Native American Women and Inequality

When reading the The Ways of the World history book, I was very interested in Chapter one: The first Peoples Populating the Planet. Ever since I was in Elementary school I have always had a fascination with Native Americans. I consider Native American’s the true people, of this great land we live on. It bothers me when I hear people talking about Christopher Columbus discovering the United States. He didn’t discover it. It was already discovered by the Native Americans who were already living on this land before Columbus or any Spaniard set foot. The Native Americans I feel had a lot to teach and some very good points. Native Americans were very resourceful people who used only what was needed and was not wasteful of any leftover materials, and they worked together as a clan, where female and male jobs were equally important. I know that in Chapter three it says, with improvements to how crops were tended to that the jobs of women (the gatherers), were given to men, since men had to attach animals to carts it was a job that called for more strength than a woman can bear. What great news though, woman still get to take care of the children, cook and clean. I see that same pattern now a days. The only exception is that most woman now work, on top of doing all of the “normal” womanly duties. You would think though that woman would be treated equally again, but statistics show that even now men are viewed higher than women. I feel that if it were not for outside influences to daily life, than Native American woman would have always and probably still would have been seen equal to the opposite sex.