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Damsels in Distress - Ep 23
194 Plays4 months ago
This episode, Ash and Tilly are on a bit of a side quest that becomes much bigger than they ever thought possible, as they try to help a student from Lothlorien University critique the concept of a “damsel in distress” using gender archaeology. But what exactly is gender archaeology? What’s the difference between feminist and gender archaeology? And why do we need it? Listen in to find out!
Links
- Sylvia's Complaint of Her Sexes Unhappiness : a Poem, Being the Second Part of Sylvia's Revenge, Or, a Satyr Against Man (1692)
- Archaeology and the Study of Gender (1984)
- Gender and Feminism in Archaeology (1997)
- The Archaeology of Gender (2004)
- Doing archaeology as a feminist (2007)
- Gender Stereotypes in Archaeology (2021)
Contact
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @and.my.trowel
Transcripts
- ZENCASTR: For rough transcripts of this episode, go to: https://www.archpodnet.com/trowel/23
ArchPodNet
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You have my sword. And you have my bow. And my trowel.
Introduction to Archaeology and Fantasy
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi, you're listening to episode 23 of And My Trowel, where we look at the fantastic side of archaeology and the archaeological side of fantasy. I'm Ash. And I'm Tilly. And today, we're not really doing an actual quest, so to speak, but more of a side quest. Ooh, I love a good side quest. Tell me more.
Student Inquiry on Gender Dynamics in Heroism
00:00:29
Speaker
Well, our client this time is actually a student from Lothorian University. I'll keep her anonymous so that she doesn't face any backlash in case any of her more problematic professors are listening to this podcast. But she is currently working on a large research project looking at the gender dynamics of heroism. And it's getting quite frustrated because all these texts that she has access to are constantly using the same phrase to refer to women in these
Damsel in Distress Trope in Literature
00:00:55
Speaker
tales. Let me guess, damsel in distress?
00:00:58
Speaker
You got it in one. So, she's asked if we could look at our archive and help to find evidence that not all women and tales of heroism should be delegated as a damsel in distress. Huh, that sounds like an excellent side quest. Right. But before we check the archives, what's your experience of this stereotype in the fantasy fiction that you've read, Tilly? Oh, well, I mean, actually, I think because I read a lot of more modern fantasy fiction, I guess it's not quite so prevalent anymore. oh Although, my probably if I have to think, I was just trying to think, I was like, Tamsil's Tamsil, maybe like princesses and stuff. I was like, the princess bride oh yeah that was a brilliant one is my favorite. And that is kind of the archetypal Tamsil in distress, because poor Wesley just has to go through everything to try to ruin rescue Buttercup, who's just like brushing her hair and going, oh no. um But
00:01:52
Speaker
I almost feel like that's almost a bit of a parody of the damsel in distress though, if anything. It is, yeah. But yeah, so I guess that's probably my favourite one. But I don't actually know that many.
Modern Fantasy and Gender Roles
00:02:04
Speaker
What about you? Do you know any ones? well really either. like I mean, there there definitely are. them I mean, there's a lot of like romanticies out there, but they sort of now, especially in the last like 20 years of books, like they tend to have changed the dynamic or flipped on its head. One of my favorite books is by Megan Spooner and it's m Sherwood and it's made Marianne because she is the damsel in distress, isn't she? Yeah. But she's actually Robin Hood.
00:02:33
Speaker
And I quite like those ones where they they flip it and then you're like, and she does it out of like grief and sadness because Robin dies and he never becomes Robin Hood, but she becomes Robin Hood. So it's kind of, yeah, and interesting that way. And she fights and ah everything goes wrong. It's a brilliant book. I definitely recommend it. I think I read it in LA too. like twice a year or something. What's it called? Sherwood. I haven't heard of that one. It sounds good though. I must admit though, just when you were mentioning Robin Hood, I just remember one of my, even though there's a lot of issues with it, but one of my favourite films is Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves. Oh yeah, Prince of Thieves. Oh God, he's just such a good show. ah ah not a Sheriff of Nottingham.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, this is brilliant. I must have admit, that's also the very, you know, it's got like Robin Hood sweeping it at the end. So, you know, rescue made Mary. Oh, sorry. Spoiler. I mean, it's it's a centuries old deal. I was about to say it's been out for a while. If you haven't seen it, you should see it. And I mean, it's one of those ones that you kind of know what's going to happen at the end. But that sort of sweeping hero coming into rescue, I must admit, even though, you know, the feminist part of me is like, no, we don't need, you know, heroes to come in and save us all the time. I do quite love this sort of fighting for someone, you know, and kind of having that goal, if that makes sense. Like that sort of... It's ah it's a very romantic gesture. Yeah, it exactly exactly. But then indeed, I don't necessarily need it to be the woman.
