America’s Thanksgiving Day is sexist

But then why call it a national holiday? The nationalist and patriotic aspects of Thanksgiving became evident once the ‘national parades’ began. Starting from the famous New York parade, every capital and town has its own version of the spectacle celebrating the theme of unity in diversity. The average American, however, is not unanimous in his or her view of what they were expressing thanks for. Each had a personal version of the celebrations. At a general level, there was an awareness that the celebrations were about giving thanks for the courage of the White European ‘settlers’ who took over the territory of native American tribals in the 16th and 17th centuries, and for the patriotism of the later American revolutionaries.

But, quite apart from the fact that this could hardly be a cause to celebrate for a substantial population of the native American population, even within the non-‘native’ Hispanic, Latino, Mexican-American and even Anglo population of the American west coast there was unease on this version of patriotism. This was because the ‘white settlers’ of America occupied different native American territory at different points of time and seasons.

Thus November as thanksgiving month might be true for the east coast, which was the scene of the Anglo and also French expansion, but in the west coast states of Texas, California, and so on, ‘white settlers’ were the Spanish colonisers who arrived in April and that too years before the conquest of the east coast. Yet, it was also not only a question of timing. The Spanish colonisers of the west coast of what is today America came looking for gold and discovered the “new world†(Mexico) in the 16th century.

It’s another matter that this region of Mexico became part of the United States after several bloody battles in the 19th century. Given the waves of conquest that the west coast of America has gone through it is one of the ethnically most diverse part of the country. This makes it even more difficult here to have one rallying point for patriotism.

Given this multiplicity of memories of the historical past that an average American shares it becomes truly difficult to celebrate American patriotism across the country on one single day. Yet it is politically expedient to do so. It is for this reason that the American woman and the family became the rallying point for Thanksgiving Day festivity. If the centrality of ‘patriotic family meal’ on Thanksgiving Day gave America its patriotism, it gave to the American woman her ‘designated’ place in society: the kitchen.

It was Abraham Lincoln, in the 19th century, who declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday, characterised by the veneration of the American home and family. But in doing so he also underlined the very sexist origins of the American national holiday.

The writer is a visiting professor at the University of Texas