Feminist Equity Critiques in Archaeology

The concept of feminism has a complex history and multiple definitions. Following Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren Klein (Reference D’Ignazio and Klein2020:6), we understand feminism “as a shorthand for diverse and wide-ranging projects that name and challenge sexism and other forms of oppression, as well as those which seek to create more just, equitable, and livable futures.” Within anthropological archaeology, Alison Wylie (Reference Wylie1997:81–83) has usefully distinguished between feminist content and feminist equity critiques. Content critiques consider the frequent lack of women in archaeological interpretations of the past, and the problems that arise when archaeologists unreflexively conceptualize the women who do populate the past “in normatively middle-class, white, North American terms” (Wylie Reference Wylie1997:82). Equity critiques focus on contemporary archaeological practice, and specifically on forms of marginalization, including “differential support, training, and advancement” (Wylie Reference Wylie1997:83).

Scholars have advanced equity critiques of archaeology for nearly half a century (see also Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2024:4–6). The earliest of these critiques often used universal, binary understandings of difference to articulate issues facing women in the discipline. In the ensuing decades, scholars began the critical process of documenting and quantifying various gender-based inequalities, including in rates of grant funding, types of publications, and hiring practices. Many of these studies considered only cisgendered men and women. More recently, those advancing such critiques have reconceptualized understandings of difference, particularly through the adoption of Black feminist, queer, and posthumanist approaches.

Several of the first equity critiques in archaeology considered gendered divisions of labor, often within a structuralist paradigm that emphasized the universality of binary oppositions. In the decade following Sherry Ortner’s (Reference Ortner, Rosaldo and Lamphere1974:69) “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” in which she reflected on the “problem of the universal devaluation of women,” several considered the different connotations of men’s and women’s archaeological labor. In their discussion of the difficulties of adopting a conservation ethic in archaeology, Ned Woodall and Philip Perricone (Reference Woodall and Perricone1981:506, 507; see also Beaudry et al. Reference Beaudry, White, Claasen and Claasen1994), for instance, argued that archaeologists had “created a body of myths, legends, and culture heroes” that “meshes neatly with the traditional Euroamerican image of males,” and that this self-image contrasts sharply with the “congruence found between the traditional view of preservationists and the feminine stereotype in our culture.”

Perhaps most famously, Joan Gero (Reference Gero1985:342) published a consideration of the “socio-politics of archaeology,” in which she analyzed the influence of traditional American gender stereotypes on archaeologists’ professional roles. In an oft-cited passage, she described

Soon thereafter, archaeologists began using various forms of quantitative data and statistical analyses to document and analyze gender inequities within the discipline. Beginning in the 1990s, articles appeared in Society for American Archaeology Bulletin using survey data to understand such issues as the “difference between the salaries of men and women performing similar jobs” (Zeder Reference Zeder1997:21), and using the annual American Anthropological Association (AAA) guide to ascertain whether women were “being hired in academia in proportion to their representation among Ph.D. recipients” (Hutson Reference Hutson1998:41). In the mid-2000s, Jo Ellen Burkholder (Reference Burkholder2006) published an analysis of gendered ratios of participation at the annual Society for American Archaeology (SAA) meetings, and in the mid-2010s, the SAA initiated the Task Force on Gender and Rates of Research Grant Submissions to understand disparities in the rates of post-PhD grants awarded to women and men Principal Investigaors (PIs); Goldstein et al. Reference Goldstein, Mills, Herr and Burkholder2017, Reference Goldstein, Mills, Herr, Burkholder, Aiello and Thornton2018). These and other studies began documenting the complexity of gender-based inequality within and beyond the United States (e.g., Coltofean-Arizancu et al. Reference Coltofean-Arizancu, Gaydarska, Plutniak, Mary, Hlad, Algrain and Pasquini2023; Hodgetts et al. Reference Hodgetts, Supernant, Lyons and Welch2020; Mate and Ulm Reference Mate and Ulm2021). The Task Force, for example, found that the lack of research grants with women PIs was not the direct result of gender bias in awarding grants but instead reflected other variables, including that women archaeologists are less likely to be employed by institutions prioritizing academic research (see Hutson et al. Reference Hutson, Castro and Teruel2025).

