THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN ARCHEOLOGYCarol Kramer

University of Arizona

Miriam StarkUniversity of Arizona

Reprinted from the Anthropology Newsletter 29(9): 1,11-12. 1988.

Earlier studies, such as those cited in Roger Sanjek'sseminal Signs article, clearly show that womenanthropologists traditionally tend to have lower statusthan men. Suspecting that this might be the case inarcheology as well as in anthropology more generally,our objective was to identify areas in which differencesbetween the sexes might be empirically expressed.Selected observations regarding archeology PhDrecipients, patterns in funding or pre- and post-doctorallevel archeologists and faculty composition in majordepartments suggest that in the US doctorates, researchgrants and prestigious academic appointments aredifferentially acquired by male and female archeologists.Using longitudinal data covering the period 1976-1986,

we offer the following observations:1. More men than women receive the PhD in

anthropological archeology. Data reviewed belowneither support nor refute the hypothesis that thisdifference exists regardless of size and sex compositionof entering student cohorts. Establishing causalrelationships between discrimination against students andstudents' sex would require detailed longitudinalquantitative as well as qualitative documentation from anumber of departments, which we lack. We note,however, that data from the 1976-86 AAA Guide clearlydemonstrate that throughout this decade women haveconstituted about half of all anthropology graduatestudents in the departments shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Women in Archeology Programs

Institution

Arizona

UCLA

UC Berkeley

Michigan

HarvardPenn

Washington State

Wisconsin- M adison

Arizona SlateColumbia

Illinois Urbana

Oregon

Penn Slate

SUNY-Binghamton

Southern Illinois

BrownSouthern Methodist

Colorado-Boulder

Pittsburgh

Texas-Austin

Michigan Stale

N. Carolina-Chapel Hill

Yale

Minnesota

Northwestern

Missouri-Columbia

UC Davis

UC Santa Barbara

Mew Mexico

Chicago

GraduateStudents

145.5140

133.4

109.5

90.6

129.2

73.2

90.2

119.5

142.1

68.658.7

55.5

67.1

51.934.4

52.4

66.2

80.4

150.5

55

4540.8

43.9

42.3

48.2

40.4

38.9

104.9

113.3

Total57

51

48

44

42

37

3627

25

24

2424

24

24

23

2222

21

19

19

18

16

16

15151514

14

14

13

ArcheologyPhDs* Women

15

25

18

16

12

13

67

8

12

89

7

12

4

94

6

5

77

2

8

67

3

17

5

6

t%](26.3)(49)

(37.5)

(36.3)

(28.5)

(35.1)

(16.6)(25.9)

(32)(50)

(33.3)

(37.5)

(29.1)

(50)

(17.3)

(40.9)

(18.1)(28.5)

(26.3)

(36.8)

(38.8)

(12.5)

(50)

(40)

(46.6)

(20)

(7.1)(50)(35.7)(46.1)

NSF predoctoralgrants

1.

3

9

1

3

1

2

41

2

4

1

5

1

4-

2

3

11..2

2

3

(N women)

(1)

(1)(4)

(1)

(1)

(1)

(1)-

(1)-

(1)

(1).

--

U)

(1)

(1)

(2).

(1)

NSF postdoctoral 1

grants

94

511

7

3

9

5

2

2

3

64

1

4

12

5

3

3-

12

11137

18

10

(N women) i

(2) :

(1)

(3)

t

(1)(1)

--

•

(1)-

-(2)

(1)

MEH grants

N women)\

(

S (1)

' (1)

> (1)

*

2

21

4 ( 1 )2

12 (1 )

1

2

NGS grants

(N women)

9

6

4

3

6

11

4

2 (1)3

1

2

1

4A

2

3

2.

1

3 (3)2

12(5)

TOTALS 76.3 255 (33.4) 56 (19) 142 (12) 53 (5) 85(89)

18 Carol Kramer and MiriamStark

Figure 1 shows that their numbers rose slightly duringthis period. If we assume that archeology students areneither disproportionately under- nor over-representedin four-field departments of anthropology, then thesefigures suggest that although the sexes have similarrepresentation as enrolled graduate students ofarcheology, attrition rates through the course of thegraduate program vary by gender. Our data suggestthat women students are either slower to receive thePhD than their male counterparts, or they are leaving atproportionally higher rates during the graduate studentphase of their education, or both. Daniel Koshland hasrecently noted a comparable pattern of differentialattrition in the sciences generally.

