Our own engendered species

Abstract

The study of gender in ancient societies seems inseparable from the place of gender in our own society–and therefore inseparable from the particular attitudes and expectations those contemporary manners create. This BIG problem is explored, and some approaches to its resolution are developed.

Archaeological Visions

“…Archaeologists concerned about this dedicated themselves to criticizing the fact that women appeared only where issues of sexual division of labor were considered relevant. Together with this critique of androcentrism (Conkey and Spector, 1984;Conkey and Williams, 1991;Gero, 1993Gero, , 1994Gero, , 1996Hurcombe, 1995;Moser, 1998), gender archaeology also critiqued the assumption of universality of human motivations along the lines of the feminist critique of science (Conkey and Gero, 1997: 426;Wylie, 1991). Gender archaeology has shown how these interpretations were biased and that data could be interpreted as reflecting the actions of the non-default sex.…”

Gender and the creation, structuring and interpretation of knowledge

“…Con sid er ing the role of women within im ages of pre his tory, the first is sue which be comes c lear is how few women are pic tured at all. A sim ple count of fig ures will usu ally pro vide only a mini mal num ber of women compared with the number of men (Burtt, 1987;Hur combe, 1995;Wood, 1996Wood, , 1997. This is a crude too l with which to de con struct im ages but it is an im por tant in di ca tor of the thought which has gone into the pro duc tion of il lus tra tions.…”

Gender-informed archaeology: The priority of definition, the use of analogy, and the multivariate approach

“…However, we must not confuse idealized images of the past with responsible interpretation, since "[e]motional narratives.., conflated data and pure fantasy.., will only draw attention away from the positive contribution offered by gender and feminist archaeologies" (MeskeU, 1995, p. 83). We are now in a position to benefit from the critical perspective that feminist interests bring to archaeology; yet, at the same time, it is critical that the past not be used to validate the political present (Conkey and Tringham, 1995, p. 211;Hurcombe, 1995;Meskell, 1995) or serve as a form of psychotherapy at the expense of the archaeological record (e.g., Gimbutas, 1982Gimbutas, , 1989Gimbutas, , 1991.…”

“…A constant reappraisal of both personal and institutional(ized) biases is the foundation for conscientious research in any discipline (Hurcombe, 1995), and thus it need not be feminist. As Leone et al (1987, p. 283) have argued, a sense of the role of politics in archaeology can aid archaeologists in achieving a less contingent sense of the past; that is, a reflective sense of how the past is constructed and utilized.…”

“…These are outlined below; some have been enumerated elsewhere (e.g., Costin, 1996;Hayden, 1992;Hurcombe, 1995).…”