Quantitative studies of gender-based inequalities in archaeology have proliferated, especially in the last decade. Archaeologists have analyzed the relationship between gender identity and various aspects of publications (Bardolph Reference Bardolph2014; Bardolph and Vanderwarker Reference Bardolph and Vanderwarker2016; Fulkerson and Tushingham Reference Fulkerson and Tushingham2019; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2020a; Hutson et al. Reference Hutson, Johnson, Price, Record, Rodriguez, Snow and Stocking2023; Rautman Reference Rautman2012; Tushingham et al. Reference Tushingham, Fulkerson and Hill2017), and documented gendered disparities in mentoring relationships (Brown Reference Brown2018), citation practices (Hutson Reference Hutson2002, Reference Hutson2006), and hiring and retention (Hoggarth et al. Reference Hoggarth, Batty, Bondura, Creamer, Ebert, Green-Mink and Kieffer2021; Overholtzer and Jalbert Reference Overholtzer and Jalbert2021; Speakman et al. Reference Speakman, Hadden, Colvin, Justin Cramb, Jones and Lulewicz2018). Globally, archaeologists have also documented continuing and profound gender pay gaps in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia (Mate and Ulm Reference Mate and Ulm2021), as well as startlingly high rates of harassment, assault, bullying, and intimidation across Europe (Coltofean-Arizancu et al. Reference Coltofean-Arizancu, Gaydarska, Plutniak, Mary, Hlad, Algrain and Pasquini2023).

Collectively, these studies suggest that while gender inequality remains a persistent problem in archaeology, there has been progress. To take one example, “The percentage of women first authors in top-tier peer-reviewed archaeology journals [has] increased . . . although women are not yet at parity with men” (Hutson et al. Reference Hutson, Johnson, Price, Record, Rodriguez, Snow and Stocking2023:338). There have also been new challenges and setbacks, most notably those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. As one study found, “the major impact of job losses were experienced by women” (Hoggarth et al. Reference Hoggarth, Batty, Bondura, Creamer, Ebert, Green-Mink and Kieffer2021:1686).

Alongside producing quantitative documentation of gender inequality, archaeologists have also adopted new understandings of difference. Like those in other fields, archaeologists—taking cues from queer theory (e.g., Blackmore Reference Blackmore2011; Dowson Reference Dowson2000; Eichner Reference Eichner2025; Moral Reference Moral2016; Rutecki and Blackmore Reference Rutecki and Blackmore2016; Springate Reference Springate2020; Voss Reference Voss2000)—have moved beyond assumptions of binary gender categories. Adopting an anti-essentialist and counterhegemonic perspective, queer theory encourages individuals to “question that which is considered normal, natural, or obvious” (Eichner Reference Eichner2025:3) and to “deconstruct . . . the ‘taken-for-granted’ assumptions within scholarly discourse” (Rutecki and Blackmore Reference Rutecki and Blackmore2016:9). More specifically, queer theory challenges heteronormative practices, recognizes the multivocality of gendered identities, and questions the often dichotomous categories used to understand identities. As Katrinia Eichner (Reference Eichner2025:3) notes, “Within queer inquiry, binaries are abandoned in favor of spectrums, networks, clouds, and matrices.” Queer theory thus encourages inclusivity and destabilizes normative, binary, sex, and gender categories (Voss Reference Voss2000:184).

Taking cues from Black feminist paradigms (Battle-Baptiste Reference Battle-Baptiste2017; Flewellen et al. Reference Flewellen, Dunnavant, Odewale, Jones, Wolde-Michael, Crossland and Franklin2021; Franklin Reference Franklin2001; Sterling Reference Sterling2015), archaeologists have also adopted an explicitly intersectional approach (Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2020b, Reference Heath-Stout2024:13–14). As originally articulated by Kimberlé Crenshaw (Reference Crenshaw1989, Reference Crenshaw1991), intersectionality referred to the ways in which racism and sexism intertwined in the American legal system to harm Black women. In the intervening decades, the concept of intersectionality has offered a useful way to consider the convergence of multiple forms of identity and oppression, including those related to class, age, sexual orientation, nationality, and many others (e.g., Agbe-Davies Reference Agbe-Davies, Moen and Pedersen2025; Spencer-Wood and Trunzo Reference Spencer-Wood and Cantú Trunzo2022; Sterling Reference Sterling, Matić, Gaydarska, Coltofean and Díaz-Guardamino2024). Intersectionality thus “rejects the homogenization of women’s experiences” (Sterling Reference Sterling2015:95) and instead “takes into account how various structures of oppression are intertwined and how these power structures become mutually reinforced by one another” (Grahn Reference Grahn2011:225). As Maria Franklin (Reference Franklin2001:109) has argued, “While Black feminist theorizing centers on the issues and concerns with Black women’s lives . . . its critique has implications for all archaeologies that claim a critical space and which advocate a sociopolitical agenda of inclusiveness and empowerment for historically marginalized groups.” It is now widely recognized that studies of gender inequality must consider more than just gender.