100

9 0

80

7O-

6 O -

5 0 -

_i

o

u.OI—

zUJoa:UJ

< <JO

O* 30

20-

10-

—±— GRADUATE STUDENTS IN 30 SAMPLEDEPARTMENTS (ALL SU8FIELDS)

— . — ARCHAEOLOGY PhD», ALL DEPARTMENTS

--••-ARCHAEOLOGY Ph.Ds CONFERRED BY30 SAMPLE DEPARTMENTS

- - • - - ARCHAEOLOGY NSF POST DOC GRANTEES

— • — ARCHAEOLOGY FACULTY, 30 SAMPLEDEPARTMENTS

n

o

YEAR

2? 5?

Figure 1. Representation of woiiini arclicologists in selectedprofessional contcxLs.

2. At various points during a female archeologist'sdoctoral and postdoctoral career she is less likely both

to seek and receive funding than is a male archeologist.More women archeologists apply for support in non-fleldwork projects, but it is also evidently the case thatproportionally fewer recent National Science Foundation(NSF) applications by women for fieldwork have beenfunded. Our best data come from NSF, but we suspectthat patterns of sex-linked bias exist in researchsponsorship decisions made by other funding agencies.Because our data concerning other agencies are not asfine-grained as those generously made available by NSFAnthropology Program officers, comparison andgeneralization are not possible here.

3. Within the pool of archeology PhDs, proportionallyfewer women than men occupy teaching positions in dienation's most prominent departments. Excluding the 30departments shown in Table 1, a total of 234 USanthropology departments in the 1986-87 AAA Guidelisted archeologists on their faculties. Of 486 full-timearcheologists, 99 (20%) were women. Because many ofthese departments do not confer PhDs in audiropology,we do not consider them all fully comparable with thosein Table 1. Nonetheless, we think it worth noting thatthe proportion of women employed by these departmentsis higher tiian it is among those shown in Table 1, andlower than the total number of PhDs conferred on USwomen archeologists in the period 1976-86. We arewondering where all the recent female PhDs have gone.

DATA

Dissertations

Our first objective was to identify the pool of PhDswho might subsequently be employed in anthropologydepartments. We assumed that these same individualsmight also seek research support from the AnthropologyProgram at NSF, described recently by John Yellen andMary Greene, the premier funding agency for basicresearch by American archeologists. Changingacademic achievement, reflected in part in thedistribution of female and male recipients of thedoctorate in space and over time, is also a possibleindicator of more general changes in women's status.

We began by examining archeological dissertations,relying on two major sources of information:Dissertation Abstracts International and the AAA Guideto Departments of Anthropology. All dissertation titlesand, where available, advisors' names, were recorded,and those deemed more properly classical archeologythan andiropological archeology were omitted from thesample.

The Status of Women in Archeology 19

From the information collected, it was possible tomake observations concerning the sex and culture areaof most recipients of the doctorate. When confrontedwith ambiguous personal names, we consulted regionalspecialists: a very small number of individuals withirresolvably ambiguous names were omitted from ouranalysis. During the period 1976-1986, a mean of 101archeology PhDs was awarded annually. Womensubmitted 401, or 36%, of the dissertations,representing from 26% to 45% of PhDs in any year.Figure 1 suggests that despite obvious fluctuations in thenumber of degrees conferred from one year to the next,there has been an overall increase in the number ofwomen PhDs since 1976. While the majority of bothmen and women selected New World dissertation topics,slightly more of the women- 40 %-- than men- 27%--chose Old World subjects. Perhaps this figure reflectsa slightly higher representation of women archeologistsin such non-anthropology departments as art history,Near Eastern or Oriental Studies, and classics orclassical archeology.

Limited time and support required that we consideronly a sampling of information available for our review.All of the departments identified as producing PhDs inarcheology were ranked in terms of "productivity" bytallying the total number of dissertations awarded bydepartment between 1976 and 1986. Of the 50institutions granting 964 degrees in anthropologicalarcheology, 30 were selected for closer study. Shownin Table 1, these departments were deemed most"productive" in terms of number of dissertationscompleted. Their students produced 763 dissertations,an average of 25 PhDs per department, from 1976 to1986. Of these, 33% were submitted by women; thisfigure is close to, but slightly lower than, the mean(36%) of women doctoral recipients for the 50institutions granting archeology PhDs. The averageduration of the graduate student career is one factor toconsider in analyzing doctorate recipients. Forexample, during the decade we reviewed, it is possiblethat men tended to complete the PhD more rapidlybecause they received stronger financial support, or thatmore women worked part-time or took more time outfor child-rearing. Unfortunately, figures for sex-linkedattrition rates and mean duration of doctoral study arenot readily obtainable, and it therefore remains unclearwhether women archeology students leave graduateprograms in higher proportions or at faster rates thanmen. Roy D'Andrade's (1975) pioneering study ofanthropology programs suggests that female studentssuffered greater casualty rates than their malecounterparts, and that they enjoyed lower levels of

