From the E-Hillerman site hosted by the University of Mexico on the Male Rain:
- In traditional Navajo belief, a thunderstorm with torrential rain is considered a male rain. A gentle, slow-moving rain, accompanied perhaps by low clouds and mist, is a female rain. In general, male rains are associated with the violent seasonal summer storms known as the monsoons, whereas female rains are associated with the stirring of the seasons when spring rains bring the high desert to life. This duality marks a general structural gendering in Navajo cosmology; whether it's Father Sky and Mother Earth or the male and female sides of a hogan, ultimately it's the equilibrium between the two forces, qualities, and characteristics that enable healthfulness, harmony, and beauty.
American doctors began sterilizing indigenous women in the 1930s, which then grew at a faster rate in the 1970s when Congress passed the Family Planning Services Act, which subsidized said sterilizations for Medicaid and Indian Health Service patients. The rationale for these procedures were centered around fears of global overpopulation, and an increase in welfare spending which would put undue strain on the U.S. Treasury and budget of the local community.