Wilma Mankiller’s groundbreaking tenure as chief of the Cherokee Nation introduced the US to the power of Indigenous women’s leadership.
Members of the Tangentyere Women’s Family Safety Group from Alice Springs at an event to discuss combatting family violence at Parliament House in Canberra, 2018.
Mick Tsikas/AAP Image
The recent Women’s Safety Summit highlighted Australia’s problem with gender-based violence. However, violence experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is still not being addressed.
Indigenous women and gender diverse people have marched and shared the outrage at the mistreatment of women in Australia. However, there is noticeable silence from non-Indigenous Australia at the horrific statistics of violence against Indigenous women and children.
Mick Tsikas/AAP
There is an urgent need to address the high rates of violence against Indigenous women and children. Australia has been silent on these issues for too long.
Indigenous women’s activism in Canada has a long history. The organizing work of Isabelle McNab, first president of the Saskatchewan Women’s Indian Association, can be seen as the precursor to later activism like this First Nations Idle No More protest for better treatment of Indigenous peoples at the Douglas-Peace Arch near Surrey, B.C., on Jan. 5, 2013.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
Built on historical research, this article tells the resilient, fascinating and rarely told history of Indigenous women’s organizing and resistance in Saskatchewan.