Some archaeologists, and specifically those advocating posthumanist feminist approaches (e.g., Braidotti Reference Braidotti and Grusin2017, Reference Braidotti2021; Cobb and Crellin Reference Cobb and Crellin2022; Crellin Reference Crellin, Moen and Pedersen2025), have advocated for a shift in ontologies based on a reconceptualization of difference. Hannah Cobb and Rachel Crellin (Reference Cobb and Crellin2022:269), for instance, argue that “humanism has historically not granted the same humanity to all humans.” Rather, it has upheld a “very specific version of the ideal human: the white, heterosexual, western, educated, able-bodied and property-owning man” (Cobb and Crellin Reference Cobb and Crellin2022:269; see also Crellin Reference Crellin, Moen and Pedersen2025). Such an understanding of humanity is highly restrictive and exclusionary. It also, however, is “based on a specific version of difference: difference that is seen as a negative lack” (Cobb and Crellin Reference Cobb and Crellin2022:270). As Cobb and Crellin (Reference Cobb and Crellin2022:270) explain, “Women are not men . . . those with differently abled bodies are not able-bodied, those who are LGBTQ+ are not heterosexual, and those who are Black, Indigenous, Latina, Asian, etc., are defined as not white.” They thus advocate reconceptualizing difference as positive and productive rather than as negative and limiting.

From Difference to Exclusion: Moving beyond the Leaky Pipeline Metaphor

This themed issue seeks to build on previous research by reconsidering not just difference but also exclusion. Specifically, the themed issue aims to reconceptualize the loss of certain scholars, and particularly women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, gender-fluid, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary archaeologists, as an active rather than passive process. To do so, the authors advocate moving beyond the nearly ubiquitous metaphor of a leaky pipeline to understand and ameliorate gender-based inequality. Scholars must instead consider the active—though often unconscious and unintentional—ways individuals and institutions exclude some students and researchers. Scholars must also advocate for interventions beyond simply patching leaks. What is the leaky pipeline metaphor, why is it problematic, and how might it be reconceptualized?

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, policy analysists at the National Science Foundation (NSF) developed the pipeline metaphor to describe the steps needed to earn advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Lucena Reference Lucena2000; Metcalf Reference Metcalf2014; Nelson Reference Nelson2024). In other words, the “image of the science pipeline is used to illustrate a structured set of educational and employment stages that comprise a science career” (Xie and Shauman Reference Xie and Shauman2003:7). Developed at a time when “lingering Cold War fears paired with an emphasis on technological competition,” the model allowed those at the NSF to quantify the number of scientists America needed to maintain technological competitiveness with other nations (Metcalf Reference Metcalf2014:77–78). It soon became clear, however, that not all who entered the pipeline reached the highest levels of education and employment. Put differently, the pipeline leaked. To still produce the necessary quantity of American scientists, those at the NSF and elsewhere began considering how to patch the leaks and thereby mitigate labor loses (Bennett Reference Bennett2011:151; Lucena Reference Lucena2000:15; Xie and Shauman Reference Xie and Shauman2003:7).

The leaky pipeline metaphor (Figure 1) has since become the dominant conceptual framework used to understand underrepresentation in STEM fields, and particularly gender-based attrition (Kizilcec et al. Reference Kizilcec, Baker, Bruch, Cortes, Hamilton, Lang, Pardos, Thompson and Stevens2023; Lucena Reference Lucena2000; Xie and Shauman Reference Xie and Shauman2003:8). Indeed, the metaphor “has reached almost mythological proportions in both its broad reach and in how it engenders fairly uncritical allegiance from many researchers” (Pawley and Hoegh Reference Pawley and Hoegh2011:1). This dominance is perhaps surprising, given that scholars have criticized the model since its inception (Bennett Reference Bennett2011:163). Yu Xie and Kimberlee Shauman (Reference Xie and Shauman2003:7) go so far as to suggest that the omnipresence of the pipeline model has been “the major conceptual limitation of the literature” on marginalized groups in science. Several critiques are common.

