"I've run into more discrimination as a woman than as an Indian"
About this Quote
The line lands like a quiet indictment: the discrimination Mankiller faced for being a woman didn’t just rival racism, it often eclipsed it in her day-to-day reality. Coming from the first female Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, the statement refuses the neat hierarchies outsiders like to impose on oppression. It suggests that identity isn’t a simple stack of burdens; it’s situational, political, and shaped by who holds power in a given room.
The intent is sharpened by its audience. For non-Native listeners, it disrupts a comfortable script that treats Indigenous identity as the singular, defining site of struggle. For Native communities and institutions, it presses on an internal truth: sovereignty and tradition don’t automatically translate into gender equity. Mankiller is pointing at patriarchy as a system that travels easily across cultures, embedding itself in governments, workplaces, and social expectations, including those that are themselves marginalized.
There’s subtext, too, in the comparative framing. She’s not denying anti-Indigenous discrimination; she’s naming the specific kind of disbelief and resistance a woman encounters when she seeks authority. Being “an Indian” can invite prejudice from the outside; being a woman can trigger gatekeeping from both outside and inside, especially in leadership, where competence is policed and ambition is pathologized.
Context matters: Mankiller rose during late-20th-century fights over tribal self-determination, federal neglect, and cultural survival. Her quote is a reminder that liberation movements can replicate the very exclusions they oppose, unless someone inside them is willing to say it plainly.
The intent is sharpened by its audience. For non-Native listeners, it disrupts a comfortable script that treats Indigenous identity as the singular, defining site of struggle. For Native communities and institutions, it presses on an internal truth: sovereignty and tradition don’t automatically translate into gender equity. Mankiller is pointing at patriarchy as a system that travels easily across cultures, embedding itself in governments, workplaces, and social expectations, including those that are themselves marginalized.
There’s subtext, too, in the comparative framing. She’s not denying anti-Indigenous discrimination; she’s naming the specific kind of disbelief and resistance a woman encounters when she seeks authority. Being “an Indian” can invite prejudice from the outside; being a woman can trigger gatekeeping from both outside and inside, especially in leadership, where competence is policed and ambition is pathologized.
Context matters: Mankiller rose during late-20th-century fights over tribal self-determination, federal neglect, and cultural survival. Her quote is a reminder that liberation movements can replicate the very exclusions they oppose, unless someone inside them is willing to say it plainly.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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