Melissa: Native American feminist

Melissa has had feminist ideals for as long as she can remember. The maternal side of  her family is Native American, a culture with a strong sense of matriarchal power, and since her parents had her young, her extended family was actively involved in raising her.

 

“I grew up surrounded around resilient and positively influential women such as my grandmothers, mom and aunts,” says Melissa, who is a quarter Ojibwe and a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

 

But it wasn’t until she began studying feminism academically that Melissa put a name to her feelings.

 

“I think the first time I truly recognized my feminist identity was in a women’s history class at Michigan State during my sophomore year,” says Melissa. “I felt like I had finally found a definition or label for all of the frustrations and feelings I had been experiencing as a female human being.”

 

Melissa, who grew up in Cheboygan and Traverse City, Michigan, received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Michigan State University and  went on to earn a master’s degree in media studies from Wayne State University.  She continued to study feminism, focusing her thesis on First Nations female filmmakers and their portrayal of contemporary Indigenous identity and feminism. Now she is in her second year as a PhD student in cultural studies at George Mason University, working as the president of the Native American and Indigenous Alliance and a coordinator for the Global Proficiency Certificate program through the Office of International Programs and Services at the college. Her studies have expanded her view of feminism, especially in terms of how it applies to Native Americans.

 

“Many Native scholars believe that patriarchy is a Western concept that was introduced to Indigenous people through colonization and in order for tribal communities to reclaim their self-determination, they must return to traditional ways such as matrilineal societies and kinship structures,” says Melissa, who hopes to someday become a college professor and design a course curriculum on Native American cinema and Indigenous feminism.

 

Feminism can encompass not only the struggles of gender inequality, but also of sexuality, class and race, says Melissa.  Works like Betty Friedan’s “The Feminist Mystique,” don’t necessary tell the whole story.

 

“Although Friedan’s work is a huge historical moment during the women’s movement, I think that it is often a generalized view of feminism, which can be extremely complicated in terms of social class and race,” says Melissa.

 

Feminism is complicated in Melissa’s own culture. Some Native American women do not necessarily believe in the concept of feminism because they believe it has always existed. Others are more concerned with the injustice of race rather than gender, says Melissa.  For Melissa, the feminism movement has a lot of potential.

 

“For myself, the word has definitely changed throughout the years,” says Melissa. “I have begun to recognize the incredible possibilities that feminism has to offer for a variety of social inequalities.”