The Health And Well-Being Of Native American Women In The United States And Canada Today
To exist as a Native American or Indigenous Person in The United States today comes with many struggles. Some struggles that are felt more acutely by some in the Native Communities than others. More often than not it is Indigenous women who are the ones who face the most struggle in comparison to the opposite sex of their same ethnicity. The health and well-being of Native American Women in the United States today can be characterized as worrisome at the bare minimum, but there are far better and more accurate adjectives to describe the ever awful conditions in which the American Indian women manage to survive.
Historically, Native peoples in the United States have been treated poorly, forced off of their traditional homelands, and their populations have been nearly obliterated. However long ago this may have been, there are lasting effects from this disenfranchisement that still plague communities, especially women. While yes, alcoholism and drug abuse are the most notorious and recognized vices that rampage on Native American Reservations in the United States, other issues exist that are less commonly thought of. One of these issues being the rate of Native American and grandmothers who become the primary caretaker of their grandchildren when their own children are unable or unwilling to fill the role of parent. According to research done in the United States in 2000, of the 53,000 Native American grandparent caregivers over one half lived in “Skipped-Generation” households, or, “ households in which neither the grandchild’s parents nor others of the grandparent’s children were coresident” (Fuller-Thomson & Minker, 2005). About half of these grandparents raised their grandchildren for at least 5 years. This study also showed that, according to the 2000 Census Supplementary Survey, when compared to their Native American/American Indian peers the vast majority of the caretaking grandparents were disproportionately grandmothers. These grandmothers were also disproportionately more likely to be living below the poverty line with a functional disability or in ill health and in overcrowded conditions. This trend of grandmothers who double as caregivers can be attributed to other problems such as lack of access to governmental services intended to help with disability and child care struggles that they are eligible for.
Another problem facing Native American women is sexual and domestic violence. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, American Indians had the highest reported experiences of violence from intimate partners rate of 18. 2%. This percentage is high even when compared to the second highest rate, 8. 2%, among African American women. The National Institute of Justice also found from one regional research study involving women from six tribes that “45% had reported being physically assaulted and 14% had been raped since turning 18 years old” (Crossland, Palmer & Brooks, 2013). Another regional study involving nearly 600 members of a southwestern tribal community found that “91% of women reported experiencing some form of [intimate partner violence]” (Crossland, Palmer & Brooks, 2013). There was also found to be both physical and verbal violence during relationships, “that were experienced by approximately 75% of women, and 16% reported forced sex by a partner” (Crossland, Palmer & Brooks, 2013). Of the women who participated, nearly half reportedly needed to seek medical care from injuries that resulted from partner violence and over one third of the women also reported children being involved in occurrences of this violence as well. While yes, there is supposedly action being taken by the National Institute of Justice and governmental agencies to combat this horrifying trend, it is still occurring far too often for a few well intentioned programs to fix.
Mental health is also a very large point of concern in Native American Communities. According to the Journal of Lesbian Studies, the rate of American Indian adults who have experienced psychological trauma in the past month was twice that of White Americans. This is also consistent with the higher rates of depressive episodes in the past year among Native Americans in the past year as well as the high suicide rates that are prevalent on Indian Reservations. They also found, “two-spirit women’s risk for suicide [is] significantly higher compared to their White counterparts and higher rates of psychological distress among two-spirit women compared to other AIANs” ( Elm, 2016). There is a concerning amount of mental health issues in Native American Communities and obviously there is not enough effort to help those who need it in these communities.
Of the many issues that face the Indigenous communities of The United States these are some of the most pressing. Although it is truly great to be a part of the culture and community there are always downfalls or bad sides to them. In this case they are mental health problems, absent parents, sexual and domestic violence, etc. which are much more serious and detrimental to the communities than other ethnicities may encounter with their downfalls. This does not take away from the identity of Indigenous/Native American/American Indian, but it does present goals to strive for and problems to solve in order to make a people who can thrive and escape the vicious cycle that they are caught in.
