FEMINIST ARCHAEOLOGY – A NECESSARY ARCHAEOLOGY

FEMINIST ARCHAEOLOGY – A NECESSARY ARCHAEOLOGY Alma Lerma12 Abstract This paper is a summary analysis of the current situaion in archaeology at the level of gender from its theoreical bases. It deals with the media and personal scope of patriarchy and male chauvinism in archaeology, within the academic ield, both within insituions and in ield work, as well as the public sample of archaeological studies. It exposes the hair-spliing diferences between gender archaeology and feminist archaeology. And it shows some combaive cases of feminist archaeology, from the visibility of women in the past and in archaeology, acing in the space of public and social archaeology. Keywords: Gender archaeology; Feminist archaeology; Sexual harassment; Maintenance task; Public archaeology; Archaeological acivism. 1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid. C/Calero Pita, 27. 28053 Madrid (Spain). Tel. 600344458. [email protected] 2 Student of Archaeology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Researcher in poliical archaeology for Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Researcher in ethnobotany in collaboraion with Faculty of Biology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and collaborator in the zooarchaeology laboratory of the Lluera archaeological site. Collaboraion in systemaic excavaion of diferent archaeological sites from Iberian Peninsula from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages. Employee in construcion excavaions, especially of the Spanish Civil War. Editorial team member of the online publicaion Palimpsestos. Independent researcher in social archaeology, preRoman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and Taphonomy. Introducion We can not interpret the material accumulated over thousands of years airming that everything is related to male aciviies (M. Conkey 2016) The quesion that many people will ask when reading the itle is: why is feminist archaeology necessary if a gender archaeology has already been developed? It is true that gender archaeology has been developing since the end of the 20th century with examples such as the Norwegian Liv Helga Dommasnes or the American Margaret Conkey, Janet D. Spector and Joan Gero. However, although feminist archaeology encompasses gender archaeology, the irst goes further by ighing against the injusices and abuses that women receive within the archaeological world. At a theoreical level, these disciplines atack the bases of the development of archaeology, denouncing that it is based on heteropatriarchy (Mateu 2004; Cruz Berrocal 2009), having marked its own nature, its operaing structures, and the construcion of discourses on the past generated by archaeologists, over ime. This point is undoubtedly one of the most important that deals with gender and feminist archaeology, considering that the discourse of the past has always been used as a jusiicaion for the funcioning of today's socieies. That is, if we relect on the historical past based on gender bias and relegaing women to a secondary posiion, it jusiies not only an unjust present, but also an unjust archaeology that, based on this professional interpretaion of past socieies, in the construcion of historical discourses and, in general, in their role in the past, is at the service of sexist structures of dominaion with which those unequal acions, aitudes and relaionships in the present are jusiied. This problem is mainly marked in the language, where studies speak of 'man' as a reference and motor of all humanity, leaving women as something non-existent in the past (Falcó Mart 2003: 53-57). Likewise, the material remains of the past are also sorted, classiied and interpreted giving litle or no importance to the materials and contexts associated with women and the work carried out by them, and magnifying the work carried out by men (Falcó Mart 2003: 216-221, Alarcón García 2010, Cintas Peña 2012: 179-184, Sanchez Romero 2007, Montón 2005, Gonzalez et al., 2007). Associaing the work of maintenance to women, and war and huning to men, placing much importance on the work associated with men and none or litle to those associated with women. Saying this I do not mean that all the maintenance tasks were carried out by women, nor that men were the only ones who hunted and went to war, but historically they have been associated with that role, and it probably was like that. The problem is to praise one part and not to menion the other. Because if history was as they sell it to us, and everything was huning and warfare, the human species would not have arrived unil our days, inasmuch as one of the main factors of evoluion and survival of our species is the maintenance task. It is already quite problemaic that all these examples are present in the academic world, but it is much more problemaic when it is relected in the rest of society in popular magazines, museums, school books, etc. These spaces are allies, but also dangerous if they are not used with care, since when people who do not study archaeology visit museums and read those magazines they take what they see as reality, without quesioning it. And what they see are representaions of men doing jobs that women would surely have done or women in the background, if not sexualized. Luckily there are many archaeologists who are trying to combat this problem 3. 3 htps://parpatrimonioytecnologia.