GS.9: Deep Dive – Gender Discrimination in the Indian Act

Approximate reading time: 1 minute

Lynn Gehl and other scholars have underscored the profound impact of the Indian Act on Indigenous women, establishing “Indianness” through male lineage and contradicting Indigenous kinship systems (Gehl, 2016, p. 64). Even after revisions to the Act in 1985 to bring it into alignment with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, certain unfair elements lingered (Gehl, 2016, p. 67). For example, children of unstated paternity (the biological fathers were not named) were unfairly presumed to have non-status fathers, preventing Indigenous women from transmitting their Indigenous status to their children. Specifically, if the fathers were known to have Indigenous status the children automatically received Indigenous status. If the mothers had Indigenous status but the fathers status was unknown, the children did not receive Indigenous status. Despite acknowledging the harm inflicted by the Indian Residential School system and the Sixties Scoop, Canada has yet to fully recognise the detrimental effects of such policies on Indigenous women and communities over the past 150 years (Lawrence, 2004).