How Questions about Gender and Sexuality Matter

Gender research in historical archaeology began in the 1960s, analyzing changing Native American gender roles due to colonization, although the words ‘»contact» and ‘»assimilation’» were Eurocentrically used. In the 1970s historical archaeologists began asking feminist questions about gender and sexual power dynamics, although the word ‘power’ was rarely used. While all feminist questions are concerned with gender, not all questions about gender roles address power dynamics. In the 21st century the word ‘power’ has been used to more overtly discuss gender and sexual power dynamics. The papers in this session are about how each of us came to ask questions about gender and/or sexuality, whether influenced by other research or publications, the feminist movement and/or feminist theory, etc, and new research insights gained by asking questions about gender compared to ungendered research. The papers show how asking questions about gender matters and is important for research in historical archaeology.