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/modelarias-en-3d-una-chica-de-18-anosextremadamente-caliente-para-hacer-dinero/ htps://arqueologiaacontracorriente.wordpress.com/feminismo/ Figure 1. In this image from the Palaite Fiavé Museum in Italy we can see a man working standing up while the woman is working on her knees and two other women doing nothing. Figure 2. The protagonist of any scene, even in indoor spaces, is a man. Taken from a school text of Social Sciences of 2002. In addiion, I would also like to point out that when searching for 'human evoluion' in Google Images, one of the most used plaforms by people, always appear evoluionary lines with men in carrying arms, that is, weapons and man as the motor of human evoluion, how women did not exist, or were not important in human evoluion and nor does maintenance tasks. Figure 3. Image of the Human evoluion line from Google Images. Feminist Archaeology In the introducion I have tried to summarize, broadly, the current image in which archaeology is found as far as gender is concerned, as well as the coincidences of gender archaeology and feminist archaeology. As I said, they are not diferent archaeologies, but that gender archaeology is responsible for reviewing and studying archaeological cases raising gender issues, and feminist archaeology goes beyond that. Feminist archaeology has several batle fronts, although these can be concentrated in three ields: the struggle within the academy, the struggle within public archeology and the more acivist part. Within the Academy the struggle of women is constant, that beyond labour rights we see them divided mainly in these two parts: (a) Research. Although nowadays women's publicaions are pracically valued equal to those of men, there are sill several cases in which their projects and research are underesimated. Luckily, the integraion of feminist theories is having more and more value in the Academy, eliminaing and / or reducing this type of behavior (Montón Subías et al. 2012). (b) Field work. (1) Many are the complaints that are published every year by students harrassed by the male directors of excavaions,who threaten or inimidate their students and workmates4. The worst thing is not the act itself, but many archaeologists support these excavaion 4 htps://theprofessorisin.com/2017/12/01/a-crowdsourced-survey-of-sexual-harassment-in-the-academy/ directors, humiliaing the vicim more. As is the case of the harrassment that several students have received at the Roman site of Bilbilis each year, which unil this year, 2018, has not been made visible5. (2) Women are also oten conined to 'painstaking work', spending too many hours on their knees, while men are allowed to work with the picks, use the wheelbarrows and other aciviies that allow them to comfortably move around the site. This is a relecion of the origins of patriarchy, when the woman was conined in the villages while the man travelled long distances. As for public archaeology, the struggle of feminist archaeology has consisted in making gender issues visible in an open way to the public, in publicaions in blogs and magazines, in talks and open discussions on the subject and in concrete acions in museums and sites. Finally we ind the subject most quesioned and criicized by academic archeologists, acivism. The acivism of feminist archaeology has focused on performances in museums, on the visibility of archaeologists in feminist demonstraions, on marking sites with feminist slogans. Figure 4. Shadow of a woman painted by the collecive Hipaia in the Museum of Evoluion from Burgos (Spain) 5 htps://grupoarqueologiasocial.wordpress.com/2017/11/22/todas-sabemos-lo-que-pasa-en-bilbilis-el-machismoel-acoso-sexual-y-el-abuso-de-poder-en-la-arqueologia/ Figure 5. March 8 Demonstraion Archaeologists Blok. On the banner it is writen: Feminist archaeologists in struggle! Invisibilizing us in history is also violence. Conclusions When the aricle you write has a social theme like this, it is diicult to reach conclusions, because although I quote some of them, each reader will come to their own conclusions, however this aricle aims to create a litle more awareness in the archaeological collecive. Divided by points, my conclusions are as follows: • Gender archaeology ights from theory and feminist archaeology adds to gender archaeology the acivism and social response. • Archaeological and historical studies are interpreted from heteropatriarchal bases and are used to jusify current social behaviours. • War and huning are explained as factors of evoluion and the collecion and maintenance tasks are underesimated or made invisible. • This chauvinist interpretaion of past socieies is relected in diferent media and spaces of archaeological divulgaion. • The struggle of feminist archaeology focuses on the Academy, public archaeology and acivism. • The projects of the female colleagues are not valued the same as those of the male colleagues. • Every year there are several colleagues harassed during the excavaions. • Women are relegated to painstaking work during excavaions while men are responsible for more mobile jobs. • Feminist archaeology is ighing the previous points. All of this is the reason why a strong and determined feminist archaeology is necessary. To make it known that women marked history as much or more than any man. To be respected in our jobs. So that generaions of future archaeologists have a more objecive archaeology. And so that the people of the present are not parially cheated about their own past. Bibliograía ALARCÓN GARCÍA, E. 2010: “Arqueología de las acividades de mantenimiento: un nuevo concepto en los estudios de las mujeres del pasado”, Arqueología y Territorio, n. 7. pp. 195-210. Granada. CINTAS PEÑA, M. 2012: “Género y arqueología: un esquema de la cuesión”, Estrat Criic, n. 6. pp. 117-187. Barcelona. CONKEY, M. 2016: “Arqueología de género: una nueva lectura de las estatuillas paleolíicas”, Tribuna Feminista. PONER PÁGINAS Y LUGAR CRUZ BERROCAL, M. 2009: “Feminismo, teoría y prácica de una arqueología cientica”, Trabajos de Prehistoria. v. 66, n. 2. pp. 25-43. Madrid. 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