"I've run into more discrimination as a woman than as an Indian"

Wilma Mankiller’s observation draws attention to the layered nature of identity and how different forms of bias can manifest unevenly. As a Cherokee woman and a pioneering leader, she occupied intersecting identities, yet the resistance she encountered often coalesced around gender. That contrast suggests not a ranking of oppressions, but a map of where barriers were most entrenched in the spaces she moved through: tribal governance, federal agencies, media, and civic institutions where sexism was normalized, underestimated, or coded as tradition.

For many Indigenous people, racial identity can be highly visible in certain settings and nearly invisible in others. Mankiller’s public roles often centered her as a political leader first and an Indigenous leader second, shifting how prejudice surfaced. Racism can be overt and externally legible; sexism is frequently cloaked in expectations about temperament, leadership style, and “fit.” She confronted doubts about authority, challenges to her competence, and scrutiny of her demeanor, classic gendered hurdles that are easy to rationalize and hard to call out.

Her experience also highlights the complicated imprint of colonialism. While many Indigenous societies historically included matrilineal structures and women’s influence, colonial governance and missionary systems imposed patriarchal norms that calcified over time. As she worked to rebuild Cherokee institutions and services, she faced friction not only from non-Native power brokers but also from community members shaped by these imposed gender hierarchies. That dual front helps explain why sexism could feel more pervasive: it crossed cultural boundaries and embedded itself both inside and outside her community.

The remark ultimately broadens the conversation about equity. Advocacy that centers only one axis, race without gender, or gender without race, misses how power actually operates. Mankiller’s leadership shows that building just institutions requires confronting the biases closest to home as well as those in the wider world, elevating women’s authority, and trusting Indigenous women to define and lead their communities’ futures.