Figure 1. The leaky pipeline metaphor. Drawing by Sasha Buckser.

As many note, the linear and unidirectional nature of a pipeline poorly reflects, and arguably obscures variability in, individuals’ lived experiences (Banerjee and Graham Reference Banerjee and Graham2023; Bennett Reference Bennett2011; Grein Reference Grein, Behrens and Zittlau2017; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2024:14–19; Kizilcec et al. Reference Kizilcec, Baker, Bruch, Cortes, Hamilton, Lang, Pardos, Thompson and Stevens2023). It neither accounts for the “fluidity and multi-directionality of students’ decisions” (Wu and Uttal Reference Wu and Uttal2020:64), including decisions to change college majors, nor “capture[s] the complexity of the education and career process of becoming a scientist” (Xie and Shauman Reference Xie and Shauman2003:8). Nor does it include, or allow for, life events beyond academia. For some, the rigidity of pipes, including their set diameter, homogenizes scientific training by forcing those who enter the pipeline to contort themselves to fit and flow through (Pawley and Hoegh Reference Pawley and Hoegh2011; Petray et al. Reference Petray, Doyle, Howard, Morgan and Harrison2019). For others, that rigidity also erases the variable experiences of those who belong to marginalized groups by incorrectly implying all scholars have similar education and professional experiences (Pawley and Hoegh Reference Pawley and Hoegh2011:5). They do not.

Additionally, the language associated with the metaphor can be offensive and dismissive, especially given that connotations of the word “pipeline” vary dramatically among those with different identities. As Tara Nelson (Reference Nelson2024:9) argues, for many Indigenous peoples, “outlining the academic experience . . . as ‘pipelines’ conjures settler colonialism as it implies cultural extermination when paralleled to today’s tar sand oil pipelines built within . . . Indigenous communities.” Further, equating individuals who leave the pipeline with the negative concept of leaks both disparages those who choose alternative career paths, such as journalists and activists, and “implies that the problem lies with those students themselves” who are unable to reach the end of the pipeline, “rather than with the systemic barriers and biases” (Banerjee and Graham Reference Banerjee and Graham2023:965). According to this logic, if the pipeline works for some, then the problem must be with those unable to flow through.

The leaky pipeline metaphor also problematically suggests that attrition is a passive and perhaps even natural process (Banerjee and Graham Reference Banerjee and Graham2023; Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2024:14–19; Johnston Reference Johnston2012; Kizilcec et al. Reference Kizilcec, Baker, Bruch, Cortes, Hamilton, Lang, Pardos, Thompson and Stevens2023; Xie and Shauman Reference Xie and Shauman2003). Pipes do not require human intervention to function. They are lifeless, self-operating conduits that merely contain and direct substances. Conceiving of educational and career trajectories as pipelines thus suggests that no individuals or institutions are at fault for losses of members of marginalized groups, and that the pipeline is “explicitly mechanical and neutral rather than political and contingent” (Allen and Castleman Reference Allen, Castleman, Brooks and Mackinnon2001:157). Such an understanding is generally at odds with individuals’ own accounts of their experiences. In various studies, members of marginalized communities have repeatedly “cited barriers blocking the route to their degrees” (Blickenstaff Reference Blickenstaff2005:380; see also Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2024; Leighton Reference Leighton2020; Monroe et al. Reference Monroe, Ozyurt, Wrigley and Alexander2008; Moser Reference Moser2007). As Margaret Allen and Tanya Castleman (Reference Allen, Castleman, Brooks and Mackinnon2001:156) summarize, “The main problem with the pipeline model is its failure to acknowledge the complexities of male advantage, gender power and the gendered nature of organizational dynamics.”