financial support; the same may still be true in programstraining archeologists. Leslie Wildesen (1980)considered aspects of self-selection in the careertrajectories of women archeologists several years ago,and Jonathan Cole and Harriet Zuckerman (1987)discuss this matter in their recent review of postdoctoralwomen in the sciences more generally.

Research Grants

Another potential indicator of the status of women inarcheology may be seen in the distribution of fundingfrom major agencies. Our best data come from NSF,but we also utilize data from the National GeographicSociety (NGS) and the National Endowment for theHumanities (NEH). NSF makes awards at the pre- andpostdoctoral levels. During the period 1980-85, 103predoctoral applications were submitted by men, and 65by women; 37% of female applicants were funded, incontrast to 46% of the male applicants. NSF receivedfrom 20 to 33 applications in any given year for suchdissertation improvement awards, and funded between30% and 60% of them. In any year during thisinterval, 26% to 52% of the predoctoral applicationswere female, and grants to women ranged from 14% to64% of total awards. Patterns of funding appear toreaffirm our selection of "top-ranking" departmentsbased on productivity: over six years, 78% of NSF's 72dissertation improvement awards went to departmentslisted in Table 1: exactly one-third of these awards weregiven to female students.

Success rates at the predoctoral level are higher forboth men and women than is the case for postdoctoralapplicants. However, unpublished NSF information thatincludes selected data on declined applications revealsthat proportionally fewer proposals came from womenarcheologists with PhDs, and that fewer grants weremade to them. Illustrating wide annual fluctuation andno clear patterning, the spikes in Figure 1 probablyreflect the short temporal span and the small number ofwomen applicants about whom we have data.Applications from women never exceeded 24% of thetotal applications in one year; in any year, as few as5%, and as many as 20% of the awards, were towomen. In total, women submitted only 14% of thesuccessful proposals. During the fiscal years 1980-86,19% of 919 NSF proposals for postdoctoralarcheological research were from women. Of allarcheology applications, 26% were funded; 19% ofwomen applicants were successful, in contrast with 28 %of men. More than half of these awards went to thedepartments shown in Table 1, yet fewer than 10% of

20 Carol KramerandMiriamStark

these grants were to women members of these 30faculties.

Several years ago, Yellen reported that the proposedsize of women's NSF budgets and the duration of theirresearch tended to be less than those of male applicants.Using some of the same NSF application and awarddata, Joan Gero suggested that, proportionally, womenalso tended to apply for more lab analysis thanfieldwork. Unpublished information recently providedus by NSF (which does not identify individuals orinstitutions) suggests that these trends may be changing.In the period 1980-86, the average proposed projectduration was very close for both sexes: 18.7 months forwomen in contrast to 18.6 months for men, while themedian was 16.5 months for women in contrast to 12for men. Budget figures are also barely different: 176female applicants requested a mean budget of $93,778hi comparison with $91,790 from 739 men; the medianbudget figures are $69,000 and $68,000 for women andmen, respectively.

The discrepancies for fieldwork, as opposed tolaboratory or other non-fieldwork projects, aresomewhat greater, reflecting a pattern outlined earlierby Gero. Slightly more of the proposals submitted bywomen — 33% — were for non-fieldwork projects,compared with 27 % of those submitted by men; 22 % ofthe women's proposals were funded, in contrast with25 % of the men's. Comparatively less support has beenmade available to women to do fieldwork; 17% ofwomen's applications for field projects were funded, incontrast to 29% of those submitted by men (Figure 2).

