Feminist archaeology employs a feminist perspective in interpreting past societies. It often focuses on gender, but also considers gender in tandem with other factors, such as sexuality, race, or class. Feminist archaeology has critiqued the uncritical application of modern, Western norms and values to past societies. It is additionally concerned with increasing the representation of women in the discipline of archaeology, and reducing androcentric bias within the field.
Feminist archaeology has expanded in recent years to include intersectional analyses, such as Black Feminist archaeology, Indigenous archaeology, and post-colonial archaeology. It also began to pay more attention to household studies, the study of masculinity, and the study of sexuality.
Emergence of feminist archaeology Feminist archaeology initially emerged in the late 1970s and early 80s, along with other objections to the epistemology espoused by the processual school of archaeological thought, such as symbolic and hermeneutic archaeologies. Margaret Conkey and Janet Spector's 1984 paper Archaeology and the Study of Gender summed up the feminist critique of the discipline at that time: that archaeologists were unproblematically overlaying modern-day, Western gender norms onto past societies, for example in the sexual division of labor; that contexts and artifacts attributed to the activities of men, such as projectile point production and butchering at kill sites, were prioritized in research time and funding; and that the very character of the discipline was constructed around masculine values and norms. For example, women were generally encouraged to pursue laboratory studies instead of fieldwork (although there were exceptions throughout the history of the discipline) and the image of the archaeologist was centered on the rugged, masculine, “cowboy of science”. In 1991, two publications marked the emergence of feminist archaeology on a large scale: the edited volume Engendering Archaeology, which focused on women in prehistory, and a thematic issue of the journal Historical Archaeology,(1991 Vol. 25, No. 4) which focused on women and gender in post-Columbian America. Outside the Americas, feminist archaeology enjoyed an earlier emergence and greater support among the greater archaeological community.
Early feminist studies Notable challenges raised by early feminist archaeologists have concerned hunting and stone tool-making, among many other topics. The Man the Hunter paradigm in anthropology, named after a symposium given in the 1960s by some of the most prominent names in archaeology, bifurcated the hominid sexual division of labor along male and female sexes. Males were in charge of hunting, and presumably through this activity developed important evolutionary traits, such as increased brain size. Meanwhile, females stayed at home and raised the young. An assumption behind this model is that women were constrained from certain activities due to decreased mobility resulting from pregnancy and their role in raising young children. This model has been critiqued by feminist anthropologists, as underplaying the evolutionary importance of women in favor of portraying them strictly as passive objects of reproduction and nothing more. Adrienne Zihlman, tracing the evolutionary achievements ascribed to males as hunters, pointed out that female gathering activities could just as easily account for such adaptations.
Joan Gero challenged androcentric explanations of tool-making on several levels. First, the common assumption that tool-making was almost exclusively associated with men was almost certainly false; at the least, women were far more likely to produce their own tools as needed in domestic contexts rather than wait for a man to come along and do it for them. The argument behind this assumption, that men possess greater upper-body strength, was dismissed by Gero, who pointed out physical strength is not an imperative quality in someone skilled at making stone tools. Additionally, Gero pointed out the great emphasis in research time and money towards studies concerned with the most “masculine” of stone tools, such as projectile points, while stone tools likely made and used by women, for example utilized flakes, have been relatively ignored.