Different metaphors for intersectional gender inequality will lead to different conclusions about what interventions, if any, might be successful (Blickenstaff Reference Blickenstaff2005:372). Consequently, perhaps the most powerful critiques of the leaky pipeline metaphor question its policy implications. As several scholars note, this framework suggests the need for only minor changes. It implies that “we can mitigate the leaks by increasing input . . . and focusing our attention on plugging the critical leaks” (Banerjee and Graham Reference Banerjee and Graham2023:966). It is thus not surprising that reliance on this metaphor has not resulted in significant change (Pawley and Hoegh Reference Pawley and Hoegh2011). As Matthias Grein (Reference Grein, Behrens and Zittlau2017:127) notes, increased input and patching do “not at all account for the systematic nature of the discriminatory social mechanisms in place.”

In an insightful yet rarely cited chapter (see Pawley and Hoegh [Reference Pawley and Hoegh2011] for an exception), Allen and Castleman (Reference Allen, Castleman, Brooks and Mackinnon2001) invoke the notion of the “pipeline fallacy” to offer an additional reason why the widespread adoption of the leaky pipeline model has resulted in little change. They argue that the pipeline concept implies a necessary time lag between the implementation of a policy change and any visible results. It can therefore be argued that previous interventions are producing slow but steady change, and that the patched pipeline will in time be equitable (Allen and Castleman Reference Allen, Castleman, Brooks and Mackinnon2001:152). Indeed, the length of the pipeline allows some to argue that marginalization “is a legacy of the past rather than the result of current practices” and “effectively denies that gender power and gender conflict continue to operate in education and employment” (Allen and Castleman Reference Allen, Castleman, Brooks and Mackinnon2001:151). If a problem is already thought to be solved, little additional action is needed.

Reconceptualizing Passive Leaks as Active Exclusion

Given these and other concerns, how might those advancing equity critiques reconceptualize intersectional gender inequality? As previously noted, contributors to this themed issue understand exclusion as an active rather than passive process. This introduction in particular encourages archaeologists and others to eschew the metaphor of a leaky pipeline and instead align themselves with a recent shift in which “scholars have turned their attention to the mechanisms by which women [and members of other marginalized groups] are pushed out of the field” (Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2020a:135). More appropriate metaphors might include a game of chutes and ladders (Crawford and Windsor Reference Crawford and Windsor2021:17–18), a mountain path (Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2024:17–19; Stevens et al. Reference Stevens, Masters, Imoukhuede, Haynes, Setton, Cosgriff-Hernandez and Bell2021), or a garden (Fladd et al. Reference Fladd, Kurnick, Heath-Stout, Williams, Simeonof, Buckser and Bishop2026). Here, the authors advocate three potentially fruitful avenues for continued research: fit, prestige, and the hysteresis of habitus, also known as the Don Quixote effect.

Despite being a common criterion in decisions about hiring, fieldwork, and publications, fit is a problematic concept (Moser Reference Moser2007). In theory, it indicates appropriateness or suitability. It is generally “used in a benevolent fashion with positive intent from employers to find an ideal candidate” (Reece et al. Reference Reece, Tran, DeVore, Porcaro, Reece, Tran, DeVore and Porcaro2019:3). But as many studies (e.g., Hora Reference Hora2020; Moser Reference Moser2007; Rivera Reference Rivera2012; Tholen Reference Tholen2024) demonstrate, “recruiters in the fields of law, consulting, and finance explicitly and openly g[i]ve preferences to applicants that ha[ve] similar backgrounds, hobbies, and personal interests to themselves” (Leighton Reference Leighton2020:449). This practice is also known as homophily: “the principle that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people” (McPherson et al. Reference McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Cook2001:416). In practice, fit can thus function as a justification for homogeneity and as a “tool for exclusion” (Reece et al. Reference Reece, Tran, DeVore, Porcaro, Reece, Tran, DeVore and Porcaro2019:3). Indeed, the notion of fit has tended to benefit those most similar to what Cobb and Crellin (Reference Cobb and Crellin2022:269) term humanism’s “very specific version of the ideal human” and disadvantage others. It may thus be useful to consider whether those assessing graduate school, internship, and employment applications have uncritically applied the concept of fit, and particularly whether they have misconstrued fit as a measure of homophily rather than as a measure of ability.

