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Identity and Subsistence: Gender Strategies for Archaeology
Throughout human history, gender has served as one of the ways in which human beings form their identities and then make their way in the world. But it is not the only We also discover ourselves through race, age, class, and other categories. Increasingly, archaeologists are recovering evidence of the ways in which gender has been important in identity-formation in the past, especially in its interaction with other social factors. In Identity and Subsistence , a number of scholars look at how the idea of gender has worked with respect to the formation of the self, masculinity and femininity, human evolution, and the development of early agrarian and pastoralist societies.
280 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2007
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May 13, 2014
This book was the answer to my weird feelings on the whole "Man the Hunter, Woman the Gatherer". I can't believe it took me so long to read it. It had articles from a variety of archaeologists from different points of view, no one came off as finger in their ear yelling "Nonononono women were the main hunters F-you" which is my disagreeable child-like reaction to "Man the Hunter".
Main points
* This gendered separation of work in history was mainly cultivated by the 1950's archaeologists to took biased ideas of their modern view of mens'/ womens' work into the field.
* There isn't enough work done on power or status between genders to assume that certain work had more prestige.
Hunting was a group affair, everyone made the rope for traps, points for weapons, hunting was watching a lot of the time. Being "the hunter" was not a status symbol that we know.
"Without compelling analysis of what women and men actually accomplished in their daily lives, questions about power, status, and prestige differences between the sexes cannot be addressed." ( Brumbach & Jarvenpa)
* Who said their genders were binary anyway? There might be different genders we might not even thought of.
*" Nuanced studies of gender must be based on multiple lines of archaeological evidence, not on assumptions about the nature of women as nurturers." (Crabtree)
There is so much work on how women had to be keepers at home and inside because of their biology to give birth. But that is still another assumption using what we feel homemakers are.
I came away with the knowledge that there needs to be some serious review of past archaeology done under certain gendered impressions and we need to continue to get compelling proof to what women did other than it is in their nature. Men and women had pretty equal distribution of activities. This is what played out in my mind from this book "You want to do some weaving, Bob? Come on over. Susan, thanks for hunting today we needed the extra people." Easy and obvious.
Main points
* This gendered separation of work in history was mainly cultivated by the 1950's archaeologists to took biased ideas of their modern view of mens'/ womens' work into the field.
* There isn't enough work done on power or status between genders to assume that certain work had more prestige.
Hunting was a group affair, everyone made the rope for traps, points for weapons, hunting was watching a lot of the time. Being "the hunter" was not a status symbol that we know.
"Without compelling analysis of what women and men actually accomplished in their daily lives, questions about power, status, and prestige differences between the sexes cannot be addressed." ( Brumbach & Jarvenpa)
* Who said their genders were binary anyway? There might be different genders we might not even thought of.
*" Nuanced studies of gender must be based on multiple lines of archaeological evidence, not on assumptions about the nature of women as nurturers." (Crabtree)
There is so much work on how women had to be keepers at home and inside because of their biology to give birth. But that is still another assumption using what we feel homemakers are.
I came away with the knowledge that there needs to be some serious review of past archaeology done under certain gendered impressions and we need to continue to get compelling proof to what women did other than it is in their nature. Men and women had pretty equal distribution of activities. This is what played out in my mind from this book "You want to do some weaving, Bob? Come on over. Susan, thanks for hunting today we needed the extra people." Easy and obvious.
Displaying 1 of 1 review