While you might already be familiar with the term “gender gap” from sports, politics, or the sciences, did you know that a gender gap exists in archaeology as well? In fact, the presence of sex-based discrimination towards female academic archaeologists at colleges and universities in the United States remains a well-known but rarely addressed issue in the archaeological world. As someone whose dream career is to become an academic archaeologist, I felt inspired to research this topic in the fall of 2024. Moreover, two of UE’s archaeology professors have spent significant parts of their careers tackling this issue. 

It only takes a quick internet search to see the imbalance among the numbers of men and women who work in American academia. According to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Association of University Women (AAUW), 36% of full professors, 44% of tenure-track faculty, and the majority of contingent faculty (lecturers, adjuncts, instructors, etc.) are women. These percentages are nowhere near the goal of 50%. Despite the surge in women attending undergraduate archaeology programs in the US, the current data on the number of women who are archaeologists working specifically in academia either does not reflect this rise or is extremely scarce. Altogether, this disturbing reality led me to wonder about what obstacles still prevent female archaeologists from equal representation in academia. The answer is simple, but the solution complex: systemic sexism. 

 I believe the reason that female academic archaeologists still face systemic sexism is because of chauvinism’s persistence in American culture. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, chauvinism is “an attitude of superiority towards members of the opposite sex.” Chauvinism in American culture is the pervading view that men are superior to women and therefore deserve better and more opportunities for success. It is precisely this attitude that leads to sexism, and ultimately, misogyny. The continuing effects of systemic sexism in archaeological academia include a gender gap in positions of power, gender bias in publishing, and harmful conditions in the workplace. Fortunately, I have found that North American archaeologists, particularly American Historical Archaeologists, have been more consistent in recognizing and addressing this issue than Classical archaeologists, which provides a source of hope and a path towards promoting change. 

First, there are less women in positions of power in archaeological academia, which include tenured/tenure-track professorships and directors of field schools. According to the AAUP (2024), across all academic departments in the fall of 2021, men held 65% of tenured and tenure-track positions, while women held 54%. On the other hand, men held 35% of contingent faculty positions, while women held 46%. Using these percentages and approximate counts from a 2012 blog, I calculated that across the US, 759 male archaeologists have tenure or tenure-track positions versus 631 women, and that there are 215 contingent faculty archaeologists who are women versus 164 men. I predict that the gender gap in the numbers of contingent faculty will only increase as universities turn to hiring more and more adjunct faculty to save money. The situation in Classical archaeology is especially severe; for example, it only took until this academic year for the UE Archaeology Department to have an even 50/50 split between male and female faculty, despite consistently accepting more undergraduate students who are women. Additionally, fewer female archaeologists are hired as field school directors; the director of the field school that I attended in the summer of 2023, Poggio Civitate Archaeological Project, was a man, while 62% of the staff under him were women. 

A gender bias against women in academic archaeological publishing has been a problem since the time of former UE professor Mary Ross Ellingson, whose graduate school advisor ultimately plagiarized her master’s thesis in the 1930s. It is this specter of plagiarism that continues to haunt modern academic publishing, because the same chauvinist ideas that motivated Ellingson’s advisor still exist, albeit in a different form. Even today, fewer women are published than men in both North American and Classical archaeology; however, more North American archaeologists, such as Dr. Laura Heath-Stout, have published peer-reviewed articles with evidence supporting the gender bias than Classical archaeologists. For example, Heath-Stout found that, from 2007 to 2016, men wrote 58% of the articles in the Classical American Journal of Archaeology, while women wrote 42%. Men wrote 69% of the articles in the North American Advances in Archaeological Practice; women wrote only 31%.

Unfortunately, female academic archaeologists also continue to experience a range of sexist behaviors from their male colleagues in the workplace, from comments on teaching evaluations, to rigid gender roles, and even sexual harassment. According to Kim Elsesser in a 2024 Forbes article, “Female faculty… receive lower numeric scores and more negative comments about their personality, appearance, competence, and professionalism” on evaluations than their male colleagues. It is often female faculty that face society pressures to “chose” between having a family or having a career. Furthermore, blogs such as Trowelblazers, podcasts such as Women in Archaeology, and other forms of popular media have recently become safe spaces for women in archaeological academia to share experiences of inappropriate and violent sexist behavior from their male co-workers in the field that other men have often downplayed as “funny” or “harmless.” Once again, it is female North American archaeologists, like the creates of Trowelblazers and Women in Archaeology who have led the way in alerting the public to the harm that women have experienced in their workplaces. 

Why is addressing systemic sexism in American academic archaeology so important? Women in positions of power provide unique perspectives that deserve to be heard equally and they provide important mentoring roles in a discipline that is quickly becoming female-dominant. Controlling the dissemination of one’s own work is also very empowering, and as readers hear the voices of more published women in archaeological interpretation, it will loosen men’s dominance over how the public learns about archaeological sites. Finally, women deserve to feel safe and respected in a job that they love. 

So, what can we do about the gender gap in archaeological academia? Currently, I am looking more into why North American archaeologists addressed and criticized systemic sexism in the discipline earlier than Classical archaeologists. So far, I have found that North American archaeology has tended to be more diverse, more self-critical, and more open to new ideas than Classical archaeology. For far too long, Classical archaeologists have been more focused on “proving” events in famous ancient texts and conducting large digs than reflecting on the need for change in their discipline. I believe that there are many strategies for combating sexism that Classical archaeologists can learn from the initiatives of North American archaeologists. I also think that holding men accountable for their inappropriate behavior, and implementing diversity policies in hiring academics, are also good places to start. Most importantly, however, it is vital to recognize that real change relies on altering the dominant chauvinist culture, and cultural change is far more difficult. This type of change really begins with students like me and you, who must remain willing to write, speak, and present on systemic sexism, because our work sets an important precedent and leaves behind an “action plan” for future generations to follow.