In an insightful article, Mary Leighton (Reference Leighton2020) offers a useful example of how notions of fit may unintentionally exclude members of marginalized groups. In her multi-sited ethnographic study of Andean archaeology, she explores the notion of performative informality—the “subtle forms of inequality that arise when academic communities are conceptualized as friendship-based” and are structured through “forms of sociality that are considered casual and intuitive” (Leighton Reference Leighton2020:445). Leighton (Reference Leighton2020:444) suggests that, in such situations, performative informality serves to mask obvious differences in race, class, and gender and that “those who find themselves unable to enact or perform appropriately”—often women, people of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, or members of other marginalized groups—“are at a distinct disadvantage.” The troubling result is that those best able to conform socially are best positioned to create and disseminate knowledge (Leighton Reference Leighton2020:445).

Like fit, prestige is a poorly defined yet omnipresent concept in academia and other industries. Generally meaning respect and admiration based on perceptions of high quality—“cultural judgements of esteem and value to society” (Camargo and Whiley Reference Camargo and Whiley2020:850)—prestige figures prominently in educational and career choices and trajectories. Yet the notion of prestige is poorly defined and subjective (Beck et al. Reference Beck, Gjesfjeld and Chrisomalis2021; Kawa et al. Reference Kawa, Clavijo Michelangeli, Clark, Ginsberg and McCarty2019; Morales et al. Reference Morales, McKiernan, Niles, Schimanski and Alperin2021). Faculty in the United States and Canada routinely define the distinct concepts of quality, prestige, and impact as essentially synonymous, “with high quality being sometimes defined by reputation” and “high impact . . . at times defined by quality” (Morales et al. Reference Morales, McKiernan, Niles, Schimanski and Alperin2021:5). Further, quantity is often valued over, and perhaps confused with, quality (Fladd et al. Reference Fladd, Kurnick, Heath-Stout, Williams, Simeonof, Buckser and Bishop2026). In archaeology specifically, Jess Beck and colleagues (Reference Beck, Gjesfjeld and Chrisomalis2021:686) have demonstrated that the “prestige of the top-ranked . . . journals is not based on bibliometric or citational weight, but is instead related to disciplinary norms”—norms that are often socially ingrained and difficult to articulate.

In part because of this lack of denotational clarity, the notion of prestige—like that of fit—can function as a conservative force that limits efforts to diversify disciplines. In an explicitly intersectional study of authorship in archaeological publications, Laura Heath-Stout (Reference Heath-Stout2020b:407) surveyed scholars who published in 21 different journals between 2007 and 2016 and compared aspects of their self-reported identities with multiple measures of prestige, including h-indexes, impact factors, and SCImago Journal Rank. She found an inverse relationship between presumed prestige and diversity. In other words, she found that “the most prestigious venues for the dissemination of archaeological knowledge remain the least diverse” (Heath-Stout Reference Heath-Stout2020b:422). Further complicating issues of prestige is the process of gender devaluation, “whereby the status and power of an authoritative position is downplayed when that position is held by a woman” (Monroe et al. Reference Monroe, Ozyurt, Wrigley and Alexander2008:215). It may thus be necessary to reevaluate the concept of prestige, its use, and its implications.

Finally, contemporary intersectional gender disparities may usefully be understood in terms of the Don Quixote effect, or what Pierre Bourdieu has termed the hysteresis of habitus. Written by Miguel de Cervantes and published in the early seventeenth century, Don Quixote relates the adventures of a man who, mired in past social values, misjudges the world around him (Cervantes Saavedra Reference Cervantes Saavedra2003). Rather than acknowledging recent and far-reaching social change, Don Quixote believes himself to be a knight in a long-gone medieval world filled with romance, valor, and chivalry. He, for instance, heroically jousts—or tilts—with windmills he imagines to be giants. Relatedly, for Pierre Bourdieu (Reference Bourdieu1977:72–78) habitus is a set of unconscious, learned dispositions that allow individuals to understand and structure the world around them, which can also change based on new life expereinces and new knowledge. Habitus is necessarily a temporal construct. As Timothy Barrett (Reference Barrett2018:36) explains, aspects of habitus are “durable; they cannot be easily ‘willed’ away but are primarily moderated through ongoing exposure to new environments.” Hysteresis is a temporal lag, and in this case one “involving the persistence of elements within the habitus that endured beyond the social context[s] of their production” (Barrett Reference Barrett2018:36).

