About Mary Two-Axe Earley
Mary Two-Axe Earley (born Mary Two-Axe; October 4, 1911 – August 21, 1996) was a Canadian Mohawk and Oneida women's rights activist from the reserve of Kahnawake in Quebec. After losing her legal Indian status due to marrying a non-status man, Two-Axe Earley advocated for changes to the Indian Act, which had promoted gender discrimination and stripped First Nations women of the right to participate in the political and cultural life of their home reserves. In 1967, Two-Axe Earley helped establish the Equal Rights for Indian Women organization and led the submission of a brief to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. In 1974, she co-founded the Québec Native Women's Association, and the following year she received national and international attention at the International Women's Year conference in Mexico when she publicly fought back against her band council's attempts to formally evict her from Kahnawake. On June 28, 1985, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-31 to amend the Indian Act, eliminating the Act's original gender discrimination and creating a new process of reinstatement for affected First Nations women to have their Indian status restored. Two-Axe Earley became the first woman to have her status restored, and thousands of other First Nations women and their descendants were granted the same opportunity to regain their lost legal and cultural identity under Canadian law. The NFB released the film on her fight for equality, Mary Two-Axe Earley: I Am Indian Again, in 2021. Two-Axe Earley was faced with heavy opposition from male First Nations leaders during her work. In 1967, she founded the provincial Equal Rights for Indian Women Association (later Indian Rights for Indian Women), which grew to become a national organization.
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