The Importance of Women in the Colonial World

The first 200 words of this essay...

The Importance of Women in the Colonial World

Women's importance in the colonial world was an ever-changing process. They were seen as

equals in early Native society but over the years women's roles have changed drastically. The books one

has studied have great influence on how people view women in the past but others have little. Women

have played a role from the earliest times even before written language, among the Natives, in their

stories and legends of women beings. Women once had a role in every aspect of human lives but as the

colonists and religious leaders from other countries started to migrate there role was changed and never

reestablished. Women have important roles to play in their own societies.

Eleanor Burke Leacock's, Myths of Male Dominance: Collective articles on Women Cross-

Culturally (Monthly Review Press New York and London, 1981), beautifully describes the importance

of native women and their roles. Leacock points out that "universal male dominance is myth not fact"1

and because this book contains articles by different authors, one gets a wide variety of works that