Chapter 3: Leadership Thread Three: Indigenous

Most Americans receive their ideas of different populations through media images. Native American women are invisible in US culture and consciousness; the loss of presence and women’s wisdom has created economic, health, and non-tribal leadership issues for Indigenous women. In this chapter, two elder Native women will utilize historical research, critical analysis, and experiential perspectives to examine indigenous ways of wisdom.

Using historical research and critical analysis of modern news stories, the chapter analyzes records of Native American images and how this imagery impacts ideas about Indigenous women. This leadership thread also looks at the effects of economic and health issues on Native American women and briefly examines how this influences the image Indigenous women have of themselves.

The rights of Native Women and acknowledgement of their wisdom have been lost through colonialization; this invisible status prevents Eurocentric and Anglo cultures from seeing some of the remarkable Native women in modern society, and how everyday Native women are contributing to not only their families and cultures, but to the whole universe as well.

The invisibility of Native women in non-tribal leadership literature is a loss to scholarship as well as to their sense of agency. Tribal people value women, treasure, and respect their importance in governance; in fact, women often run tribal governments. The authors posit that to leave women out of their rightful and needed places in governance and scholarship is to jeopardize the wellbeing of all society and marginalize contributions to women’s leadership.