Women in archaeology

Women in archaeology is an aspect of the history of archaeology and the topic of women in science more generally.

History

As a professional field of study, archaeology was initially established as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century and typically developed from people engaged in the study of antiquities.[1] Prior to the Victorian era, women in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States were rarely engaged in professional archaeology.[2] Participation by women in the field was discouraged, both by men and societal pressure, as the occupation masculinized the accepted view of women as homemakers and nurturers.[3] Even after they began to enter the field, the reluctance of male colleagues to accept them in fieldwork, led many women to choose roles outside of academia, seeking positions in museums or in cultural preservation associations.[4] In Europe, women often entered the discipline as research partners with their husbands or to learn about the cultures when their spouses were posted to Colonial outposts or missionary fields.[5] From the mid-1850s women's higher education facilities began offering separate courses for women and in the 1870s several European countries opened university curricula to women.[6] Though women were accepted into the study of archaeology, they were rarely considered equals and often were not admitted to prestigious societies,[7] or allowed to complete training in the field. Swedish archaeologist Hanna Rydh was one exception,[8] as was French archaeologist Madeleine Colani,[9] but more typical were the hard-fought battles of women such as Edith Hall, Harriet Boyd Hawes, Marina Picazo, Eugénie Sellers Strong, and Blanche E. Wheeler to undertake excavation projects.[8] More typically, women such as German archaeologist Johanna Mestorf, who worked as a museum curator and academic;[10] writers such as British Egyptologist Amelia Edwards and [11] Persianist Gertrude Bell[9], and French Persianist Jean Dieulafoy, who traveled and wrote about excavations during their travels; and women like Tessa Wheeler, who assisted her husband by compiling reports and raising money, were the pioneers of women archaeologists.[12]

At the turn of the twentieth century, British women such as Eugénie Sellers Strong, who taught at the Archaeological Institute of America and British School at Rome and Margaret Murray, who lectured at University College London, began to join the ranks of university faculty.[9] By the time of World War I, the majority of women working in the archaeology were employed in museums. Noted women archaeological curators or museum directors include Dane Maria Mogensen, Greek Semni Karouzou and Spaniards Concepción Blanco Mínguez and Ursicina Martínez Gallego[13] To carve out their own niches, women typically focused on research close to where they lived or from their native cultures, or undertook studies researching household items typically ignored by men. For example, Marija Gimbutas focused on Eastern European topics even after relocating to the United States;[14] Lanier Simmons, who wanted to study Maya culture, ended up researching closer to home because of family obligations;[15] and Harriet Boyd focused on domestic objects and utensils.[14] Greek Anna Apostolaki, Dane Margrethe Hald, Spaniard Felipa Niño Mas and Swede Agnes Geijer became experts on textiles; Dane Elisabeth Munksgaard focused on clothing,[16] while Norwegian Charlotte Blindheim studied Viking costumes and jewelry.[17] Pottery and art were also topics on which women focused.[16]

Prior to the 1970s, even women like Gertrude Caton-Thompson, Hilda Petrie, and Elizabeth Riefstahl, pioneers in Egyptology who had made distinguished contributions to the field, were omitted from compilations of experts working in the field. If women were mentioned at all, their roles were trivialized.[18] During the New Deal, the Works Progress Administration sponsored excavations at mound sites in Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina, which allowed women of color and working-class women to participate in archaeological work; however, class- and race-based definitions of femininity curtailed broad participation by white women, who tended to focus on participating in amateur organizations.[19]

Contemporary issues

Glass ceiling effect

Sue Hamilton, the director of the UCL Institute of Archaeology, noted in 2014 that 60–70% of the Institute's undergraduate and postgraduate students were women, as were the majority of its postdoctoral researchers. However, the proportion of women amongst permanent academic staff has never been more than 31%. Women are progressively further under-represented in each academic rank at the Institute: 38% of lecturers are female, 41% of senior lecturers, 17% of readers, and just 11% of professors.[20] A 2016 study found a similar pattern in Australian universities. Whilst 41% of academic archaeologists were women, there was an imbalance in female representation in research fellowships (67%) compared to higher-ranked lecturing posts (31%). This study identified a "two-tiered" glass ceiling: women were less likely to obtain permanent tenure-track positions, and those that did also found it more difficult to advance to senior ranks.[21]

Sexual harassment and assault

In 2014, the Survey Academic Field Experiences (SAFE) surveyed nearly 700 scientists on their experiences of sexual harassment and sexual assault during fieldwork. The survey was aimed at field researchers across a range of disciplines (e.g. anthropologists, biologists), but archaeologists constituted the largest group of respondents. The survey confirmed that sexual harassment and assault were "systemic" problems at field sites, with 64% of respondents reporting that they had personally experienced harassment and 20% that they had personally experienced sexual assault. Women, who made up the majority of the respondents (77.5%), were significantly more likely to have experienced both and were also more likely to report that such experiences were occurred "regularly" or "frequently". The targets were almost always students or early career researchers, and the perpetrators were most likely to be more senior members of the research team, although harassment and assault from peers and members of local communities were also relatively common. The experiences reported ranged from "inadvertent alienating behavior" to unwanted sexual advances, sexual assault and rape. Few respondents found that there were adequate codes of conduct or reporting procedures in place. The authors of the SAFE survey emphasised the significant negative impacts that such experiences of have on victims' job satisfaction, performance, career progression, and physical and mental health.[22]

Statistics

In 1994, around 15% of the archaeologists working in the top 30 academic institutions for the field were women.[23]

Notable women archaeologists

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • Agan, John (23 July 2013). "Germantown Utopian Colony". Know Louisiana. New Orleans, Louisiana: Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities at Turners' Hall. Archived from the original on 16 June 2018. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
  • Claassen, Cheryl (2000). "Homophobia and Women Archaeologists". World Archaeology. 32 (2): 173–179. ISSN 0043-8243. JSTOR 827863.
  • Claassen, Cheryl (1994). Women in Archaeology. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1509-0.
  • Clancy, Kathryn B. H.; Nelson, Robin G.; Rutherford, Julienne N.; Hinde, Katie (2014). "Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): Trainees Report Harassment and Assault". PLOS ONE. 9 (7): e102172. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0102172. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 4100871. PMID 25028932.
  • Cohen, Getzel M.; Joukowsky, Martha Sharp (2006). Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-03174-0.
  • Díaz-Andreu, Magarita; Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig (2005). Excavating Women: A History of Women in European Archaeology. Abingdon-on-Thames, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-72776-6.
  • Ferguson, Eileen B. (1997). "Dorothy Cross (1906-1972)". In Burstyn, Joan N. Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press for the Women's Project of New Jersey. ISBN 978-0-8156-0418-1.
  • Hamilton, Sue (2014). "Under-Representation in Contemporary Archaeology". Papers from the Institute of Archaeology. 24 (1). doi:10.5334/pia.469. ISSN 2041-9015.
  • Lee, Dayna Bowker (2009). "Caroline Dormon: Louisiana's Cultural Conservator". In Allured, Janet; Gentry, Judith F. Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. pp. 253–269. ISBN 978-0-8203-2946-8.
  • Mounier, R. Alan (2003). Looking Beneath the Surface: The Story of Archaeology in New Jersey. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-3146-5.
  • Smith, Claire; Burke, Heather (2016). "Glass Ceilings, Glass Parasols and Australian Academic Archaeology". Australian Archaeology. 62: 13–25. doi:10.1080/03122417.2006.11681826. hdl:2328/14576.
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