Women's Council
Historically, women appear to have had higher status in Cree societies than that accorded by contemporaneous European and some other aboriginal civilizations. "Cree women enjoyed a degree of autonomy that confounded European men who married Aboriginal women." "Crees viewed with contempt what they conceived as harsh treatment of women by Chipewyan males." In the Pimicikamak world view, women are symbolically associated with water, life, the direction west, and the color red. The Women's Council is viewed by some as first in precedence of the Pimicikamak councils. The reason given is that all members of the Councils received the gift of life from women, beginning the circle of life. Consistent with their historical status, the Women's Council has key roles in Pimicikamak government including control of elections and a veto over written laws.
Read more about this topic: Pimicikamak
Famous quotes containing the words women and/or council:
“In our minds lives the madonna image—the all-embracing, all- giving tranquil mother of a Raphael painting, one child at her breast, another at her feet; a woman fulfilled, one who asks nothing more than to nurture and nourish. This creature of fantasy, this myth, is the model—the unattainable ideal against which women measure, not only their performance, but their feelings about being mothers.”
—Lillian Breslow Rubin (20th century)
“I haven’t seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were asked this week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company’s behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)