When I sought to be a Native community organizer, I first sought the help of women. I was seeking to create educational programs to benefit Native youth, regardless of their government status. I actually asked one man, who declined, and I ended up with two female partners. After several months of planning, the three of us invited two other people to join, both female. Though I was the lone male, I was essentially the leader and visionary of the project.
This arrangement seemed quite natural. I had not really thought about it, but much of the support in non-Indian community work is carried out by women. Female volunteers stuff envelopes for political campaigns. Women's auxillaries support mostly-male fire departments. I knew this from growing up in small-town America. Comparing the two sexes, when the going gets tough and one partner runs off, its usually the woman who stays behind to make sure the kids are fed.
Of course, there are exceptions to this. I know men who stayed with the children when the mother abandoned them. But by and large, absent fathers are more of a problem than absent mothers.
It seems though, that women will work with whatever they have, and make the best of it. If the man provides only $20 per week, then the woman works with that. If he provides a stock portfolio, then she'll work with that. Woman will be the foundation, and she'll build a shack or a mansion, depending on what he gives her to work with, or what she builds herself.
I had a vision but my female partners were instrumental, in many nuts-and-bolts ways, of building the project. Among most North American Natives, women were the foundation of the People. The clans traced back to the female ancestor. Women held and supervised food production through management of the farmland. Elder women elected the male leaders who went off to make peace or war, or to seek visions for the future building of the community.
If men are absent due to war or imprisonment, then women make do in the day-to-day. But think of how much more women and men will do together if men seek visions and consult women about how to conceive and give birth to that future.
Men, ask yourself this question: how much are you giving your womenfolk to work with?
