Engendering Violence: Reassessing the Role of Women in Violent Conflict in the Past

Pamela K. Stone

Hampshire College

School of Natural Science

Amherst, MA

Ventura R. Perez

University of Massachusetts

Amherst, MA

In the last twenty years the movement in anthropology to engender the past has resulted in new ways of examining (pre)historic populations. With this women in the past have been slowly moved away from the "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen" image and into the public sphere as hard working, productive and active members of early communities. But this engendered perspective of labor, production and community involvement has fallen short in the discussion of violence. We still adhere to, as Hollimon suggests, the "conventional wisdom" that women do not participate in violent acts, that this a man’s arena, and if women are associated with violence it is as the victim. However, as it was relegating women only to food production areas, this shortsighted culturally constructed idea may result in the loss of data that could expand our understanding of women in the past and their relationships with one another and with men.

This paper will discuss the ways in which anthropologists have defined violence in the past, through archaeological and biological remains. By focusing on selected archaeological examples we will show how assumptions of male violence may direct research models and consequently miss the impact that females may have had in conflict situations. In addition we will suggest ways in which methodologies used in the analysis of violence in the past can be engendered.