SarahSully Jolly

Violence against women is prevalent in the United States. The U.S. has over 200,000 attempted and completed rapes a year (Humphrey 214). Over a lifetime approximately 14.8 percent of women are raped or sexually assaulted (Basile, Chen, Black, & Saltzman 437). However, Native American women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime at a disproportionately higher rate than other ethnic groups; 75 percent report being sexually assaulted during their lifetime (Bhungalia). Native Americans do not only have a higher rate of sexual violence committed against them but also a higher rate of domestic violence and even a disproportionately higher rate of murder than any other racial group. As a society we need to ask why Native Americans, in particular women, experience an obscene amount of violence compared to other ethnic groups. The most prominent reason why Native Americans, as well as other ethnic minorities like the aboriginals of Australia, are the victims of these acts of violence is due to the discrimination that they face as a racial group. Discrimination leads to hatred, hatred by society leads to fewer resources for the despised racial group which results in fewer educational and occupational opportunities which continue to keep Native Americans at the lowest status in a hierarchical society dominated by white males. This leaves Native American women at the lowest status due to their intersectionality, meaning that they are discriminated against not simply because they are women or simply because they are Native American, but because they are both.

In order to understand the current status of the Native community, a closer look needs to be taken at their history with Europeans. The Europeans committed atrocious violent acts against Native Americans; this violence is what turned into discrimination against them as a race. According to Ramirez, Europeans "described Native Americans in racialized terms [such] as polluted and dirty, which encouraged violence against Indian women" (104). Even Peter H. Burnett, the governor of California in 1851, promoted the extinction of the Indian race; this open proclamation against the Native Americans is an example of the deeply rooted hatred felt against this community (104). While men were often, and still are, brutalized, women received just as much if not more abuse. An Indian woman's nakedness was "seen as impure and dirty [and therefore]...were sexually violable" (Waters, 10). Native Americans had no rights in this society dominated by whites who saw them as savage, as lowly as animals, which meant there were no consequences for those who raped or beat Native women or children. With a history of violence such as this, it is not surprising that Native Americans face unequivocally higher amounts of violence today.

In the United States crimes are generally committed against those of the same race, otherwise known as intraracial, opposed to those crimes committed against people of a different race, known as interracial; however, according to Humphrey, a prominent researcher on deviance, the Native population crimes are more likely to be committed interracially (2006, p. 67). Humphrey states that a Native American is assaulted by a non-Native American 70 percent of the time (67). Another interesting finding is that "when Native Americans are murdered, 4 in 10 times the offense is committed by someone of a different race" (67). Hate crimes due to discrimination of Native Americans can be the only explanation for the disproportionately higher rate of interracial violence. It is also the only reason why Indians are victimized "twice as often as all other residents of the United States" (67). Even violent acts against Indian women are committed by persons of a different race 70 percent of the time (Bhungalia). Native American women are violently brutalized more than black men (Humphrey, 67) and at "almost twice the rate of black women" (Dugan & Apel, 967). Native American women also face a wider variety of violence than their counterparts. Indian men face no educational opportunities, assault, murder, and occasionally sexual assault while women face all of the above and more. For example, many women face the threat of forced sterilization.

According to Waters, a prevalent researcher, the rate of forced sterilization on some reservations is 80 percent (10). In the narrative Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog, Crow Dog's sister Barbara is sterilized without giving her consent and under false pretenses. Barbara is told she has to have a C-section, but after she awakes she is told that the doctors removed her uterus (78). This incident happened in the 1970s but Waters’ research took place in 2003, meaning that this type of violence is still happening in the Native American community. Incidents such as these give the Native American population reason not to trust white authorities.

Sexual assault is another type of violence where Native American women are targeted not just by men of their own race or white men but according to Crow Dog also by the authorities. Crow Dog states that police would arrest Indian girls and women under false allegations, such as being "drunk-and-disorderly... take them to the drunk tanks in their jails, and there rape them" (68). Authorities have also been accused of disregarding Native American women's statements of sexual assault as false when the women try to report it (Bhungalia). In general, it has been understood that women of all ethnicities may receive negative treatment or reactions when reporting sexual violence; however, "ethnic minority victims [report] more negative social reactions" than majority racial groups due to their heightened suspicion of authorities because of authorities prejudicial attitudes (Sarker & Sarker, 415). This type of negative treatment results in women, Native American women in particular, not disclosing sexual assaults to the authorities and it further encourages the Native community to continue to distrust white authorities (Bhungalia). This distrust only promotes the cycle of discrimination and hate which leads to more acts of violence.

Another demoralizing act of violence committed against Native American women is one that their own men commit against them; domestic violence. Domestic violence is very much a problem in the Native American population. According to a study done in the Southwestern United States in a Navajo community, 52.5 percent of the women there experienced "at least 1 episode of domestic violence by a male partner" (Fairchild, Fairchild, Wilson, & Stoner, 1515). An example of the prevalence of domestic violence is seen in Lakota Woman. Crow Dog describes another incident from her sister's life when the man she was living with "ripped off a two-by-four from the fence and used it on her” (245). Crow Dog explains that "for a little thing like that most Sioux women wouldn't leave their men" (245). Domestic violence is such a problem for this community, as it is for other minority communities as well, because not only do women have to encounter violence from those outside their ethnic group but have to face it from their counterparts as well.