00:04:01
Speaker
who's, who's being saved all the time. There's also a lot of good examples out there of it's, you know, the woman comes to save the man or, you know,
Greek Mythology and Damsels in Distress
00:04:07
Speaker
all that kind of thing. Well, whenever I think of damsel in distress, I actually think of the, was it like 1994 Hercules, the Disney one, right? Because Megara in it, obviously she's the classic, in the myths, she is it's she doesn't end up very well. But like Meg is like the classic, she says, ah I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, but I can handle it. I can handle it, yeah. I love that. Yeah, yeah that's true. which and i'm trying I was thinking about what would be the sort of earliest actually, you know, if we look at the history, history of damsels in distress, because I guess, yeah, ancient Greek mythology, that's how a lot of damsels in distress, like terrible distress, horrible distress, like more than distress, i mean absolute danger probably from Zeus, but like, you know, they like, well, like Andromeda changed to the, to the sea beast and then Cassius comes and rescues her and all of this kind of thing, which I think
00:04:56
Speaker
I remember correctly, I think that there are the earliest depiction, depiction of the myth is like first century BC. So if that's the first like depiction of it, then it was probably around for a lot longer. oh yeah that So yeah, that's sort of quite a quite an old one.
Origin of 'Damsel in Distress' Phrase
00:05:11
Speaker
But I do actually have a fun fact about damsel's in distress. Do you know when the first reference to the phrase a damsel in distress came from? What would be your guess of like rough year? o Oh, um, like medievally, like, I don't know, late medieval, maybe we were talking like 12th century or something like that. Well, you do, you do have a lot of like in the chivalry code and everything, you know, there's a lot of reference to that. But the actual phrase damsel in distress, apparently, apparently, and you know, this is just based on my
00:05:46
Speaker
brief Google search. um Apparently, it is from 1692. And it's a poem written by Robin Ames, which is called, and I have to say this because the title is incredible, Sylvia's complaint of her sex's unhappiness, a poem being the second part of Sylvia's revenge or a satire against man, which I think it's just like, it just rolls off the tongue. I just love those long titles. And I've actually found a Google Books version of it where you can read it. So i've put I'll put the link in the show notes when I was
Gender in Literature Titles and Authorship
00:06:19
Speaker
looking through it, trying to find the reference to a damsel in distress. It's on page 12.
00:06:22
Speaker
if anyone' just So, and it is quite funny, it's basically just her being like, oh for God's sake, yeah, we're just supposed, women are just supposed to do this and this and put up with this and all of that. And then you're, you know, we're just damsels in distress and all this kind of thing. And she's like, I think she is tied to a rock or something at the beginning anyway. And yeah, some, some man is like reading a book and hears a cry and it's like, Oh, what, what is that? Oh, what's going on there? yeah but I just thought that that was a really funny title. It is a hilarious title, but also the fact that it was written by a man. Right. Although I don't know, actually, I didn't look up Robert Ames properly. I might just quickly look up because I wonder if it's, you know, maybe it's a pseudonym. Oh my God, I love a pseudonym. Robert Ames, poet, 1692. Let's just see. Uh, no, that's someone else. Hmm. Okay. I can't find.
00:07:14
Speaker
I don't know. It's just apparently there's a, apparently there's a, there's a concert, um a conductor called Robert Ames. And there's i've just seen that an officer of the of the American thing. Okay. Nevermind. Yeah. And he was in like nineteen late So I can't find any easy information about him, but so maybe it's not a him, maybe it's her, maybe it's Roberta Ames, but she just wrote under a male pseudonym. Perhaps. I mean, makes sense. Right? You would. In the capsule region, I was like, meh. I was like, God, she's got all my sweaters.