Just as Allen and Castleman (Reference Allen, Castleman, Brooks and Mackinnon2001) identify the detrimental implications of the temporal lag implied by the pipeline metaphor, the Don Quixote effect recognizes the detrimental consequences of individual habitus not changing at the same rate as social structures. Put simply, scholars’ perceptions of inequality—much like Don Quixote’s perception of windmills—may be mired in past values. Perceived appropriate rates of women’s participation offers a useful example. In the United States, those identifying as women have received the majority of PhDs in anthropological archaeology for over 20 years (Speakman et al. Reference Speakman, Hadden, Colvin, Justin Cramb, Jones and Lulewicz2018). Yet, for those enmeshed in past social norms, low rates of women’s participation may seem customary, acceptable, and even equal. An analysis by the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in Media revealed that crowd scenes in media tend to be comprised of approximately 17% women. Why? As Geena Davis explains to NPR, “If there’s 17 percent women, the men in the group think it’s 50–50, and if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men” (NPR Staff 2013). It would be useful to know if such incorrect perceptions also plague other industries and disciplines, including anthropological archaeology.

Articles Comprising the Themed Issue

Contributors to this themed issue continue the important work of documenting gender inequalities in archaeological practice. They also explore new theoretical ideas about why gender inequality has been such an enduring problem and suggest how the discipline, institutions, and individuals can intervene. In doing so, the authors move beyond the passive leaky pipeline metaphor and instead consider the active—though often unconscious and unintentional—ways individuals and institutions exclude.

Scott Hutson and colleagues (Reference Hutson, Castro and Teruel2025) consider the state of women in academic archaeology positions and suggest the importance of mentorship for creating a more diverse field. They note that while women with PhDs are hired into the professoriate and gain tenure at the same rate as men, women are hired more often into departments without PhD programs. The result is that women have less impact on the next generation of archaeologists, and PhD students have fewer women available as role models, perpetuating unequal representation in the field.

Katelyn Bishop and colleagues (Reference Bishop, Sarah, Samantha, Lydia D., Isabella N. and Sarah2026) consider the often-gendered nature of scholarly networks that influence participation in conferences. They argue that symposium invitations are a potent source of economic, cultural, and social capital and assess patterns in invitation practices at the annual meeting of the SAA. They find that disparities in perceived gender representation are particularly evident when archaeologists invite scholars to take on prestigious conference roles, and that, as in many other disciplines, the gender identities of session organizers dramatically affect the gender identities of participants.

Jocelyne Ponce and colleagues (Reference Jocelyn, De León and Galo2026) consider the intersection of gender and nationality in the production and dissemination of academic knowledge within Guatemalan archaeology. Moving beyond commonly considered North American and European contexts, and using alumni data from Guatemalan universities, survey data, and authorship data from Latin American Antiquity and Estudios de Cultura Maya, they find that although Guatemalan archaeology has been characterized by relative gender parity, the dissemination of academic knowledge has been led predominantly by men, even when there have been more women archaeologists.

Jessica MacLellan (Reference MacLellan2026) considers prestige in publication trends, and specifically the gender identities of authors writing about household archaeology. Weaving together Wylie’s (Reference Wylie1997) equity and content critiques, she examines the ways archaeologists’ engagement with certain research topics, and in this case households, are influenced by gender identities. She notes that when women publish on household archaeology in prestigious journals, their work is as highly cited as men’s work on the same topic. Further, neither men nor women are disproportionately rewarded or punished for focusing on gender within household archaeology. However, MacLellan also finds that gender and particularly feminism have not been well-integrated into research on households.

Sarah Oas and colleagues (Reference Oas, Hoppes, Fladd and Kurnick2026) consider the unequal distribution of credit and prestige in archaeological authorship practices. Using data from several different peer-reviewed publications, they analyze the perceived gender identities of coauthors of articles with five or more collaborators to assess the composition of research teams and the distribution of credit. They find that men are more likely to lead pieces with large coauthorship teams and, when they do, tend to include more men than women as coauthors.

Sarah Simeonoff and colleagues (Reference Simeonoff, Matsuda, Perry and Charolla2026) analyze survey data to understand the experiences of archaeologists in fieldwork settings, including but not limited to cultural resource management (CRM). Examining over 550 unique survey responses, they argue that archaeology’s association with intense physical labor often negatively shapes young archaeologists’ experiences and results in their disillusionment with, though not necessarily their departure from, the discipline. They thus urge reform of the “culture of toughness,” with the goal of promoting greater equity in field settings and beyond.