Archeological research is also routinely supported byNGS, NEH, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation forAnthropological Research (about which no informationwas available to us). Unfortunately, availableinformation regarding NEH and NGS grants toarcheologists does not distinguish between pre- andpostdoctoral grants (although NEH does not currentlymake awards at the predoctoral level), and precise dataon award duration and amount are not readily available.As is also the case with NSF, grant recipients mayinclude research associates as well as full-time facultyand faculty archeologists not in anthropologydepartments. Some grants are renewals to the sameindividual, and in some instances where awards aremade to two or more coprincipal investigators, theadditional names are those of women. Unfortunately,such information could not be accommodated in ourstudy: never fully comparable in their modes ofreleasing grant information, funding agencies have alsomodified their recording and reporting practices over theyears, and we lack the means to standardize the

information available.

IOO

= 60.

Xtu SO

2 0 -

10

Oo

• •A. cf ma- - • - $ "CLDWtMK

i l l i c i tea E«

Figure 2. NSF past doctoral applications and awards inarcheology, 1980-1986.

We also lack data on total applications and thereforeon award rates for either NEH or NGS. Awards bythese agencies to archeologists in the 30 departments weconsider are, however, summarized in Table 1. Overthe period 1980-86, NGS conferred a total of 85 grantson these departments, of which 10.5% went to women,NEH granted 53 awards, of which 9.3% were given towomen. These figures are lower than but not markedlydifferent from those for NSF postdoctoral grants toarcheologists; none of them is commensurate with eitherthe proportion of PhDs awarded to women 1976-1986 orthe current representation of women in die archeologyfaculties of the departments shown in Table 1, andelsewhere in the nation.

Archeology Faculty in Anthropology Departments

A third potential indicator of the status of women inarcheology is the representation of female archeologistsin anthropology departments across the country. Whilethe departments we list in Table 1 produce the majority

The Status of Women in Archeology 21

of PhDs in archeology, they do not necessarily typify allanthropology departments in matters of facultycomposition, tenure of service or rank. Listings in theGuide reveal that during the period 1976-1986,archeologists ranged from 25% to 29% of the totalanthropology faculty in the 30 departments shown inTable 1. During this interval, six of these departmentshad no female archeologists, at least two others had onlyvisiting professors for very short terms, some seem tohave cross-listed as faculty women with primarycommitments to such affiliated institutions as museums,and others may well have employed women only inshort-term, non-tenure track appointments. During thisperiod, women never exceeded 15% of the totalarcheology faculty in this group, although thepercentage has slowly increased, from a low of 6%during our sample period and probably from an evenlower percentage of women archeologists prior to the1970s.

We suspect that the proportion of women archeologistsin the 30 anthropology departments shown in Table 1may not accurately represent the total proportion ofwomen in the country's pool of practicing archeologists.We are led to this speculation in part because theproportion of female non-student members of thearcheology section of the AAA is substantially greaterthan it is for these faculties. Of 600 fellows andmembers, one-third (205) are women; this figure isclose to the percentage of PhDs awarded to women inthe period 1976-86. Not all of these female membershold faculty appointments, while other femalearcheologists are AAA members who have opted not tobe archeology section members, and/or are SAA orSOP A members. The percentage, rather than the rawnumbers (which appear low), might be viewed as arough-and-ready proxy measure of the pool of femalearcheologists who are potentially employable in academe-- about one-third of the total. This figure is double thepercentage of women among archeology faculty of the30 departments producing the vast majority of femalePhDs.

Given their numerical representation in anthropologydepartments, male faculty are appointed directors for thevast majority of students of both sexes. The role offaculty members in students' careers is complex, and"mentoring" does not readily lend itself to quantitativeanalysis, particularly of data of the sort considered here.Our figures on dissertation improvement grants are toosmall, and represent too short a span, to suggest anyclear pattern relating to sexual bias in mentoring or indifferentiated career trajectories of male and female

students. The role of women faculty in seeing studentsthrough a graduate course of study is difficult toevaluate or quantify. That some women archeologyfaculty may play an active role in supporting womenstudents is suggested by the fact that female projectdirectors sponsored 7 male and 11 female applicants,figures in marked contrast to the sex ratio in the totalpool of predoctoral grant applicants.

DISCUSSION

Several additional sources of information about femalearcheologists might usefully be tapped. The AAA Guideis a rich source of information about women in manymore departments than those we consider here, andanalysis of its listings can illuminate longitudinal trendsin degree-granting as well as employment and promotionpractices. For example, many departments employarcheologists on a pan-time basis, and it is possible thatsuch part-timers are more often women than men.There also exist listings of museum staffs, includingthose in the Guide, which count archeologists amongtheir numbers. We think it likely that usefulinformation might be obtained from rosters of federalagencies' employees, and long-term patterns identifiablein membership information for AAA, SAA, and SOP A.Numerous private contract firms also employprofessional archeologists, as may such funding agenciesas Wenner-Gren, FROM, the Heinz Foundation and"popular" as well as specialized periodicals devoted toarcheology. These and other sources of informationcould be evaluated to amplify, improve, and refine thepicture outlined here.

