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Antoine Mountain
Guest columnist
Monday, March 17, 2008
I would like to know where exactly it is written in stone that a man is in any way closer to God than a woman.
We of the male gender like to play these silly little power games whenever we can, or when we feel threatened by Mother Earth. Oh yes, we say that we respect the ladies, but is this really so? Do we practise our preachings?
For instance, in the Roman Catholic church, why is it that only a man can be a priest and only an unmarried one at that? What qualifies this single person to even counsel a married couple, for instance? What is his experience in this field? Is this so-called "divine right" really God-given, or man-made? And, too, why is it that a married woman once divorced is virtually shunned by her place of worship? Could it be that our basis for what we like to call faith is really gender bias?
Well, old habits are hard to change, too, friends, for I pretty well went along with a lot of this "spiritual" tradition until I really started to think about how unfair it is. My excuse, of course, like most everyone else, was that the ladies were somehow not qualified to, say, hit the drum or something that we men folk want to have for our own.
Well, over the years I have received a lot of the help I got on this Good Red Road (another myth, by the way) from the women folk, and so far with no real gratitude granted them by society in general.
The one that really gets me, though, is our "sacred" handgames. For some reason, ($), these cultural doings have now become very popular and a vital part of any Dene social gathering. We don't want to outright come out and say that we love to gamble for big bucks in any form we can, so we call it "traditional" handgames, and put up thousands of dollars in prizes, winner takes all.
All well and good, Dene ceremonies to celebrate in action, with all kinds of good lessons to be learned, but why exclude the ladies, who love to gamble too, by saying that the drums being used here, the same ones for the Drum Dance, by the way, are now too "holy" or powerful for them to hit?
Wherever I go, when money is involved in the event, it is called what it is. Gambling, right? So why the male-based hypocrisy? I think it is time to rethink some of the things we do to keep our women in their place. Within the realm of the spiritual this becomes as clear as day, too, friends.
We men like to take centre stage when it comes to getting closer to God, too, playing all of our "holier than thou" roles, but as creator who is more qualified than a woman? Can a man, any man, nurture the human seed and the spirit within for nine months and then bring this precious life into the world? Show me just one of the guys who can perform this one miracle and I will believe we have some right to perform God's work!
All it is, really, friends, is gender inequality, petty human power games loosely disguised as faith that we are talking about here. And there really is not much traditional in an out-dated status quo here. Please take another look at this before signing up for the next high-stakes handgames.
- Antoine Mountain is a Dene artist and writer originally from Radilih Koe'/Fort Good Hope. He can be reached at www.amountainarts.com