A Necessary Balance
Subtitle:  Gender and Power Among Indians of the Columbia Plateau
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Published: February 2003
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 282
ISBN-13: 9780806134857
Subjects: Indigenous peoples; Indians of North America; Gender Studies; Women's Studies - General; History: World; Washington state; Native American; Colville women; Columbia Plateau; Colville Indians; History; Social life and customs
First sentence: This study describes the roles of women and men in a group of societies that practices gender equality with equal access to power, authority, and autonomy.
Description: "In the past, many Native American cultures have treated women and men as equals. In A Necessary Balance, Lillian A. Ackerman examines the balance of power and responsibility between men and women within each of the eleven Plateau Indian tribes who live today on the Colville Indian Reservation in north-central Washington State.".

"Ackerman analyzes tribal cultures over three historical periods lasting more than a century - the traditional past, the farming phase when Indians were forced onto the reservation, and the twentieth-century industrial present. Ackerman examines gender equality in terms of power, authority, and autonomy in four social spheres: economic, domestic, political, and religious."--BOOK JACKET.