Le sexisme en archéologie, ça n’existe pas

Archaeologists are confronted with many ethical issues in their daily practice; these questions also concern their practices and their behaviour towards their peers. The highlighting of gender discrimination, sometimes combined with other elements such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, social origin, physical abilities or religious beliefs, should thus be a fundamental element in reflections on professional ethics in archaeology. The “Archaeo-Sexism” exhibition presented here, a joint initiative of the Archaeo-Ethics Association and Paye Ta Truelle, is an example of such reflection.


Sexism in Archaeology, It Doesn't Exist
The Archaeo-Sexism exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Archéo-Éthique association, which aims to promote ethics in archaeology, and the Paye ta Truelle project [1], which aims to highlight sexist behaviours in the field. This project brings together anonymous testimonies from French-speaking archaeologists and archaeology students. These come both from the collection carried out by Paye ta Truelle since January 2017 and from a call for testimonies launched jointly by the Archéo-Éthique association and the same project as part of the exhibition. Most of these works are illustrated by professional artists. Starting March 2019, the exhibition was hosted in many French institutions, such as the Maison Archéologie et Ethnologie (hosting several CNRS research units in archaeology), the Université Paris Nanterre, the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, the Inrap, and will be exported in the coming months to Belgium and North America. Through this initiative, we hope to contribute to a collective and necessary awareness to show everyone that, yes, sexism in archaeology exists! Archaeologists are confronted with many ethical issues in their daily practice: difficult contexts, (de)regulation of archaeology, excavation of human remains, relations between archaeologists and communities, etc. [2]. These questions also concern archeologists' practices and their behaviour towards their peers. The highlighting of gender discrimination, sometimes combined with other elements such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, social origin, physical abilities or religious beliefs, should thus be a fundamental element of professional ethics reflection in archaeology [2][3][4]). However, for a long time this field remained hermetic to feminism [3]. The first publications on this subject appeared in English-speaking and Scandinavian circles only in the early 1980s [3,5,6], while feminist critiques were present in other disciplines starting in the 1960s [7,8]. In the French speaking world, initiatives and publications on feminist issues in archeology remain very rare.
Archaeological fieldwork is a particularly favourable place for the development of gender discrimination and harassment. First, because it involves the body, where the most common position for digging is to kneel with your buttocks up and your head down. Then, because it involves a group living together in the same place, "out of time", and for several weeks or months, who are self-sufficient and in a situation of promiscuity. However, the problem of sexism in archaeology is not limited to fieldwork. Women archaeologists are almost as numerous as men at the beginning of their careers, but their proportion decreases with the rise in the hierarchical level, whatever the context (university, local authorities, preventive archaeology). Thirty years after the first publications on inequalities in the field, women remain under-represented [7,9,10], despite the increasing number of female archaeology students and graduates each year [11,12]. The difficulties in obtaining full-time positions and promotion also show the persistence of a tenacious glass ceiling. For example, in France, at the Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives (Inrap), women are more likely to obtain part-time positions (13.5% compared to 8.5% for men) or precarious contracts (10.8% compared to 7.3% for men) [12]. In the French academic world, while the ratio of women to men is relatively balanced for assistant positions (45% women, 55% men), the imbalance becomes obvious for professor positions (37% -63%) [11]. Unfortunately, to date, we have no statistics for private companies, which has not been the subject of either the Survey of the National Education, Higher Education, Research and Innovation (2016) [11] or the study of the Observatoire de l'égalité entre femmes et hommes dans la culture et la communication (2016) [12]. We deplore this lack of data, but welcome the studies that have been carried out on the public sector.