00:07:57
Speaker
and But yeah, but and so so yeah, so your ancient ancient Greek mythology is a thing, and then I'll be the kind of progression of that in terms of fantasy. guess I guess fairy tales probably, because if you think about it, well made Marion is sort of a fairy tale myth, like you know, but then you've got, oh god, all of them.
Fairy Tales and Damsel Tropes
00:08:20
Speaker
Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty. But the original Grimm, like even before then, the Grimm fairy tales and stuff, they are not as
00:08:29
Speaker
as sweet. True, but they're still in distress. They're still in distress and then are more in distress after the fact. People just come help and they just make things worse. They just make everything worse. But not really from a woman's perspective. From a man's perspective, it's great. Like, you know, ah well, at least an 18th century man's perspective is great. And yeah, but Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, they all have to go through terrible hardships and furtherable hardships. when they get married, so I mean it's quite telling. yeah yeah the it And then I was trying to think what, because you do have a lot of, I was actually watching, have you seen or read Northanger Abbey? Of course. Yeah. I was rewatching the version with, oh gosh, I can't remember her name.
00:09:17
Speaker
ah Oh my goodness, what's her name? She's really famous. Yes, that's the one. Yeah, I can't remember her last name now. Can't remember her last name, but that one. um And it's just, it's so good. And I love the drama drama of it and the angst and all that. It's gothic. It's so gothic. And I love, and yeah, I was looking up the book in it, Tales of Adolpho by Anne Radcliffe. oh yeah that's which is not fantasy sort of although I think there's some like magic in it but I started reading it actually I downloaded the Kindle book and it's very like starts off straight away damsel in distress front and center like very much very damsel-y very in distress
00:09:59
Speaker
like Like, quite, yeah, intense. Oh yes, very much. just like It's it's, it's, well, Northanger Abbey, if we go back to that one, it's that's Jane Austen having a go at the, the gothic this is read writers. She's like, oh, this is so silly. But but there yeah, you have, there's a whole theme of them. So there's the tales of Adolfo, but there's like the monk as well. which is all about a woman's virtue and like, this man, and this monk has overcome by it, so scandalous. And then it develops into like, well it's about consent. I think that's the thing. The issue of consent comes up because of the damsel in distress. But it never gets like really thought about or talked about a lot in the the kind of Gothic literature, which eventually turns into your fairy tales, well, even beforehand your fairy tales and then your fantasy stuff. It permeates through. And then finally, you finally get people going like, and one this maybe Maybe she was just having a bad day and she just needed a bit of a help and nobody helped her in the way. And they were like, oh, actually, she's so beautiful.
00:11:09
Speaker
she must be mine. yeah Like, no, i like know so I deserved to have her. You're like, I deserve it. I won. Yeah. And it's some sort of corruption of chivalry and, yeah and all that. Yeah. So it doesn't work until then you get, you know, feminism and the wave of feminism. Exactly. And then eventually we can unravel it. And I mean, you can definitely see that in the progression of fantasy fiction as well, right? Like when sort of feminist kind of morals start to become a little bit more permeated through society and people start to realize, huh, maybe, maybe we shouldn't just delegate women as damsels in distress. Then you start to see that in fantasy fiction as well in terms of kind of how how people are represented.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, there's like, um you can, like, em I think, is it a T. Kingfisher? They do very well, like Swordheart, because you have like the female, she she the female main character, she's sort of saved by the man, but she very much does not need a man or is not weak because of it yeah and is not relegated to a secondary character or anything like that. yeah And you do get that eventually. carrying on where you get these kind of, and it's almost redundant now, the badass female character. Right, that's almost got me. Because now we've sort of moved on from that as well. It's like a stereotype as well, you're like, yeah, yeah, cool, she's badass, she knows what she wants. Yeah, she's living on the edges, fringes of society. Like other girls. Like anyone else, she's such a pick me. And then, yeah, and then now we kind of go, actually, maybe we can just be
00:12:50
Speaker
like normal not have to have anything different or cool about us. Which is treated like equals. Yes,
Diverse Gender Representations in Fantasy Fiction
00:12:59
Speaker
exactly. Maybe we could just be like a man. yeah And I think as well sometimes older fantasy fiction when you read it and it's especially written by a man, ah the certain assets that are focused on and a woman, certain things. When you're describing them, you're like, oh, God. Or certain tropes, like using sex is ah as a plot device, even worse, as a plot device. And it just does not work at all. And it actually, yeah, but it creates that damsel in distress trope and that just continues on and continues on and continues on. It's not helpful. No.
