Feminist critique has pointed to and criticized androcentrism within
archaeology for more than 30 years. It has called attention to the assumption
that men occupied all active positions in social and ritual life as well
as in the development of society. Women have for the most part been
invisible in the interpretations and presentations of prehistory, and when
present it is usually as stereotype images according to 19th century ideals
(e.g. Bertelsen et al. 1987; Conkey and Gero 1991; Conkey and Spector
1984; Engelstad 2001:345; Hj๘rungdal 1991, 1994). Figure 1 beautifully
illustrates the traditional androcentric view of a Southern Scandinavian
Bronze Age society. The men are present everywhere while the women are
safely placed indoors; even in the darkness, taking care of children.
In this article I will start by giving a short account for how androcentrism
may influence archaeology. By using two examples which I find representative
for their time and tradition I will discuss whether androcentric
archaeological research really informs us about men and what kind of
knowledge it provides about prehistoric men and masculinity. I will argue
that there is a need to explicitly study men and masculinities within
archaeology and that it should be done within the already established feminist
inspired gender archaeology.
First, however, I will shortly consider the relation between feminist
archaeology and gender archaeology. Feminism as a political movement
was crucial in the initial phase of gender studies in archaeology, as well as
in science in general. While some today define their research as feminist
archaeology (e.g. Conkey 2003; Engelstad 2004, 2007; Spector 1993; Voss
2000; Wylie 2007), most use the more neutral term gender archaeology.
Many even avoid using the term ‘‘feminist’’ and several have explicitly argued that gender archaeology should be separated from feminism (e.g.
Gilchrist 1999; Moore 1997; Sørensen 2000). Ericka Engelstad (2007:226)
suggests that the motivation is a desire for being ‘‘mainstream’’ and a fear
of being controversial and political, and thus marginalized. She notes, however,
that what is rejected seems to be a conception of feminism associated
with 2nd wave feminism that existed in the 60s and 70s (see also Moi
2006). The major problem, however, is that many seem to confuse political
feminism with feminist theory and consequently avoid employing feminist
theory in archaeological gender studies.
I will not consider whether we ought to call it feminist or gender
archaeology, but to concern with gender in archaeology without feminist
theory, epistemology and critique of science is simply a process of add gender
and stir, resulting in under-theorised studies which neither challenge
the understanding of prehistory nor archaeological research practice
(Engelstad 2004, 2007; Wylie 2007). It is beyond the scope of this paper to
go into this any further, but I will return to the issue at the end of the
paper and consider the relation between archaeological studies in masculinity
and a gender archaeology based on feminist theory. In the following
analyses and discussions the term feminist is used to describe works
which are based on critical feminist theory and epistemology, while gender
archaeology includes all archaeological studies focusing on gender, independent of theoretical framework or epistemology. Consequently, feminist
archaeology is usually gender archaeology (though feminist theory may
be applied to most problems), but gender archaeology is not necessarily
feminist.