Understanding hierarchies and how they were created is significant to solving various social issues we continue to have today. Looking back in history, we see that women lost their equality when human civilization fully transitioned from hunting and gathering to farming. Their primary roles were giving birth and raising their children at home while depending on the men who worked and earned income. These roles weren’t equally valued as the men’s and eventually resulted in a system of patriarchy where men gained control and power in society. This system became widespread all over the world throughout various periods. At the same time, violence against women increased amid men fighting for authority. European colonization, for example, committed destructive acts of violence under White supremacy, which are responsible for various issues we currently have. Published in 1981, Angela Davis writes Rape, Racism, and the Capitalist Setting where she goes into detail the dynamic between racism and rape. In her book, Sexual Violence as a Tool for Genocide, Andrea Smith explains the targeting of Native women by White men as a means to target their people as a whole. Women have been victims of men competing against each other and over others for power, using them when it benefited men.
Angela Davis is a feminist political activist and author of Rape, Racism, and the Capitalist Setting published in 1981. In her work, she describes the effective role of rape to oppress Black women and men since the time of slavery. On page 40, she writes, “Sexual coercion was an essential dimension of the social relations between slavemaster and slave. In other words, the right claimed by slaveowners and their agents over the bodies of female slaves was a direct expression of their presumed property rights over Black people in general”. Here, rape was a powerful tool commonly used by White men to show their superiority over enslaved Black people. Attacking and invading their bodies at any time allowed these men to feel they were entitled to own these women, and eventually, own White women as well. This sexual violence became ingrained in society to the point that it became a tool almost necessary to use against other women of color. Davis continues to write on page 41, “Because it was drummed into the heads of U.S. soldiers that they were confronting an inferior race, they could be made to believe that raping Vietnamese women was a necessary soldierly duty”. In this instance, rape was also a weapon used in wartime. War gave soldiers a chance to prove they were stronger than their opponents, and by raping the women, they could spread fear throughout the entire people.
Andrea Smith published her work Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide in 2005, where she goes into detail about how Native women suffer sexual violence by White men due to racial and gender oppression that stems from colonialism. This targeting of Native women degrades them and makes them lose confidence in themselves. Their culture becomes shameful, and their whole identity suddenly becomes meaningless. Smith writes, “As a rape crisis counselor, it was not a surprise to me that Indians who have survived sexual abuse would often say that they no longer wish to be Indian. Native peoples’ individual experiences of sexual violation echo 500 years of sexual colonization in which Native peoples’ bodies have been deemed inherently impure” (pp 12-13). Colonists saw the Native peoples’ way of living and appearance as entirely different. Instead of accepting this, their greed for territory and power drove them to believe the Native people were wholly wrong and inferior. Demonizing them to say they were unfit to care for themselves and their homes was an excuse to raid their land and abuse the women. This reflects Davis’ example of rape as a violent tool for control and domination. Weaponizing rape was effective in installing a power dynamic between White men and Native women. It continues to affect many of these women today, unprotected under the government’s surveillance.
Men forcing women to rely on them limited their potential to do other work. This provided men control, and as seen throughout history, men dominating men of different regions drove the idea that a specific type of men could dominate all others. During this process, women were used and abused through their reproductive abilities. Controlling women based on their race eventually gave access to attacking entire people of the same race. It is up to the new generations to realize this and prevent the same mistakes from happening by demanding policies that protect women and their bodily autonomy.
