It is undeniable that societies and cultures have structures and roles that are intended to apply to men and women. These gender roles and structures also seem to transcend into the literature of that society and time period respectively. There is a particularly stark contrast in the roles of women between cultures in specific stories. European-centric stories tend to have inverted roles of women in comparison to Native American stories. For example, Theseus, a tale of greek mythology, has strikingly contrastive roles of women when juxtaposed to a book such as Land of the Spotted Eagle that emphasizes women’s roles in Native American stories and culture. These examples, among others highlight differences and make note of similarities. The …show more content…
The novel Sifters as well as Land of the Spotted Eagle touch particularly on this topic. Native American stories more generally include dimensional female characters. It is also to be noted that creation stories also tend to revolve around women and their roles, with a recurring reference to grandmotherly roles. The reason for this being, as stated by Luther Standing Bear in Land of the Spotted Eagle, is simply that, “Grandmother… was the most important person in the home. Her place, in fact, could not be filled by no one else.” This reverence for elders, especially elder women, was a widely acknowledged and almost sacred value amongst Native Americans. It is of utmost importance in Native American societies and culture that women be respected. Land of the Spotted Eagle again mentions women’s roles in Native American society when the book states, “The woman of the household had no ‘lord and master’...” The novel Sifters emphasizes the same topic and makes it known that women in Native American societies dictated most everything. Women set up their own tipis for their families, in the location of their choosing. Women helped with hunting via preparing and controlling all the food that was brought to the tribe. If a woman and her husband split, the woman had full custody of their children, as well as all of their land and belongings. It is easy to see …show more content…
As societies differ, so do women’s roles and gender structures in general. The way that women are depicted in European or Greek literature is of stark difference to that of Native American literature. In fact, the two seem to be at complete odds with the other. European stories treat women with little value and respect as human beings. A woman’s worth, and even more disheartening, her survival, is attributed through a man or her marriage as seen in multiple stories. Native American culture in its entirety, literature among other aspects, is entirely opposed to this idea. Women play the utmost valuable role, relative to only their independence and not that of a man or marriage. In whole, the two cultures clash in every realm, including stories and literature, with little to no