00:13:40
Speaker
Which, so you know who I'm going to talk about, right? But there is a really interesting sort of essay, long essay, short book that was brought out called The Women of Pratchett, where they talk about this and they talk about how you can really see, because he was writing them for so long, because it's such a long series, the Discworld series, by the way, for those who are just listening in. If you if you don't know what I'm talking about, go and listen to the back catalogue. You don't have to really see that every single... You can literally have no idea what's going on.
00:14:13
Speaker
But yeah, so the, and and you can, because he was writing them in, yeah, like the 70s, 80s at the start, and that's still, I mean, the whole feminist movement was only really just kind of getting going at that point, really. So it hadn't sort of perpetuated as much. And you can see like in his first ones, I mean, on the one hand, it's almost a bit of a, a bit of a satire of it. Like it's sort of a bit of a, oh yeah, this is the stereotype of the very buxom, you know, winch, barbarian or whatever, but then yeah, but then in the later ones, it's definitely a lot more subtle and a lot more nuanced. And you have these females in power who aren't necessarily sexual or you know, anything like that, like it's sort of, yeah, you can see it develop even within that one series, you know, which is quite interesting.
00:14:55
Speaker
You find it in, I think, from but the but um from definitely from the 70s, but into the 90s, you find even to the the early 2000s with fantasy books. like For instance, we are currently reading, or have been reading, Timeline in our Archeo Book Club and that we also run. And you find that that if to be a strong woman, you also have to be super attractive to a man, which is very confusing. And then if you're a damsel in stress, you also have to be super attractive. yeah You have to be extremely innocent. yeah like yeah you know for like We were talking about ancient Greek mythology. Technically, Helen of Troy is, she's rescued and she's unhappy. But if she wasn't beautiful,
00:15:41
Speaker
She wouldn't be a damsel in distress. She would be a licentious, horrible woman. who yeah you know But she has she has a good virtue and she's very beautiful in that way. And she's rescued from an unhappy marriage, yeah which admittedly does sound really great. It's quite terrible for him. But also then being stuck with Paris sounds even worse. I try to weigh up the options like, oh god. What do I do? But then that's the thing. You so it still has to be you have still to be attractive and know it to be strong. But not know it too much. Not do like to not be not be too aware of your own.
00:16:21
Speaker
Oh my god, no. Wonderfulness. Like, you have to still be modest. No, because then you're the villain. Yes, right? Then you're too, yeah. So, yeah. Okay, so, why don't we get started on this sidecrest then? Because I think we know quite a bit. Sounds good, sounds good. So, I'll go and start searching through the Western archives. Okay, great. And I'll go to the East and then we'll meet back here and convene. Okay, here's what I found. And here's my stuff. Okay, so what kind of proof can we offer from an archaeological standpoint that would help our students, do you think? Well, I think the place to start would probably be to look at studies in gender archaeology.
00:17:04
Speaker
gender archaeology. What is that?
Gender Archaeology: Understanding the Past
00:17:07
Speaker
Well, I'm so glad you asked me that. We're such good actors. Agree. So gender archaeology, a kind of very, very, very, very simplified definition is studying the past through an investigation of the social construction of gender identities and relations. And this might sound odd, but actually it's kind of essential because even though gender might be something that we consider like a social construct and everyone, you know, is with all the, you know, political correctness gone wild that everyone's complaining about and everything with, with gender and identity at the moment, but still it it is, it's a big part of how people identify themselves and of how people create relationships with each other. So, I mean, I would say it's pretty.
