Despite decades of struggle for gender equality our country, women are still faced with many hurdles; the gender pay gap, female poverty rates consistently and staggeringly higher than male, and violent crimes against women encouraged by media and even video games. When faced with these problems U.S. scholars still hold up our culture as on the model of women's rights. When Scholars argued that women in Dakota society occupied subordinate roles, they were doing so from an ethnocentric and uninformed place. This essay will explore the idea of subordination based on Dakota life as described in Waterlily. Before understanding the dynamics of gender roles in Dakota society one must step back and observe the tiyospaye. A tiyospaye is a group of families with in a larger regional community of Dakota people. Each member of the tiyospaye is connected through marriage or blood. Each relationship within this smaller kinship unit is governed by strict rules, providing significance, interdependence, and structure. If a person is raised well, they will understand how to relate to each member; they will know where they fit in this dynamic constellation. Gender roles also play a role in this understanding of a person's place within their tiyospaye. Women will be sisters, aunts, mothers, and grandmothers; roles with extreme value and responsibility. These positions are complemented by the roles of brothers, uncles fathers and grandfathers equally important, but different. The role of sisters and brothers offers insight into how gender roles are shaped as children. Girls are taught not to yell at their brothers or to speak to them in a disrespectful way. Similarly boys are never to hurt their sisters or female cousins; always making their comfort and happiness a priority. A deep sense of family responsibility and interdependence is learned young by both genders. Biological differences in men and women offered a dividing line for important duties.