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How can we use material traces of past lives to understand sex and gender in the past?
Browsing All Posts filed under »sex/gender«
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
I have to admit that I was a little mystified when Archaeology online recently publicized research that used errors in working a single stone tool to propose that its less-skilled maker was probably a child. Not that I think the idea is implausible. Errors in production have been a staple of the archaeology of childhood […]
Ain’t I a Woman?
March 19, 2013
Well, no, actually– not even 30% of one. But you sure are making history. That’s my gut reaction after being asked by BBC Radio to participate in a broadcast reacting to a news story published on the BBC website today. Tagline: Rocky Horror Show writer Richard O’Brien thinks of himself as 70% male and 30% […]
Sex, Gender, and the Olympics
July 30, 2012
I could almost feel sorry for the International Olympics Committee. Almost. But then I think about the lives that have been damaged by their insistence on sorting out who “really” is female, and who is not. Beginning in 1968 the International Olympics Committee required individuals seeking to compete in women’s events to prove “their femininity […]
Men, Women, and Inequality in the Neolithic
June 3, 2012
The rich dude gets the hot chick even in prehistory. Thus a perceptive reader commenting on Wired Science’s coverage of newly published research on the roots of inequality in Neolithic Europe sums up the whole story. More soberly, the BBC News emphasizes the contingency of the new findings in its story, titled Cardiff uni claims […]
“So I could be easeful”: Celebrate and Support New Scholars
May 4, 2012
The Chronicle of Higher Education is a tabloid that few outside the academy will have heard of, and fewer insider the academy actually read than might be indicated by its ubiquity in campus administrative offices. It becomes relevant to many new or nearing completion PhDs because it contains employment ads. While the image conjured up […]
What’s the News in News about Roles of Maya Women?
March 2, 2012
I am waiting (impatiently) for yesterday’s UC Riverside press release to get picked up by the mainstream media. The press release tells us that Contrary to popular belief, women played a central role in Maya society before the arrival of Spanish explorers in the early 16th century, a University of California, Riverside graduate student has […]
Honoring Janus, looking backward and forward
January 2, 2012
Happy New Year! Ever wonder why January 1 is observed as New Year’s Day in the Gregorian calendar? I went on a journey to find a rationale for this unusual choice; biased by years of studying ancient Mesoamerica, I found it odd that with the winter solstice so close, the year began at an apparently […]
Bone deep: sex and the skeleton
August 27, 2011
I have been waiting to see how long it would take the mainstream press to make the obvious joke about news the New York Times recently reported, that a protein called osteocalcin, which is produced by bone-forming cells called osteoblasts, binds to a specific receptor on cells of the testes. Male mice that were unable […]
Neanderthal/sapiens: a stormy love affair?
August 7, 2011
I have spent a lot of time reading about new findings about Neanderthals over the past year. Recently, I wrote about the coincidence of two studies published in July: one demonstrating genetic overlap between modern humans and Neanderthals (resulting from sexual relationships), the other proposing that Neanderthals were pushed out of their territory by an […]
Body Histories: “Expressive muscles” and women’s fatigue
July 8, 2011
“Any doctor who saw how even experienced female athletes collapsed and were lying on the ground after the race could not support this kind of athletic competition for women.” Norwegian historian Kerstin Bornholdt cites this statement, by a German doctor, H. Franzmeyer, reacting to what he saw as the unsuitable participation by women in the […]
April 21, 2013
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