According to Gloria Anzaldúa, a prominent feminist theorist, domestic violence is a result of what white society has done to minority men. White men have socialized all men to believe that in order to be considered a man one must be able to provide for their family; however, white society takes away all of the legal methods in which to do this. The Native American has no way to gain equal educational or occupational access that whites have in order to provide for their families. This inability to provide for their family and to be a man creates frustration which in turn "leads him to put women down and even brutalize them" in order to make the male feel that he has control over some aspect of his life (Humphreay, 173- 174). Out of this frustration Native American men also turn to alcohol or, sadly, commit suicide. Humphrey also believes that the high alcoholism rates among the Indian population are due to the "blockage to educational and occupational opportunities" (179). Also the suicide rate for this population tends to be "three or four times higher than any ethnic group" (123). Due to all of this abuse Native American women also turn to self medicating methods such as drugs and alcohol. According to Saylors and Daliparthy, somewhere "between 55 and 99% of [Indian] women with substance use disorders report being victimized at some point in life" (34).

Native Americans are not the only native minority people to be facing this type of brutalization from authorities and problems within their communities. The aboriginals of Australia are encountering many of the same types of obstacles as of the Native Americans. For instance, Australian aboriginals were invaded and colonized by the British as the Native Americans and "have their own distinctive histories, with the experience of colonization" (Taylor & Putt, 2). Even though "discriminatory legislation had been repealed across Australia by the end of the 1960s [it]... remains part of the living memories of many older Indigenous" peoples (2). They are also a community that faces a low socioeconomic status due to discrimination and social networks (3). The members of the Indigenous community have a disproportionately higher rate of incarceration than non-Indigenous members and sexual violence "is commonly perceived as endemic in some Indigenous communities and is frequently perpetrated by partners and family members" like that of the American Indians (3). Furthermore, the aboriginals are often brutalized through violence; a survey found that aboriginal women are three times more likely to be victims of sexual violence than non-aboriginal women (2). And lastly "the Indigenous community expressed distrust towards police" due to past bad experiences with the authorities (5). So while the Native Americans and Australian aboriginals may have differences, such as how they retaliated to colonization and what type of problems they are still facing today, they do have many similarities. By comparing these groups, one can see that violence against the natives of a land is due to the discrimination that is directed against these minorities to a higher degree than other minorities. Each of these groups, the Australian aboriginals and the American Indians, has the highest rates of violence perpetrated against them in their countries. Perhaps this is because the hate and discrimination against the Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals extends back to the beginnings of the invasion and colonization of the countries. This hatred has roots that go very deep in comparison to other racial minority groups. Whatever the reason the discrimination these peoples face on a daily basis should be a concern for society, in particularly feminists, because it affects not only women and children in the Native community but all people living in that society.

Violence against men, women, children, elderly, people of color, or homosexuals is of grave concern to feminists. Violence against the Native American community is no different. Little restricted access to education or jobs, assault, sexual assault, battery, domestic violence, and murder are prevalent in the Indian community and all arise from one thing; discrimination. But these violent acts do not stop there; this violence leads to more violence and even internal problems within the community. Due to these types of abuses, Native Americans internalize the idea that they are worthless which may lead to alcoholism, suicide, anxiety, or depression (Sarker & Sarker, 2005, p. 413). This is a great burden on the community and can only be stopped with the help of all. Through education of diversity and knowledge of these issues this type of violence can be ended with the help and cooperation of all society in order to make change.

Bibliography:

Anzaldúa, Gloria. (1987). La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness, from Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza. In Linder/ WS 367.01/ Winter 2008, Reading Women's Lives (167- 183). Boston, MA: Pearson Boston.

Basile, Kathleen C.; Chen, Jieru; Black, Michele C. & Saltzman, Linda E (2007). Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence Victimization Among U.S. Adults, 2001-2003. Violence & Victims, 22, 437-448.

Bhungalia, Lisa. (2008) Native American Women and Violence. National Organization for Women. Retrieved April 18, 2008, from http://www.now.org/nnt/spring- 2001/nativeamerican.html

Crow Dog, Mary. (1990). Lakota Woman. New York: Harper Perennial.

Dugan, Laura & Apel, Robert. (2003) An Exploratory Study of the Violent Victimization of Women: Race/ Ethnicity and Situational Context. Criminology, 41, 959-979.

Fairchild, David G., M.D., Fairchild, Molly Wilson, MS, & Stoner, Shirley. (1998). Prevalence of Adult Domestic Violence Among Women Seeking Routine Care in a Native American Health Care Facility. American. Journal of Public Health, 88, 1515- 1517.

Humphrey, John A. (2006). Deviant Behavior. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall_._
Ramirez, Renya. (2004). Healing, Violence, and Native American Women. Social Justice, 31, 103- 116.
Sarkar, N.& Sarkar, Rina. (2005). Sexual assault on woman: Its impact on her life and living in society. Sexual & Relationship Therapy, 20, 407- 419.

Saylors, Karen Ph.D. & Daliparthy, Nalini M.S., M.P.H. (2006). Violence Against Native Women In Substance Abuse Treatment. American Indian & Alaska Native Mental Health Research: The Journal of the National Center, 13, 32-51.

Natalie Taylor and Judy Putt. (2007). Adult Sexual Violence in Indigenous and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Communities in Australia. Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice, 345, 1-6.

Waters, Anne. (2003). Introduction:Special Issue on 'Native American Women, Feminism, and Indigenism.' Hypatia, 18, 1-13.