Elisa Mariño
3 min readSep 5, 2022

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Some indigenous women are uncomfortable with some practices on their cultures in the same way that western women are uncomfortable with some practice in western culture. That is because cultures aren uniform. Many indigenous women aren't happy with child marriage or being properties because that is not something that people enjoy. If you listen to them, many of the ones who speak louder against child marriage or such practices are in fact women who experience it themselves. You said "listen to them". Well, some people have and what those women have to say is "I didn't wanted to be a childwife. I wasn't happy. I was forced". Then you have girls like Malala, who wanted to study. She wanted that.

Assuming that "equality" is exclusively a "western value" is a false premise. People have a sense of justice and know what they like and what they don't. What makes them happy and what they don't. Assuming that girls enjoy marrying old men is simply absurd. Not because of western values, but because girls have been running away from such marriages since forever. To the point of men having to enforce it with harsh punishments like "honor killings". So no, it is not a "western value", is is girls and women in those cultures saying "this is wrong", which means that in that culture, the value that says "forced child marriage is Ok" is not shared by everyone there in the same way that in west there is no agreement on abortion.

I think it is you who doesn't have any knowledge os those cultures not have you listened to the girls and women. By the way, I'm not american, never have been, so my point of view can never be american.

Again, indigenous women talk for themselves. Listen to them, you might find out that many doesn't like the forced marriages, the child marriages or being considered "lesser". And that has nothing to do with western feminist, it has to do with their own (negative) experiences on those things.

Go ahead, listen to "un violador en tu camino". That is women saying that they are tired of experience violence. On their own language. Or listen to Malala asking for girls education. Or you can listen to the women who fight genital mutilation. Or the ones who experienced child marriage and fight against it. There are plenty of examples of women trying to change their cultures to remove the abuse against girls and women and they are as much part of their own cultures as the men who try to legitimize such abuse as "traditions".

To put an example in my country: bullfighting is traditional and is considered part of "our culture". As it happens, the majority of the population is against it. Not because others tell us, but because we don't like animal cruelty. Society and culture evolve.

Romans used to like gladiator combats and sometimes those combats ended in deaths. Romans were the origin of western culture, that is no longer considered acceptable. Same with slavery, which is no longer acceptable.

Well, the exact same happens with indigenous cultures. There is a part of the population who doesn't consider child marriage or women being treated as inferior as right and they are fighting to stop it.

Considering that only western women can have equality as a value is very self-centered or american centric. But anyone familiariced with other cultures would tell you that it is not rare that some values appear in all cultures.

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Elisa Mariño
Elisa Mariño

Written by Elisa Mariño

Fiction is the art to tell lies to show truths. Politics is the art to use truths to tell lies.

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