A Space Of Their Own: Institutions and Gendered Space (original) (raw)
In South Australia government authorities in a fledging colony were required to build institutions to care for the poor and the pauper insane, and they drew on designs from England, where workhouses and county asylums were being built in response to new laws. From a simple glance at the plans of the Destitute Asylum, which was built to house the deserving poor, and of the Adelaide and Parkside Lunatic asylums, it would appear that gender divisions dominated life in these institutions. A study of the material culture of the asylums, however, indicates a complex range of factors was, in fact, informing the experience of the asylum for the inmates. Gender, classification, social class, and the organizational purpose of the particular institution were all to play a role in determining the access to and use of the space and rooms of the asylums.
Gender in Aboriginal archaeology: Recent research
Australian Archaeology, 1994
Feminist knowledge and its impact on other academic disciplines arose in the 1970s, but it has had an uneven impact in different disciplines. We argue that gender as a theoretical concept has challenged both sociology and archaeology but analyses of gender practices and embodiment which challenge the homogenous categories of 'women' and 'men' have made much less impact in archaeology -particularly the archaeology of deep time. The paper concludes by suggesting that feminist archaeology's exploration of the origins of gender offers critical insights concerning the ways in which feminist sociologists defi ne their theories with and against the 'Western folk model' of sex and gender.
Equity and Gender in Australian Archeology: A Survey of the “Women in Archaeology” Conference, 1991
Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2008
In February 1991 the initial "Women in Archaeology" conference was held in Australia. This was the first conference in Australia that had been dedicated entirely to an examination of gender issues both in the development of archeology theory and in the archeological workplace and career structures. Prior to this meeting only a handful of papers explicitly exploring gender issues had been presented at Australian conferences, and fewer had appeared in Australian archeological publications. When discussions of gender issues were presented publicly, it was often in an atmosphere of disinterest and, on occasion, hostility. Australian archeology is by no means unusual in this, and one of the issues raised at the conference was that of why an interest in gender issues had arisen at the time they had. As Wylie put the question: "why is an archaeology of gender emerging (only) now?" (Wylie 1991, 1992).
On the Margin: Women, Archeology, and Cultural Heritage - An Australian Case Study
Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 2008
Heritage Consultants, Australia INTRODUCTION Many writings about women in archeology deal with the issues of women's access to education and jobs. This article describes a situation where an institutional culture may facilitate the employment of women archeologists, but subsequently limit their effectiveness. In such a case, where archeology itself, in the form of cultural resource management, is marginal, women archeologists can find themselves in a double bind. The situation also creates a contradictory situation for male archeologists, and for Aboriginal people who work in Aboriginal heritage, but who do not generally have professional qualifications. This analysis is based on my experiences and observations as an archeologist with the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), one of the largest employers of archeologists and other specialists in cultural resource management in Australia. Women comprise the majority of archeologists employed in an organization that is otherwise predominantly male, and women have always held the most senior cultural heritage management positions.
Oxford Online Bibliographies in Anthropology, 2022
Detailed annotated anglophone bibliography on gender and archaeology including historiography, heritage activities, theories, approaches and scales of analysis
FEMINIST ARCHAEOLOGY – A NECESSARY ARCHAEOLOGY
This paper is a summary analysis of the current situation in archaeology at the level of gender from its theoretical bases. It deals with the media and personal scope of patriarchy and male chauvinism in archaeology, within the academic field, both within institutions and in field work, as well as the public sample of archaeological studies. It exposes the hair-splitting differences between gender archaeology and feminist archaeology. And it shows some combative cases of feminist archaeology, from the visibility of women in the past and in archaeology, acting in the space of public and social archaeology.