00:17:56
Speaker
and but Yeah, it's essential aspect. Yeah, it's pretty essential part. And again, it only really emerged in the kind of 1970s, within sort of as it had a kind of official concept of archaeology. yeah The other kind of Keystone publication, as it were, was from 1984. And it was entitled quite simply archaeology and the study of gender ah by Margaret Conkey and Janet Spector. And that's been kind of referred to a lot. I mean, especially Conkey, I think, her I assume you say Conkey. Sorry, it sounds odd to say, but I assume that's her name. I think that's pretty much the kind of that people always refer back to and kind of look at the starting the starting point of that one, which unfortunately, it's not open access, but I will put the link in the notes anyway, in case anyone can get institutional access or something like that.
00:18:44
Speaker
But yeah, so indeed only came really a in the sort of 1970s, of course, triggered a lot by the feminist movement kind of of the 1960s. But I have a bit of a question for you, Ash. Would you say feminist archaeology is the same as gender archaeology? Oh, I think they're tied definitely. I feel like one rolled into another historically, but I suppose to fight for anything personally as a feminist, to fight for anything that in in enables equality, expression, you know, of a person, a self is inherently for me feminist.
00:19:23
Speaker
So yes, but no. Well, half of the gender archaeological community would violently disagree with you on that point. But that was a very loaded question to me. Of course it was. Of course it was. It's leading you by the nose. But yeah, because i i went I went down a complete rabbit hole when I was reading up for this episode. I mean, there's just so much to read. And I'm going to already say to people listening in, there's no way that we can cover all of the nuances and all of the detail of this field of archaeology. So if this is something that interests you, please do go and do some further reading. I've put a couple of links in the show notes so to get you started, and then you can sort of move on from there. But yeah.
00:20:08
Speaker
There's a lot of overlap between them, of course, but there's a lot of debates. And mainly this is referring to the actual terminology used because feminist is such a loaded term that I think a lot of, right? Which is ridiculous because all it means is that you believe in equality. So every time I always have a tea and yeah yeah yeah and you went but every time i had friends who like, oh, but I'm not a feminist. And be like, really? So you don't believe in equality between. Sexism, gender, anyone, people. That's all that feminism means, really. It's just, unfortunately, as with everything, there are, of course, those who take it almost too far one way and they don't, they're not interested in equality, they're interested in one.
00:20:49
Speaker
or the other. Which I think is a very rare percentage of it. It is a very loaded term in the and and in our modern politics, especially right-wing politics. i think but then yeah yeah mean It's just a term to to reflect equality and to bring people to the same to the same level, not bring anyone down, people bring people up. yeah you know But then people say that's humanist, don't they? Right. Yeah, exactly. And I think this is the main issue. I think that at the end of the day, everyone believes this you know who is involved in these different spheres of this kind of overall topic do have the same beliefs in terms of you know their morals and their ethics and that kind of thing of what they believe is right.
00:21:36
Speaker
But it's just, yeah, the terminology that's used is something that people get a bit caught up on. And what is academics, if not the argument of terminology? If we can't spend a whole like afternoon arguing over the meaning of the word assemblage, what are we? Exactly. I mean, gosh, that's still going on, that debate about like, what is an assemblage? And it's like, Can't we just use the dictionary definition at some point? No, because that's not the definition, Tilly. I know, I know. And it's all these, I mean, that was also, I have to say, for my research when I was doing the Inuit, a Paleo-Inuit research, and then there's so much
00:22:14
Speaker
there's been so many changes in the definitions used because of course the term Eskimo is actually quite offensive to Inuit populations and it was historically used and now Inuit is used but then it was Paleo Eskimo was always used so then they changed that to Paleo Inuit but then some people were like well no because it's not actually Paleo Inuit because they're not genetically linked to modern Inuit so then other people were like okay well let's change it to the and then you have like a thousand different definitions and no one can agree on like which ones can be used and some of them... yeah yeah no no no And I suppose it it needs to be, and I don't know about that you know your studies, but it needs to be the people that are actually affected by exactly yeah these categories you know that um that need to make that decision, not the white academics. Exactly. And so that's a whole other thing as well as to whether you use the phrase Dorset or Toonit,
00:23:10
Speaker
But then, yeah anyway, I won't get into that. That's a whole other ah whole other episode. Which we definitely could do. That would be very fun. Yeah, we should totally do that one. There's a lot of fantasy fantasy fiction set in northern frozen waste you know climates, so we can have a look and see yeah how how actual ethnographic evidence of frozen ah climates would be. But yeah, so I mean, I guess the difference between kind of feminist archaeology and gender archaeology, if we're really being pedantic about definition, is that gender archaeology focuses on making certain social dynamics that have been ignored visible and reinterprets previous assumptions based on our kind of new understanding of
00:23:51
Speaker
those social dynamics specifically in terms of gender. Whereas feminist archaeology is more actively kind of going for the the reassessment and the reinterpretation. I think that was, and again, i'm probably this is probably going to be the episode where we get lots of people suddenly messaging us and emailing us and being like, what are you talking about? Again, as I said, there's a lot of nuance in this, but this was the what I got from it as the kind of option because yeah, there's there's a lot of very little differences is between them and there's a lot of discussion over exactly how this approach should be kind of undertaken.
