Objectification

A 2015 study by the University of Nebraska found that college women in the United States who were victims of sexual violence or partner violence began to self-objectificate themselves and felt body shame.^[21] Native American women have been objectified in popular culture under the stereotype of the "sexy Squaw" as seen by sexy Halloween costumes and other avenues such as fashion shows which use the aesthetic of a sexually promiscuous Indigenous woman. Furthermore, Native American women were highly objectified by colonists and often raped as a method of control while establishing the New World. Under European law, Native American women became the property of their colonist husbands leading to the literal possession and subsequent objectification of Indigenous women.^[22][23]

Forced pregnancy and sterilization

Forced sterilization is recognized as a type of gender-based violence.^[24] In the United States, Native American, Mexican American, African American and Puerto Rican-American women were coerced into sterilization programs, with Native Americans and African Americans especially being targeted. Many of these projects were a result of racism and eugenics in the United States.^[25] In total, 31 of 50 states had official eugenics programs with tens of thousands of women being sterilized.^[26]

President Lyndon B. Johnson's War of Poverty, upheld by the logic that the world would not have the resources necessary to care for the entire global population as argued by Dr. Barbara Gurr, a professor at University of Connecticut, led to the creation of the Office of Economic Opportunity that dealt with education, training, and contraception for the poor. The Family Planning Act of 1970 passed almost unanimously, inspired by eugenicist thinking, and the sterilization of women increased by 350% with almost 1 million women sterilized each year from 1970 to 1975.^[27]

Since the days of European colonization, Europeans who arrived sought to control Native American populations in order to acquire more capital and resources from the newly discovered land. This resulted in policies of genocide and removal targeting Native American women and girls in order to procure land for settlements.^[25][28] Records have shown that Native American girls as young as eleven years-old had hysterectomy operations performed.^[29] Native American women have been a minority group that is easier to target for sterilization due to high levels of bureaucratic secrecy and the unique circumstances of colonization and sexual violence that has kept their plight invisible to mainstream feminist movements.^[27]

Native American women could not unseal court records that documented the sterilization practices of the Indian Health Service (IHS) at the request of the United States government. A General Accounting Office (GAO) study conducted between 1973 and 1976 found IHS facilities sterilized 3,406 Native American women in Albuquerque, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and Aberdeen, South Dakota. Most of these women were between 15 and 44 years old. This was a large number of Native American women who were sterilized, equivalent to 452,000 non-Native American women. Many of these sterilization procedures violated the US District Court's definition of informed consent: "voluntary, knowing assent from the individual on whom any sterilization is to be performed." There was often a lack of translators to explain the severity of the procedure to Native American women and doctors withheld information about the irreversibility of the sterilization or other forms of birth control.^[27]

Physicians at the IHS were prescribing Depo-Provera, a long-term chemical contraceptive, to Native American women 20 years before it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1992. This contraception has long-term side effects such as depression, osteoporosis, sterility, and cervical cancer. Many Native American women were not made aware of these side effects. Sterilization is often the default solution for contraception for Native American women, who are often coerced into such procedures by government officials. In 2004, about 1/3 of Native American women were undergoing tubal ligation, a rate that is 123% greater than for white women.^[30]

Regarding African Americans, the origin of their population control was from the slavery in the United States.^[25] During the period of slave trade in the United States, African slaves were used as a mode of production, with slave women being forced into pregnancy to increase the slave labor force.^[31] This history of controlling African American populations motivated the future sterilization of African American women.^[25]

In 1927, Supreme Court of the United States endorsed eugenics programs in the country. The ruling pushed the eugenics movement further and resulted in more forced sterilizations of women.^[32] Involuntary euthanasia was also supported by American eugenists and practiced in rare instances, with the most promoted method of euthanasia being gas chambers, though it never gained footing in the United States and sterilization became preference.^[32]

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes penned:^[32]

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind

Eugenics and sterilization programs in the United States would later inspire Nazi eugenics.^[32][33] The American private foundation Rockefeller Foundation assisted with the development and funding of numerous eugenics projects in Germany,^[34] including a program directed by Josef Mengele who would later perform human experimentation at Auschwitz.^[33] During the Nuremberg trials, Nazis used Holmes' above quote to defend themselves.^[32]

Statistics

Native American and Alaska Native women experience high rates of violence.^[35] These acts of violence include sexual assault, domestic violence, and sex trafficking.^[36] The US Department of Justice found that 84% of Native American and Alaskan Native women have suffered some form of violence.^[37][38] This means Native women are 1.2 times more likely to experience violence than Non-Hispanic white women.^[38] 56.1% of Native American women experience sexual violence and more than 90% of these women were assaulted by a non-tribal member.^[38] 55.5% of these women report not being safe, and being pushed, shoved, or beaten.^[38] 48.8% experience psychological aggression by an intimate partner. Furthermore, 97% of indigenous women who are victims of violence experience it at the hands of a perpetrator who is not Native and 35% of victims experience violence from a Native person.^[38] About 33% of Native women are raped and are stalked at a rate double that of any other population.^[39]

These counts may be underestimated. Native tribal courts are not able to prosecute non-tribal members for sexual assault and rape. Non-Native American men are responsible for most of the assaults against Native American women.^[37] Psychological aggression has been experienced by 66.4% by their partner. In the US, greater than 1.5 million American Indian and Alaska Native women have suffered violence during their life.^[38]

Over 39% of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in the past year. Of these, 14% percent were sexually abused, 9% were assaulted by their intimate partner, 12% were stalked and 25% experienced psychological aggression by their intimate partner. In the past year, over 730,000 American Indian and Alaska Native women experienced violence.^[38]

Native American women and Alaska Native women, along with black women, have high murder rates when compared with other ethnicities.^[40][41] Women between ages 18 and 29 comprise 36.3% of Native American women and Alaska Native women murder victims. Intimate partner violence accounts for 47% of those murdered. Current intimate partners commit 81% of the murders and 12% are committed by a past intimate partner. Jealousy, arguments and preceding violent acts occur before the murder 66% of the time. Human trafficking of Native American Women and Alaska Native women is thought to also occur, but studies and statistics are lacking.^[40]

When compared to other ethnicities, Native American women experience sexual assault and rape rates that are 2.5 higher. Though the Violence Against Women Act was reauthorized in 2013, most tribes struggle to fund jails, courts, jails, law enforcement, judges, and prevention programs.^[37]

Concerns About Data

Statistics are lacking for violence against Native American women who reside on reservations. This data can also be combined with violence statistics from Native American women who do not live on reservations. Data sets often combine many different Indigenous nations, so there is not much data on specific communities. This becomes problematic because there are varying levels of violence within each tribe.^[42] Data is unknown because no agency collects such information.^[43] The data is also further obscured because homeless people are often not included in The National Crime Victimization Survey and Native American people make up a significant portion of the homeless population. The data also suggests that Native American women experience violence by perpetrators who are often not Native which is often met with skepticism by tribes and researchers who see this as data as a major anomaly that distracts from better understanding the issue.^[42]

Frameworks of Violence

The high levels of violence that Indigenous women experience has led to multiple academic frameworks to better understand this phenomenon. Most frameworks account for colonization, white supremacy, and patriarchal norms like sexism, due to the unique history of Native American women as victims of colonial and sexual violence.^{[44][45][46][47][42]}

Types of Violence