Monday, September 29, 2008

Conquest Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide.

This is a very powerful piece that illustrates how the settlers in colonial times used sexual degradation paired up with its brother racism to break down existing cultures. The white man used racist advertising since 1885. For example Proctor and Gamble Company used the image of the Native American to promote their new Ivory soap. They basically said if this soap can clean a dirty, greasy Indians than it could clean anything. This type of advertising has been used up to present day. Media still uses advertising to give their view of what is an Indian, what is a Mexican and it all falls in a great huge stereotype funnel and usually Indians are not how they are portrayed in the Media, Mexicans are not that way either. For example the popular image of a Mexican sleeping under a tree or a cactus. This portrays the Mexican as a lazy individual, and that is not the case. The incoming white man used sex to take away honor from the Indians and break down their homes. A woman is one who holds down the home and makes sure that everything goes smoothly in the home. Once the leader of a home is broken than everything falls apart and society starts collapsing. For example once a wife of an Indian man is abused by a white man, the Indian will no longer want her because he will always have that doubt. Did she give in at the end? Did she enjoy it? That home will never be the same and the kids will be on their own it will become a broken home. The white man did not see that they were violating the Indians instead they thought how we can violate someone that is not human. They were seen as exotic and sexual symbols because they always walked around with little or no clothes.

2 comments:

El Michoacano said...

I agree with Javier because Mexicans are very hard workers that do the work that others don't want to do.

Native Women in Traditional & Contemporary Societies~~Critical Readings & Perspectives said...

Hi Javier!

Fantastic blogging !

Consider the role that blogging, journaling, preparing for papers/assignments all can provide you as tools for achieving new goals in your learning and research capacity.

I am truly impressed with the amount of work you accomplished in short spurts of time, and getting to the meat and bones of the core issues: poverty, violence, structural oppression, resistance organizing, and how families/workers/elders/male community partners are all CRITICAL issues that intersect Indigenous Women's lives--

Margo Tamez

p.s.: can you load up a recent photo of yourself so my colleagues can also appreciate your great work?