Relevance of Gender Archaeology Today
00:24:32
Speaker
Absolutely. And um just to like caveat you, you know we we have reached out to numerous gender archaeology specialists for this episode. um However, it did not pan out. So we are doing it. yeah and therefore you're good hopefully Hopefully we will have someone who actually knows what they're talking about coming in and talking about this. We just wanted to provide a little bit of it. more on the subject. Definitely. Yeah. It's so broad. Yeah. I think when we started doing this, we were like, yeah, let's just do the absences and stress. Yeah, that'd be fun. Then we're like, oh my gosh. we got into It's too big. and And unfortunately, both Tilly and I are one of those people that we get lost in research. And therefore either you were going to get this episode or you would not get an episode because we would be so deep into books.
00:25:21
Speaker
we be lost a ten part special yeah but We could just do like a read along of a, no, don't yeah it's not because because indeed there is a fantastic book, yeah which indeed I had added to our notes to be like, maybe we can pick some examples from this book, but we're not going to have time because there's so many things we can talk about. There's this book called Gender Stereotypes in Archaeology, which was published by Sidestone Press. It is free to read on the Sidestone Press website. I'll put the link of that as well in the show notes. And this is just a really nice, it provides some really nice examples
00:25:58
Speaker
of why it is important to use a gender archaeology approach to the study of the past. Because I think a lot of people, maybe a lot of people listening in as well, might also be like, why do we have to make it so complicated? like Why do you have to add gender you know into the discussion? Why can't you just look at the past? Because it's important. Exactly. And I guess the problem is, it's that whole thing of because it wasn't done in the past at all, ah like in the in the past of archaeology, like it wasn't Yes. It wasn't done in our discipline at all. I mean, it was, that's the thing. So what's great about gender archaeology is it breaks down these, these almost Victorian thoughts of how family and people should be yeah kind of categorized. So like the nuclear family that women were, were simply hunt, um, gatherers and not hunters or how women were only looking after children, how they are goddesses. yeah How men were the only ones who were violent. Yeah. And they yeah. war and yeah
00:26:54
Speaker
and And also looking at LGBTQ plus people of the past. And, you know, as someone that's a part of that community, I think that's so, it's so important to look at and go back and see and and think actually the way that we look at gender and gender rules is completely different to how people in the past do. And that's what archaeologists are very good at. We're good at separating our modern society from the past. We are trained to do that from the beginnings of your first lecture, you know? Yeah. We are trained to think, well, no, it could be something completely different and interpret that way. However, people in the past in our discipline didn't do that. And just assumed that the people that were buried in these large warrior-laden material culture groups were men. But actually, now with DNA studies, we're seeing that that's not true. And therefore, it changes the way that we see a culture, a people, and a movement. And so, yeah, that's it's it's very much needed
00:27:52
Speaker
And I think right now, I needed desperately. Well, and also, I actually, I was just flicking through the gender stereotypes book, and I came across a chapter where the title is, there is no longer a need for dedicated gender archaeology, that is the stereotype that they're then trying to argue against. Yeah, absolutely. that okay, maybe you could go the other direction and could be like, okay, we don't actually need gender archaeology anymore, because we're all, you know, woke, and we all understand that it's part of the, you know, what we're looking at. So it's just automatically incorporated, we don't need a gender archaeology, we just need archaeology, because that already incorporates gender. But they make the good point that like, A, no, it doesn't. Like go a lot of the time, it still doesn't. And, you know, there's also a lot of mix up between sex and gender in terms of like biological sex and kind of the social construct.
