Bill C-31: Not Quite There yet from a Feminist Perspective...

Sandra Lovelace Nicholas

    June 28th, 1985. I don't actually remember what I was doing that particular day. More than likely drawing some funky facial tattoos on some Jem and the Holograms dolls, being the strange 9 year old girl I was. Meanwhile, else-where in Canada, a woman three times my age had been fighting for indigenous women's rights, and the United Nations Human Rights Council found the country I call home in violation of those rights. June 28th, 1985, is a day that will live in Feminist history along with the Suffragette Movement of the early 1900's with people like Nellie McCLung, along with the 1970's movements to have equal pay for equal hours worked, and to end sexual discrimination in the workplace. An Act to Amend the Indian Act, which was meant to make the Indian Act the same as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and give aboriginal women who lost their status through marriage the ability to regain their status. Women like Sandra Lovelace, Mary Two-Axe Early, and Jeanette Corbiere Lavell, have all not only been fighting for Women's Rights, but in particular indigenous women's rights.
    While there is no argument that An Act to Amend the Indian Act, also known as Bill C-31, was a huge milestone for indigenous women's rights, it is also seen by many as essentially a step backwards for indigenous women's rights.

When I first leaned of Bill C-31 in another class, I thought to myself "Right on Sisters! Fight for your rights as women!" and that it was a huge leap for women's equality issues. That feeling of sisterly solidarity was very short lived, however, when the actual date of the Amendment sunk in. I mean, 1985?! Whenever I had head of Feminism Movements, my mind always would conjure up images of bra-burning, un-shaven leg-and-underarms hippie women looking to completely over-throw male domination and oppression. This is only one side of that myriad of Feminism, something that Mullaly (2007) called Radical Feminism. "In regards to sexuality, radical feminism holds that throughout history men have constructed and controlled women's bodies to serve their own needs and interests." (Mullaly, 2007, p. 166)
Fast forward to now, in 2011, when I am told I must write a blog entry for Feministic approached to Indigenous People. My first thought, of course, drifted to Sandra Lovelace and Bill C-31. I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to illustrate what a leap this has been for Indigenous women's rights.

I was plesantly surprised to find out I was wrong.

I know, when does ANYONE, ever actually admit that they were glad to be proven wrong on a particular subject, espcially when the subject is of indigenous women and their rights? But I was glad to have the opportunity to see another perspective on the issue, and not one writen in a textbook for a class. The Native Women's Association of Canada, founded in 1974, gave a different perspective that agrees with Mullaly's idea that there are two main aspects to the school of feminist thought. One is "That there is overwhelming evidence that the state plays a central role in the domination of men and the subordination of women; and two, this evidence has led to demands that the existing ideological and theoretical frameworks be revised to account for the role of the state in maintaining dominant patriarchal and heterosexual relations that characterize Western society." (Mullaly, 2007, p. 161). Essentially, it means that the Government has just as much of a role to play when it comes to the systemic discrimination against women. Even when they are trying to fix the obvious flaw, the Government still gets it wrong.

Shocking.

Bill C-31 not only deals with indigenous women's loss of status when they marry non-indigenous men, but it also puts the ownership of reserve membership and band membership back into the hands of the Band Council.

I know what you're thinking, and please don't get too excited. I agree with the Native Women's Association in that "While some women applauded the recognition of the discrimination many women agree that the Bill is not the mechanism to address the scope and depth of that discrimination. " (Native Women's Association, 2007, p.3)

This seems like basically a way to kill two birds with one stone; dealing with the discrimination against indigenous women, but also a leap forward towards Self-Government. This isn't the case, sadly. The Government actually purposefully designed Bill C-31 in this way, if only to perpetuate the discimination of women. Only this time it would not come from their hands totally, but at the hands of the Band Council itself. Funding for bands is based off membership level, but funding did not increase after the bill was passed. Bill C-31 also clearly stipulates that an Indigenous woman must identify the status of the father. Further more,  "A "6(2)" woman who cannot or will not name the father of her child born out of wedlock (because, for example, the child is the result of rape) will see that child denied status under the Act even if the father is a status Indian." (Native Women's Association of Canada, 2007, p. 11).
Wait, hang on a moment here. Wasn't this Bill supposed to end the discrimination against indigenous women? What about in cases of rape? Mullaly illustrates this by way of Williams (1989) as the main argument for the ideology of Radical Feminism, where "Patriarchy has been defined in two ways by radical feminists- male power and control over women's sexuality and male power and control over women's biology in terms of their reproductive capacity." (Williams, 1998, as cited by Mullaly, 2007, p. 166). The identification of the father to decide if a child is status or not only goes to re-enforce the Indian Act previously. The only difference, as seen by some like the Native Women's Association, is that now indigenous men cannot bestow their Status onto their non-indigenous wives as they could previously, nevermind that now their Band Council of Bill C-31 women can decide if they can stay on reserve or not, or are eligible for things like education, housing and health care. It throws the Race card into the feminism mix in terms of forcing a definition of who is more "Indian", and Bill C-31 women are not seen as "Indian enough."

Still think I'm blowing smoke? Sandra Lovelace (Maliseet) had to go to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights to file her complaint of discimination after her divorce from her non-aboriginal husband. She tried to return to her reserve and was denied because she had lost her Status upon marrying her husband in 1970. Even though she was divorced from him, under the Indian Act, only Band Members can live on reserves.
She couldn't go to the only other organisation at the time, the National Indian Brotherhood, as it was fighting for it's own issues and their main stance was that they would not support revisions to any part of the Indian Act unless it was the whole Indian Act that was reviewed.

I guess we still haven't gotten as far as we'd like to think on indigenous women's issues.

~Shauna


Daniels, H.W., (1998) Bill C-31: The Abocide Bill. Congress of Aboriginal People. Retrieved on November 8, 2011 from http://www.abo-peoples.org/programs/C-31/Abocide/Abocide-1.htm

Dickason, O.P., Newbigging, W. (2010) A Concise History of Canada's First Nations (2nd ed.) Don Mills: Oxford University Press.

Mullaly, R. (2007). The New Structural Social Work (3rd Ed.). Don Mills, ON: Oxford University Press.

Native Women's Association of Canada. (2007) Aboriginal Women and Bill C-31: An Issue Paper. National Aboriginal Women's Summit (2007). Corner Brook; NL.Retrieved November 8, 2011 from http://www.laa.gov.nl.ca/laa/naws/pdf/nwac-billc-31.pdf

Native Women's Association of Canada. (n.d.) Aboriginal Women's Rights are Human Rights. Canadian Human Rights Act Review: An NWAC Research Paper. Retrieved November 8, 2011 from http://action.web.ca/home/narcc/attach/AboriginalWomensRightsAreHumanRights.pdf