Many Native American cultures have long treated women and men as
equals. In "A Necessary Balance," Lillian A. Ackerman examines the
balance of power and responsibility between men and women within
each of the eleven Plateau Indian tribes who live today on the
Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington State.
Ackerman analyzes tribal cultures over three historical periods
lasting more than a century--the traditional past, the farming
phase when Indians were forced onto the reservation, and the
twentieth century industrial present. Ackerman examines gender
equality in terms of power, authority, and autonomy in four social
spheres: economic, domestic, political, and religious.
Although early explorers and anthropologists noted isolated
instances of gender equality among Plateau Indians, A Necessary
Balance is the first book-length examination of a culture that has
practiced such equality from its early days of hunting and
gathering to the present day. Ackerman's findings also relate to an
examination of European and American cultures, calling into
question the current assumption that gender equality ceases to be
possible with the advent of industrialization.
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