00:28:37
Speaker
of gender. And even though you have like all of these really great a sort of developments in scientific analysis and everything, so we can like you were saying, you know, we can look at like, it was actually a a male, chief a female chieftain, not a male chieftain, no, you know, all of these kind of things. But looking at the social constructs that surround that is still something that like, hasn't been developed as much, and that needs to be developed a lot more.
Connecting Archaeology to Modern Issues
00:29:00
Speaker
But also their final point, which I think is the most important one is that, and I'm going to quote them on this, archaeology is the study of the past in the present, which, you know, yeah, like it's, it's so yeah, and they say, therefore, our research is inextricably linked to current discourses, abandoning gender topics in the past would also mean less awareness of gender problems in the present, which I think is a really good point, because
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah, the whole point of looking at the past of archaeological interpretation is to better understand how we got to where we are today and better understand what we're doing today, um which so then, yeah, if we have to look at the past with as much detail and with as much kind of awareness as if we would look at the present. Yeah, totally. Exactly. And I mean, that even relates to us as ah as a field, as a as an actual career as well. yeah yes And how we can, I sometimes think we could use some of the lessons in the past to the present and try and make things a safer environment for everyone. yeah I mean, harassment, you know,
00:30:02
Speaker
assault, bullying, everything. It's still prevalent in archaeological discourse in academia and in a kind of commercial context too. And it's something that we need to break down and gender archaeology helps us do that. It would be great that one day we just automatically have this in our discipline. It would be amazing. But almost we have to label it in order to bring attention to it. yeah yeah exactly And I mean, the same has been done, as we said, in section one in fantasy fiction, that's already kind of been addressed a lot in terms of like, oh, look, we shouldn't just have, you know, these things. And there's not just heterosexual relationships in fantasy. And, you know, there's so much difference. I mean, gosh, Ash's reading definitely isn't.
00:30:49
Speaker
It's actually human relationships all the time. Are we right now? Totally. My gosh. It's fantasy. It's a big part of fantasy. Does it doesn't matter if a Minotaur falls in love with a man? It doesn't matter, okay? Exactly. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But that's what I'm saying. I'm saying, you know, that has changed. That has changed a lot. And so, you know, if it can happen in fantasy fiction, then it should be able to happen in archaeology as well. my termation gen look at my dog
00:31:23
Speaker
but son yeah So I think we can definitely have a look through these scrolls from the perspective of gender archaeology and maybe you know reinterpret, reassess some of those stories which incorporate a damsel in distress. And then maybe we can give the students some examples and she can continue to apply that approach of kind of the gender perspective in her further reading. Yes, sounds good to me. I'm going to send her this gender stereotypes and archaeology book. Yes, it's a good one. Well, that's about it for this episode of Am My Trial. We hope you enjoyed this sort of quest. If you have any suggestions on topics for future episodes, do get in contact via email or social media, all contact info, as well as references and further reading. And for all the points we've discussed today can be found on the show notes. Also, don't forget to check out other shows okay on the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:32:12
Speaker
If you'd like to support us or our fellow podcast hosts on the network, you can always become a member. All information can be found at www.archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. I should also, though, I also want to quickly add, if you're interested in the kind of topics that were explored today, we did a live culture share event um a while ago, which focused on motherhood in archaeology and quite a few of the kind of concepts that we've touched on today were discussed by people who do actually know what they're talking about. and So if you remember, you can listen and watch that for free on the website as well. Oh, what was that? What? I don't know. I feel like something just brushed my face. Oh, maybe it's that shower of dust that's currently floating around the room. But where? that Oh, I remember now. hu Well, this next quest is going to be... What? What is it? Magical!
00:33:14
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.