Introduction: Doing Archaeology as a Feminist
2007
Gender research archaeology has made significant contributions, but its dissociation from the resources of feminist scholarship and feminist activism is a significantly limiting factor in its development. The essays that make up this special issue illustrate what is to be gained by making systematic use of these resources. Their distinctively feminist contributions are characterized in terms of the guidelines for "doing science as a feminist" that have taken shape in the context of the long running "feminist method debate" in the social sciences. There is now a rich and expansive body of archaeological research on women and gender, a dramatic development in less than two decades. But despite taking shape at a point when vigorous traditions of feminist research were already well established in socio-cultural anthropology, history, and geography, among other closely aligned fields, the feminist affiliations of "gender archaeology" have always been vexed. Hanen and Kelley (1992) noted, with some surprise, a dearth of feminist content in the abstracts submitted for the first public North American conference on "The Archaeology of Gender," the 1989 Chacmool Conference (Walde and Willows 1991). They found that 80% of contributors avoided the use of terms such as feminist or feminism, and few made any reference to feminist literature, authors, influences, or ideas (1992: 198). When I undertook a survey of Chacmool contributors in 1990-1991, I learned that this accurately reflected the self-reported familiarity of most participants with feminist research in other fields and with feminist activism; although a majority said they had a pre-existing interest in research on gender, barely half identified as feminists and many registered strong reservations about the label (Wylie 1992,1997: 94-95). Conkey and Gero (1997) have since argued that this dissociation from feminist scholarship and politics continues to characterize archaeological research in the "gender genre."
The Matilda Effect in archaeology. Recovering women for the history of the discipline
Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology, 2025
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita. (2025) The Matilda Effect in archaeology: recovering women for the history of the discipline In Marianne Moen and Unn Pedersen (eds.) Routledge Handbook of Gender Archaeology, 126-145. London, Routledge. ABSTRACT - This article examines the history of women in archaeology through the lens of the 'Matilda Effect in Science'. It explores how discrimination operates in the field, and specifically how women's contributions have been trivialized or ignored. The article argues that the traditional focus of the histories of archaeology on discoveries and their discoverers has largely excluded women from historical accounts. This exclusion is tied to the unequal gender ideologies prevalent when archaeology became a professional field, at a time in which women had to struggle for their right to education, training, employment, and professional recognition. The analysis also addresses the impact of marriage and family on women's careers, and evaluates issues related to authorship, funding, and awards. Finally, the article offers suggestions for overcoming the Matilda effect to better integrate women into the history of archaeology. SECTIONS: Introduction | How does discrimination work? Direct discrimination (barriers to women accessing education; restrictions on accessing excavation training; problems in securing salaried jobs in archaeology) | A more subtle, covert type of discrimination in archaeology: indirect discrimination against women ('chilly climate'; ridiculing; patronising women; daily devaluation of work and intellectual skills; sexual harassment) | Trivializing and Silencing women in major accounts about the history of archaeology | Some specific issues leading to the Matilda effect (Collaborative married couples, daughters and disciples; A question of authorship; Funding, awards and prizes) | How to overcome the Matilda Effect in the history of archaeology | Conclusions
Encyclopedia of Archaeology - 2nd Edition - Elsevier, 2023
Feminist archaeology sees itself as part of the struggle for gender equality. • It has diverse, sometimes even contradictory theoretical foundations and distinctly different emphases and approaches in different countries. • In addition to the past, it makes the institutions of archaeology the object of research. • It aims not only to work within academia, but also to change the general public’s conceptions of the distant past as they are part of today’s gender discourse. This paper presents both the theoretical approaches to archaeology that focus on the past and the more practical approaches that focus on archaeology’s own institutions and its external impact. It makes clear that feminist archaeology is diverse and disparate and goes far beyond women’s concerns. Instead, it challenges the theoretical foundations and unconscious presuppositions of archaeology and claims to change the discipline as a whole as well as popular assumptions about the past.
The archaeology of household activities, 1999
As a medium for the investigation of past household behaviour, houses alone produce a prescriptive view. Documentary sources for domestic behaviour tend to provide specific perspectives and anecdotal evidence on relationships between household members. The Archaeology of Household Activities expands the parameters of this investigation, providing a fuller understanding of changing domestic behaviour through a critical analysis of the complete record of household material culture-the house, its content and their spatial relationships.