Lakota Woman Themes

Mary Crow Dog uses her own experiences growing up as an Indian woman to beautifully explain the roles woman played, and how Indians tried to maintain tradition against assimilation. Mary Crow Dogs Lakota Woman is an autobiography of her life explaining how she, as a mixed Sioux Indian woman, grew up facing the harshness of boarding schools, absentee fathers, the second Wounded Knee, and the assimilation of Indians. Her autobiography is centered around the 1960s and 1970s, where she talks about reservation life, following the American Indian Movement, and the struggles that Sioux women had during that time frame. As an Indian woman, Mary Crow Dog explained the certain roles they were expected to maintain, and the roles they actually maintained.
Being a Native American, women were expected to care for families, husbands, tribal guest. They fed others before they fed themselves. Cleaned up after others because that’s what was expected of them. They were expected to stay home and care for children and cook for their husbands while the men went out hunting. That was how Indians lived before Americanization, and it’s how some of them still lived according to Mary Crow Dog. “So the women are continuously busy cooking and taking care of guest… I spent a good many years feeding people and cleaning up after them.” (Pg. 174) Mary Crow Dog writes a lot about the ways women were supposed to fill this role that they belonged at home, caring for children and cooking for their men and other house guest. But she also explains that a woman’s role isn’t as always as it seems, and with the American Indian Movement, women took on a whole new role.
During the American Indian Movement, Indian woman became equal with the men. They weren’t just seen...

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...nning the Indians never wanted to be under Americans control but they were forced into in. But black people wanted to be under the control of the Americans, but instead they were still fighting for equality up until the 1960’s. The Americans tried so hard to assimilate the Indians, when all the Indians ever wanted was to be left alone.
Mary Crow Dogs experiences she shared in her autobiography explain the two opposite roles Indian women played during this time. She also shared that Indians wanted old traditions back, but ultimately some old traditions could not be restored. Finally she also explained how the Americans partially succeeded in assimilating the Indians although they didn’t want to. Because of the Americans attempt to assimilate the Indians, gender roles and some traditions had changed which affected the Indian lifestyles that AIM tried to get back.