being produced with this idea of
  masculinity.

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• This practice continues today in Alberta where
  five young Indian warriors herd buffalo at the
  Wild Horse Show and Buffalo Chase.
• The show was produced for tourists who long to
  see the stereotypical portrayal of savage
  masculine natives.

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• Natives have also been portrayed as mascots at
  sport events.
• This is done because more than any other group,
  natives are looked at as bloodthirsty savages.
• They are stereotyped as wild, aggressive, brave,
  and willing to fight.

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• All of these elements strike fear in an opponent
  and promote the feeling of masculinity.
• The vast majority of native named teams are
  male. There are no native female mascots,
  therefore, it promotes the idea of masculinity
  These are just a few of the pro teams

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• These teams include the Chicago Blackhawks,
  Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, Kansas City
  Chiefs, and Washington Redskins.

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Conclusion

• Native men and women often encounter racism as
  an integral part of their experience in
  mainstream sports.
• Native men have been more able than women to
  gain self-esteem and acceptance through their
  sporting experience.
• At times Native have set out to emphasize a
  distinctive racial identity.
• -This often results in the production of
  explicitly symbolic race/ gender relations.
• Stereotype images of Native People are often
  produced in sports, which symbolize Natives as
  the other within mainstream society.

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Canadian Native Sports

• Counseling Sports Healing the Past
• Canadian government gave 350 million fund for
  counseling.
• Realizing that counseling supplemented by sport
  opportunities, is the most effective way to help
  turn around the high suicide and
  depression-related health and alcohol challenges
  among their youth, the government also annually
  provides some funding of First Nation Sports
  programs.
• These efforts have done wonders for the health
  and self esteem of The First Nations youth in
  Canada.