Cherry Smiley is a feminist from the Nlaka'pamux and Diné Nations, a former front-line anti-violence worker, and a PhD in Communication Studies from Concordia University in Montreal, where her research focuses on ending prostitution and all forms of male violence against women and girls. She is co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry and a recipient of the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case, awarded for her work in the interest of women's equality.
Not Sacred, Not Squaws: Indigenous Feminism Redefined
Decolonizing feminism always prioritizes the collective liberation of Indigenous and other women and names patriarchy as the central component of women’s oppression. In Not Sacred, Not Squaws, Cherry Smiley analyses colonization and proposes a decolonized feminism enlivened by Indigenous feminist theory.
Building on the work of grassroots radical feminist theorists, Cherry Smiley outlines a female-centered theory of colonization and describes the historical and contemporary landscape in which male violence against Indigenous women in Canada and New Zealand is the norm. She calls out ‘sex work’ as a patriarchal colonizing practice and a form of male violence against women.
Questioning her own uncritical acceptance of the historical social and political status of Indigenous women in Canada – which she now recognizes as male-centered Indigenous theorizing – she examines the roles of culture and tradition in the oppression of Indigenous women and constructs an alternative decolonizing feminist methodology.
This book is a refreshing feminist contemporary challenge to the patriarchal ideology that governs our world and a vigorous and irreverent defense against the attempts to silence Indigenous radical feminists.
Biography
Cherry Smiley was born in Kamloops, British Columbia. Her mother's family is Nlaka'pamux and her father's is Diné. Her research is grounded in the material realities of women's lives, in the work and goals of the women's liberation movement, and in her experiences as a front-line anti-violence worker in a rape crisis centre and transition house for battered women and their children.
She received a Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons Case in 2013 and SFU's Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy in 2014, and was awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholarship in 2016. She is the founder of Women's Studies Online and co-founder of Indigenous Women Against the Sex Industry.