Samantha Fladd and colleagues (Reference Fladd, Kurnick, Heath-Stout, Williams, Simeonof, Buckser and Bishop2026) suggest that archaeologists and others replace the leaky pipeline metaphor with a garden metaphor—one emphasizing that those desiring careers in archaeology, much like plants, have different needs, and that the loss of certain scholars has more to do with a lack of suitable conditions than those scholars’ own deficiencies. Put differently, “rather than constraining the growth of a [researcher] and hoping that they make it through” a pipeline, individuals and institutions should instead “provide rich soil, devoted gardeners, and the right amount of water” so that everyone thrives (Johnston Reference Johnston2012). Advocating for a reimagining of what a successful archaeology “garden” should look like and emphasizing care (see also Supernant et al. Reference Supernant, Eva Baxter, Lyons and Atalay2020), Fladd and colleagues suggest interventions that may help diversify archaeology and address exclusion, including at the disciplinary, institutional, supervisory, and individual levels. Given the systemic nature of the issues faced by women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, gender-fluid, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary archaeologists, changes at multiple levels are necessary.

Finally, Carrie Heitman (Reference Heitman2026) concludes the themed issue with a digital review of feminist data science in archaeology. She raises critical issues of data accessibility and data sovereignty, particularly in large-scale data-sharing efforts, and considers how web-accessible data intersect with issues of equity and representation in archaeology. What types of data are missing from certain platforms? Who decides what data are digitally accessible? And how can scholars create more equitable recording and dissemination processes?

Final Thoughts

As noted at the outset of this article, gender inequality carries high costs, and interventions that promote gender equity often result in increased economic growth, improved medical diagnoses and treatments, and higher levels of climate resilience and food sustainability. Nevertheless, as of May 2025, federally funded research that investigates, and national policies that redress, inequality are under threat. In a January 21, 2025, executive order, the White House (2025) described research and policy decisions that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.” Shortly thereafter, the NSF (2025) released a “Statement of NSF Priorities” saying, in part, that efforts to broaden participation in science “should not preference some groups at the expense of others” and that “research projects with more narrow impact limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics do not effectuate NSF priorities.”

Such changes relate directly to the ontologies of difference and exclusion discussed in this article. As noted above, humanism transforms one specific and historically contingent notion of humanity—“masculine, white, urbanized, speaking a standard language, heterosexually inscribed in a reproductive unit, and a full citizen of a recognized polity” (Braidotti Reference Braidotti and Grusin2017:23)—into an ideal and exemplar. It is this ideal that recent policy shifts seek to uphold, and this exemplar that they seek to embrace and support. That Americans can and should be reduced to this one specific form of humanity is made clear by a leaked list of keywords the NSF is using to flag potentially problematic research. As reported by the Washington Post (Johnson et al. Reference Johnson, Dance and Achenbach2025), the New York Times (Yourish et al. Reference Yourish, Daniel, Datar, White and Gamio2025), members of Congress (Beyer Reference Beyer2025), and others, these keywords include “women” but not “men”; “Black,” “Hispanic,” and “Indigenous” but not “white”; and “LGBTQ” but not “heterosexual.”

Upholding only one specific form of humanity suggests that those who do not fit the majoritarian categories are somehow “worth less than” (Braidotti Reference Braidotti and Grusin2017:23; see also Cobb and Crellin Reference Cobb and Crellin2022; Crellin Reference Crellin, Moen and Pedersen2025). The resulting loss of certain individuals—be they removed from government websites (Jingnan Reference Jingnan2025) or more likely to perish, given shifts in governmental priorities (Kristof Reference Kristof2025)—thus stems from active exclusion rather than passive leaking. Posthumanist feminists, including Rosi Braidotti (Reference Braidotti and Grusin2017:24, see also Reference Braidotti2021), advocate “the need to destabilize this unitary vision of the subject and open it up to the multiple complex reconfigurations of diversity and multiple belongings.” She and others aim “to criticize narrow-minded self-interests, intolerance, and xenophobic rejection of Otherness” (Braidotti Reference Braidotti and Grusin2017:25). The authors echo Braidotti (Reference Braidotti and Grusin2017:24) in her “call for a qualitative shift of perspective in our collective sense of identity,” and aim to take one admittedly small step toward doing just that.