From the On The Issues Print Archive

Winter 1996

From Our Files:

This edition of On The Issues Magazine looks at the continuing challenge of achieving gender equality, including from social, political, legal, religious and cultural perspectives. Over the years of its print versions (1983-1999) and online editions (2008-present), On The Issues Magazine has tackled equality from various angles.

Here is a round-up of some articles from our archives.

Our featured archival story points to the irony of women's equality in North America. The U.S. Constitution never mentioned women at its inception and only 143 years after it was signed did women finally secure the right to vote. Today, Women's Equality Day on August 26 celebrates the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, granting women suffrage. But a fascinating 1996 article explains that American Indian women had rights far earlier.

Is Equality Indigenous? Iroquois Influence on Feminism by Sally Roesch Wagner, Winter 1996, said: "A common myth held that Christianity and civilization meant progress for women, but [Elizabeth Cady] Stanton and [Matilda Joslyn] Gage saw through it. At the 1888 International Council of Women they listened as Alice Fletcher, a noted white ethnographer, spoke about the greater rights of American Indian women. Fletcher made clear that these Indian women were well aware that when they became United States citizens, they would lose their rights. Fletcher quoted one who told her: As an Indian woman I was free. I owned my home, my person, the work of my own hands, and my children could never forget me. I was better as an Indian woman than under white law."

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