Feminist and gender archaeologies Since the early feminist critiques of archaeology, gender has gained enormous popularity within the discipline. The label “feminist” has not been embraced by most archaeologists, however. A split between gender and feminist archaeologies formed during the 1990s.Wylie 2007 Gender archaeology has become a wide umbrella, including, but not limited to, feminist work that employs queer theory,Caesalla 2000. Bulldaggers and Gentle Ladies: Archaeological Approaches to Female Homosexuality in Convict-Era Australia. Archaeologies of Sexuality ed. Robert Schmidt and Barbara Voss 160–178; Voss 2000. "Colonial Sex: Archaeology, Structured Space, and Sexuality in Alta California's Spanish-Colonial Missions". See Schmidt and Voss volume 35-61 practice theory,DeCunzo 1995. Reform, respite, ritual: An archaeology of institutions; The Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, 1800–1850. In Historical Archaeology Vol. 9, No. 23; Wilkie 2000. Magical passions: Sexuality and African-American archaeology. See Schmidt and Voss volume 129-142 and performance theory,Meskell and Joyce 2003. Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Maya and Egyptian Experience among others. Many archaeologists engaged in gender research avoid the label of “feminist,” largely due to the perceived negative connotations of the word.Conkey 2003. Has Feminism Changed Archaeology? In Signs Vol. 28, No. 3 Others within the discipline have an oversimplified understanding of feminist archaeology's history and aims, and as a consequence mistakenly conflate it with postmodernism.Geller 2009. Identity and Difference: Complicating Gender in Archaeology. In Annual Review of Archaeology Vol. 38 Some archaeologists have argued against the continued incorporation of feminist thought, which is inherently political, into archaeological studies of gender.Sorenson 2000. Gender Archaeology Few works in gender archaeology have actively engaged in challenging patriarchal power structures beyond rectifying androcentric histories. Feminist archaeology engages in challenging and changing interpretive frameworks employed by archaeologists: “Feminism is a politics aimed at changing gender-based power relations.”Little 1994:10. "People with history: An update on historical archaeology in the United States". Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Vol. 1 No. 1 Noted feminist philosopher Alison Wylie delineates several guidelines imperative for conducting feminist archaeology:2007. "Doing Archaeology as a Feminist". Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Vol. 14
To propose research questions that address people oppressed by systems of inequality structured by gender, in order to change such conditions. Feminist research should be grounded in the situated experience of women and other groups marginalized by conventional gender structures. Researchers should be held accountable to those affected by their research; under no means should feminist research exploit others. Feminist researchers should engage in self-reflexivity, recognizing their personal social positions, interests, and values, and discussing how these interact with their research.
In contrast, gender archaeology not employed by feminists lacks such characteristics. Gender is currently a common topic of study in archaeology among non-feminists. Such studies focus on identifying gendered activities and material culture and on the gender roles of past peoples, but do not present themselves in an overtly political way. Non-feminist archaeologists are less compelled to position themselves within their work, or reflect on how their position affects their work. Investigating gender independent of feminism, however, elides the aims of early studies and represents gender and sex in a conceptually deficient manner.
Ongoing feminist contributions to archaeology Feminist archaeologists continue to challenge archaeological norms and expand research into new intellectual territories. They argue for the incorporation of alternative forms of knowledge and representation; for example, black and Indigenous epistemologies have been employed by feminist archaeologists.Franklin 2001. A Black feminist-inspired archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology Vol. 1, No. 1; Wilkie 2005. Inessential archaeologies: problems of exclusion in Americanist archaeological thought. World Archaeology Vol. 37, No. 3; Conkey 2005. Dwelling at the margins, action at the intersection? Feminist and indigenous archaeologies. Archaeologies Vol. 1 No. 1; Voss 2008. The archaeology of ethnogenesis: race and sexuality in colonial San Francisco There continues to be a feminist critique of the masculine character and organization of archaeology.Moser 2007. On Disciplinary Culture: Archaeology as Fieldwork and Its Gendered Associations. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Vol. 14, No. 3
Alternative forms of knowledge and presentation One important realm of research for feminist archaeologists, along with some non-feminists, is de-centering Westernized forms of history in favor of privileging alternative conceptions and interpretations of the past, and exploring non-traditional ways of conveying knowledge. A growing body of work involves involvement with descendant communities, giving them a voice in archaeological investigations and interpretations of the past. The public demand for allowing descendant communities a voice in the African Burial Ground controversy highlighted the importance of this kind of work. Parallels have been drawn between feminist archaeology and Indigenous archaeology, focusing on how both work to break down the male, white, middle-class, Western monopoly to accessing knowledge about the past.Conkey 2005 This type of work helps to de-center the privileged position of Western knowledge without removing its relevance.
Additionally, feminist archaeologists have engaged in the use of fiction to help access the past. This has taken the form of plays, as seen in Red-Light Voices,Costello, 2000 based on letters and diaries by early 20th-century prostitutes to explore prostitution. Another example is seen in Laurie Wilkie’s fictional worker involved in the Federal Writers' Project, interjected in her archaeological study of an African-American midwife in the post-emancipation South.2003 The archaeology of mothering: an African-American midwife's tale Janet D. Spector interpreted the meaning behind a single artifact through a fictional narrative in What This Awl Means.Spector 1993 Narrative has been argued as an effective means by which archaeologists can create multivocal and more broadly accessible interpretations and presentations.Joyce 2002. The Languages of Archaeology The use of storytelling “demonstrate[s] how narrative is a powerful tool for bringing texture, nuance, and humanity to women’s experiences as evidenced through archaeology”Wilkie and Howlett Hayes 2006:252. "Engendered and Feminist Archaeologies of the Recent and Documented Pasts". Journal of Archaeological Research Vol. 14).
Intersectional analysis