Gender is often defined by western feminist perspectives, and to date there has been very little research or writings about Aboriginal gender and gender equity.
Gender is often defined by western feminist perspectives, and to date there has been very little research or writings about Aboriginal gender and gender equity. Where there is, it often focuses on pre-invasion times that are interpreted and written by non-Aboriginal people, usually men and hinged on racist perspectives.
To counteract this, the ‘Aboriginal Gender Project’ was designed to explore contemporary understandings of gender and gender equity in Aboriginal communities. The project was established as a partnership between the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia (AHCSA), University of Adelaide and South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and was funded by the Lowitja Institute.
We, the project team, comprised of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal researchers, visited three communities in South Australia; a community on Ngarrindjeri country, Barngarla country, and metro mob on Kaurna country. Communities were approached through existing relationships and networks of AHCSA and the project’s Aboriginal Advisory Group. We acknowledge that the findings are from only three Aboriginal communities and may not reflect views about gender or gender equity in other communities.
In every step of the project, we were guided by Aboriginal ways of working and knowledges. This included supporting Aboriginal leadership, and the core team working as a collective and in collaboration with community and an Aboriginal Advisory Group.
The project aimed to centralise the strengths of the communities and promote positive descriptions and storytelling.
Through yarning circles, we spoke with almost 50 Aboriginal women, men and LGBTQ people, who shared their stories about what it means to be a strong Aboriginal woman or man, and the many roles, responsibilities and experiences from their communities. Through drawing on strong relationships with community and yarning circles, the team worked to create a safe space for participants to share deep stories.
Community told us a strong Aboriginal woman is someone knows her identity, is resilient, a nurturer, advocate and family based. While a strong Aboriginal man was described as knowing and sharing culture, hard worker, good father and protectors. The key underlying theme of these depictions of gender was connections – to family, community and culture.
Gender equity was not a term that community was familiar with, but they resonated with the term fairness, which was discussed as shared responsibilities to family and community. Fairness was also described as men and women standing together in their families, communities and workplaces. This is an important distinction to the way gender equity in non-Aboriginal society is viewed, which is centred around equal access to wealth and power. In contrast, we found that Aboriginal gender equity exists around equally fulfilling caring responsibilities to family, culture and community. This includes some shared responsibilities and some that may be distinct to women and men.
Women described some of the things that stand in the way of fairness and equity, they felt that home duties and caring for children was often work that was left up to them. Some men spoke about sharing roles in the home and raising up children, however the expectations of these roles from community were often gendered. For example, women stated they felt their mothering was more closely scrutinised and judged than their male counterparts. In addition, the expectation for men to be strong and silent about struggles was identified as an impediment to men being able to fulfil their responsibilities.
In LGBTQ yarning circles, we encouraged self-identifying mob to come forward and speak to their experiences. From these yarning circles, we were able to capture unique stories from Aboriginal LGBTQ people, some included:
Episodes of transphobia and homophobia were common within and outside of the community, and manifested as verbal abuse, physical violence, isolation and silencing of trauma.
Aboriginal LGBTQ people spoke about being hypervigilant and creating safe spaces (usually within their homes) of queer liberation and protection.
Culture was an important source of strength for Aboriginal LGBTQ people, but they often worked to remain connected to community and culture.
Racism was experienced by both Aboriginal men and women and seen as an equaliser. All gendered groups described forms of gendered racism. These included stereotyping of women as ‘bad’ mothers and ‘hysterical’ while men were stereotyped as ‘violent’ and ‘alcoholics’. These stereotypes impact employment opportunities, custody outcomes and media representation which was often negative and perpetuated these negative views.
The study generated several recommendations, which can be found in detail in the final report. But below are some highlights:
Resilience needs further exploration as a gendered concept
Aboriginal men need unique spaces for them to explore emotions and trauma. These needs to be embedded in Aboriginal ways of healing and allow men to continue to strengthen connections with culture.
Further research and exploration of stories from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTIQ people is required to improve understandings of their unique connection to culture and experiences
Research around gender needs to further extend across the continent to capture more perspectives and reflect the diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
The Aboriginal Gender Study would like to thank Lowitja Institute for the opportunity to present our report at the Institute’s International Health and Wellbeing Conference and contribute to all the stories of strength from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities presented at the conference.
We are grateful for the communities who shared their stories with us and entrusted us with their stories, we hope that we respectfully handled them. It’s our hope that this report creates a foundation to carry the stories forward and for other Aboriginal researchers to explore gender and gender equity within their communities. This will provide the Aboriginal knowledge base to influence policies development that recognises Aboriginal concepts of gender and gender equity.
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