Some of the root causes of violence against aboriginal women are learned behaviours that find themselves rooted in colonization, assimilation, cultural genocide, residential schools, and children's aid services. Colonization and assimilation changed the roles of women within the community. Women were held in high esteem, but the imposition of the Indian Act only recognized the male as the head of the household and in a leadership position within a community. Government policies have been discriminatory against aboriginal women, and we have seen this with the ruling of Bill C-31, where women and their children have had to have their status as aboriginal people reinstated.
The loss of culture or breakdown to the extended family structure resulted in a lack of parenting skills in most aboriginal communities. A good example of this is the generations of people who attended residential schools. They were placed in a situation where they no longer learned the roles of women, men, or grandparents. When they left the schools to return to their home communities, they did not know how to parent, and this created many dysfunctions within the family structure.