Olivia Coustance -
If we think about the state of women’s rights around the world in the middle ages spanning through the early modern era, we can easily say women were subjugated to men. There is, however, one exception to this generality : the Pacific islands. It would be wrong to transpose our patriarchal reasoning upon this region of the world, as many of its civilisations had strikingly modern cultural practices and outlooks on women’s rights and gender identity — all of which succumbed at the dawn of western colonialism.
In the Pacific, instead, labour was distributed according to Whakapapa, a Māori term for ancestral descent (aha, one new random word in your wide range of vocabulary). Precolonial Hawaii had female monarchs as early as the 1300s, as well as illustrious, eminent female goddesses. Even more modern aspect of this society, both women and men could be enlisted in the army. However, this mana wahine (female power) was erased at the start of US colonisation, as the western institution of the heterosexual couple, nuclear family, domestic division of labour was imported.
Samoa traditionally recognises four genders : female, male, fa’afafine, and fa’afatama, the two latter being fluid categories moving between female and male. The same gender neutrality is embraced in the Māori language : while personal pronouns are gendered in most languages, the personal pronoun in Māori is ‘ia’ for both men and women, thus not establishing a binary division between the two sexes through language.
There is today a growing will to revive these pre-colonial beliefs : in 2013, Samoa amended its constitution to reserve 10% of parliament’s seats for women. In New Zealand, women are strongly attached to the feminist cause, namely linked to the collective struggle led by women for female suffrage, exactly 130 years ago in 2023.
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