Women Empowering Women
Though they have recently been gaining traction due to highly publicized events, international movements which stand in solidarity with Palestinian freedom and resistance are anything but new. Though modern political discourse attempts to frame this issue as too complex for the average person to understand or comment upon, it really isn’t.
Emily Pauline Johnson, more well known as Pauline Johnson or Tekahionwake, was a famous Indigenous performer and writer in Canadian history. Over the course of Pauline’s literary career she wrote several short stories, poems and essays that contributed greatly to the literary narrative of Canada.
There’s a belief amongst some North American Indigenous cultures that water is a living spirit with sentience and consciousness. And that she is feminine in nature. Because of this, water and women have special bonds with each other and women have special responsibilities in regards to water.
Our country’s history is one of violence, both in terms of the land and the culture that was, and continues to be, stolen from Indigenous peoples. It is clear that decolonization is the responsibility of all of us. This is a process which requires continual work and a conscious unlearning of the narratives we have been fed.