PHIL 3170/GWST 3500: Final Essay By: Rebecca Hussman For: Dr. Susan Dieleman Due: Tuesday, April 15, 2014. Submitted: Wednesday, April 16, 2014. IN HONOUR OF LORETTA SAUNDERS: AN INTERSECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ABORIGINAL AND AMERICAN INDIAN WOMEN IN NORTH AMERICA
2 This essay is inspired by the case of Loretta Saunders. Loretta Saunders, a 26-year-old Inuk woman from Nunatsiavut (Inuit territory in Labrador), was writing her undergraduate thesis about the frequent crimes committed against Aboriginal women in Nova Scotia, the province in which she lived. As her professor and advisor Darryl Leroux explains: Loretta's research broaches a topic that is largely taboo in Canadian society: the heartbreaking phenomenon of missing and murdered indigenous women. In particular, Loretta aims to understand the disappearance and/or death of three indigenous women in Nova Scotia. Over the past three months, as her decision to tackle this difficult issue crystalized, she had received guidance from several Mi'kmaq women, all important spiritual and community leaders impacted by and concerned with the disproportionate violence that indigenous women and girls continue to experience in Nova Scotia and in Canada. (Halifax Media Co-op) Before being able to complete her thesis, Saunders' car was stolen and she was reported to be missing. A few weeks later, Saunders' body was found by the side of the Trans-Canada highway in New Brunswick (Halifax Media Co-op). The cruel irony of this tragic situation brought to light just how serious a problem violence against Aboriginal1 women in Canada remains today, even after the notable history of colonialism and genocide with regards to the nation's Aboriginal population. At the same time, Saunders' case reveals just how pressing an issue it is for the 1 Note: I use the term "Aboriginal" throughout instead of Indigenous, First Nation, Inuit or Native American for the sake of simplicity, but in a mindful way, being aware that various identities within the Aboriginal population are actually identified according to tribe. I do actually state the tribe or nation title, being the more accurate identity label to use, whenever such information is available. The same applies for my usage of the term "Indian American".
3 nation at large to understand and deal with the issue of violence against Indigenous women as well as their staggering rates of incarceration. As Leroux writes, Remarkably, the last annual report of the Correctional Investigator of Canada demonstrates that the rate of incarceration of indigenous women over the past decade has increased by 109%. As I demonstrate below, during the same decade that there is a notable spike in the number of missing and/or murdered indigenous women, the incarceration of indigenous women in federal institutions more than doubles. (Halifax Media Co-op) Furthermore, the same kinds of problems affect Indian American women in the United States, as I shall elaborate on below, which suggests indigenous females in particular are of greater vulnerability to victimization across North America. It is my hope that in doing an intersectional analysis of the gender-based oppression of Aboriginal women and American Indian women