It seems probable that new archeology PhDs enteringacademe are not likely to be immediately recruited intothe 30 departments listed in Table 1, and we wouldexpect this to hold true for both men and women.Examination of additional sources should inform on theprofessional whereabouts of the large number of womenwho have successfully completed PhDs in archeology,but have evidently not joined the ranks of majoranthropology departments, or of sponsored researchers,in numbers commensurate with the rate at which largearcheology programs produce them.

We have focused here on a few indicators of the statusof women in a few sectors of American archeology,rather than on the reasons that might account forwomen's lower status. It seems likely that it is at thelevel of the doctoral program ~ and perhapsconcomitantly in the crucial quest for support thataccompanies the research of most advanced students and

22 Carol Kramer and Miriam Stark

newly minted PhDs -- that women's underrepresentationfirst reflects gender-based status differentiation. Anyexplanation of observed inequalities would be complex,requiring a data base broader and richer than that whichwe are able to analyze here. Thus, our study hasgenerated more questions than answers. We wonder, forexample, why women are not more successful inobtaining funding for their research. And we are curiousto know whether the presence of a woman mentor offersa female graduate student any selective advantage. Doparticular doctoral programs systematically discourageor encourage female students? We are unable to obtainsufficient information on funding agencies, anthropologydepartments and individual PhD candidates, recipientsand advisors to explore adequately these and manyrelated questions. Nonetheless, we suggest that thereremains a need to further study, and to continue toimprove, the status of women in archeology.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Kramer visited the University of Arizona on a grant from NSF'sVisiting Professorships for Women Program (1986-1987); Stark wasalso supported by that grant. We are most grateful to the followingfor providing information and assistance: John Yellen and MaryGreene. Anthropology Program at NSF; David Wise at NEH; GlennDavis Stone. Columbia University, and Mary Van Buren, Universityof Arizona. A number of colleagues offered thoughtful comments ofearlier drafts; we are thankful to (but in no way implicate) CatherineCameron, Harriet Manelis Klein. Laura Kramer. Karen OppenheimMason. Robert McC. Netting. Nan Rothschild. RogerSanjek, MichaelB. Schiffer. Matthew Stolper. Mary Van Buren, and Lisa Young.

REFERENCES

Cole. Jonathon R. and Harriet Zuckerman1987 Marriage. Motherhood and Research Performance in

Science, Scientific American 256(2): 119-125.

D'Andrade, Roy1975 Minorities in Anthropology Higher Degree Programs.

AAA Newsletter 16 (9): 19-23.

Gero, Joan M.1983 Gender Bias in Archaeology: a Cross-Cultural Perspective.

In The Socio-Politics of Archaeology, eds. J.M. Gero,D.M. Lacy, and M.L. Biakey. Pp. 51-57. Amherst:University of Massachusetts Department of AnthropologyResearch Report 23.

1985 Socio-politics and the Woman-at-Home Ideology. AmericanAntiquity 50(2):342-350.

Koshland, Daniel E. Jr.1988 Women in Science. Science 239 (4847): 1473.

National Gallery of Art1986 Sponsored Research in the History of Art 5 (1980-1986): A

Cumulative Record. Center for Advanced Study in theVisual Arts. Washington. D.C.: National Gallery of Art.

Sanjek, Roger1982 The American Anthropological Association Resolution on

the Employment of Women: Genesis, Implementation,Disavowal, and Resurrection. Signs: Journal of Women inCulture and Society 7 (4): 845-868.

Wildesen, Leslie E.1980 The Status of Women in Archeology: Results of a

Preliminary Survey. Anthropology Newsletter 21 (5): 5-8.

Yellen. John1983 Women, Archaeology, and the National Science

Foundation. In The Socio-Politics of Archaeology, eds.J.M. Gero, D.M. Lacy, M.L. Biakey. Pp. 59-65.Amherst: University of Massachusetts, Department ofAnthropology Research Report 23.

Yellen. John and Mary Greene1985 Archaeology and the National Science

American Antiquity 50 (2): 332-341.Foundation.