The gendered division of labour is another recurrent problem in archaeology: fieldwork is still predominantly male, while administrative and pedagogical tasks are predominantly performed by women, as is laboratory work [11,12]. For example, between 2014 and 2016, women were more numerous among specialists at Inrap (61%); on the other hand, they were less represented (33%) among field managers (37%) and field technicians (38%). Their presence among managers in regional services in rescue archaeology is also lower (33%) [12]. In universities, they are rare or even absent in some management and supervisory positions; there too, their work is more focused on pedagogical, administrative or specialized tasks [11]. This gendered organization of work is all the more problematic during "field schools" as it undermines the duty to train students, and is thus an issue of professional ethics [2]. This discrimination in the assignment of tasks results in incomplete training of students (see for example Figure 6), which helps to reproduce (and to ratify) the gendered distribution of labour currently observed in archaeology, whether in the rescue sector, in universities [11,12], or on digs run by associations.
This overview would not be complete without mention of some more insidious forms of discrimination that are difficult to quantify. In 2013, a survey on sexual harassment and sexual assault in anthropology (including archaeology) revealed that more than 20% of participants had experienced sexual harassment or unwanted sexual touching in the workplace [13]. The perpetrators of these acts were mainly men known to the victims and held a higher hierarchical position. Even though sexist behaviours are a reality [14,15], there are still few studies on this subject [16,17]. Beyond sexual harassment and sexual assault (see for example Figures 14,15,17,18,19,21), it is important to also recognize marginalization, minimization and invisibility of the work provided (see for example Figures 5 and 6), as well as sexist remarks and attitudes (see for example Figures 8,9,10,11). Recent initiatives, such as Every Dig Sexism [14] and Paye Ta Truelle [1] which were launched in 2015 in the English-speaking world and in 2017 in the French-speaking world, have highlighted how widespread is this phenomenon.
Among the testimonies collected as part of the Archeo-Sexism exhibition and more broadly by the Paye ta Truelle project [1], several problematic behaviours appear repeatedly, such as: paternalism, Today, I was happily cleaning one of the cross sections with a spade with some male colleagues, when the head manager arrived and told me, in a very "gentleman" fashion: "Eeer... Céline, it is nice to use the spade, I know it makes your little muscles stronger, huh, it tightens up the body, but I'd rather you go help Marie with the drawings". (see also example Figure 22) manterrupting, Service meeting at the Regional Direction of Archaeology. A woman suggests a good idea. She is interrupted in her speech by a man. The man repeats her idea. General approval. mansplaining, During a dig abroad, the manager asked me to supervise a team of 7 people: 4 women and 3 men who monopolized the pickaxe. Noting that female students were constantly relegated to wheelbarrows and brushes, I decided to show them how to pick. One of the men ripped the pickaxe out of my hands and started to explain how to do it. I have been in the field for 8 years. I know how to use a pickaxe, thank you. (see also example Figure 23) a disregard for the work by mentioning that the position was obtained by seducing and/or providing sexual favours, I was publicly accused during my master's degree defence of having offered my charms to specialists (in photography, statistics, geology) to gather and build good documentation illustrating my subject. Thankfully, everyone from my lab took my defense afterwards, phew! confiscation of assigned tasks because the person is deemed incompetent from the outset (see for example Figures 4,6,10,11,12), systematic comments on the body (see for example Figures 2,8,9), unwanted sexual touching (see for example Figures 15, 18, 19), etc.
When we were preparing the Archaeo-Sexism exhibition, we sometimes presented the project to colleagues who said: "Sexism in archaeology doesn't exist". However, although the law of silence is still largely in force, the list of testimonies is already long and overwhelming. Sexist behaviour is still often downplayed or denied, victims are often made to feel guilty and there is a lack of support structures. We must collectively work on this. How about we start right now? Trelcat, Jane dans la Jungle, Rosalie Loncin, Madeleine Sassi, Louise Ternat, Cam et Mina Perrichon. We would also like to extend a special thanks to the courageous people who testified, as well as to the illustrators. Without them, the Archaeo-Sexism exhibition would not have been possible. The editors follow the recommendations and procedures outlined in the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Specifically, the editors will work to ensure the highest ethical standards of publication, including: the identification and management of conflicts of interest (for editors and for authors), the fair evaluation of manuscripts, and the publication of manuscripts that meet the journal's standards of excellence.