ISSUE: Culturally relevant gender-based analysis AND the Revitalization of matrilineal/matriarchal systems
Background:
The term “gender-based analysis” is derived from a western agenda to address inequities within the system related to women’s rights. A cultural approach to GBA negates the “gender” component since to be “culturally relevant” is to be balanced.
Culturally relevant policy is inclusive of women’s roles as life-givers, teachers and keepers of knowledge, of men’s roles as protectors and providers, of elders roles as advisors, healers and keepers of oral tradition, and of children and youth’s roles as teachers of tolerance, patience and forethought. Every member of a community has specific roles and responsibilities that are integral to successful, sustainable communities, creating a strong, solid foundation for all else.
Fast Facts:
- The advantage Aboriginal peoples have in rebalancing inequities related to gender is that it involves revitalizing traditional structures of governance, rather than having to develop and impose a new foreign way of thinking (as is the challenge for non-Aboriginal societies).
- Traditional decision-making and policy development was community based and community driven.
- Current or western gender-based analysis (GBA) practices do not adequately incorporate Aboriginal worldviews.
Recommendations:
- That ALL Aboriginal organizations be provided equitable capacity to develop sustainable mechanisms that would lead to the revitalization of traditional governance structures.
- That the Federal Government, in partnership with ALL National Aboriginal Organizations, work towards restoring Nationhood as a solution to addressing the underlying systemic issues currently perpetuated by existing structures.
- That the Federal Government provide All National Aboriginal Organizations with the necessary and equitable capacity to begin to educate the Canadian public on the need to rebalance societal attitudes towards ALL Aboriginal peoples.
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For further information, please contact:
Al Fleming
Director
Public Affairs
613-747-6022 (office)
613-867-8696 (mobile)
al@abo-peoples.org
