Commentary: How Feminist Theories Increase Our Understanding of Processes of Gender Transformation

Abstract

The purpose of this commentary is to make explicit the feminist theories that are implicit in most chapters in this volume and to encourage more explicit future use of feminist theories. New insights can be gained into gender research by understanding the different feminist theories underlying such research. Feminist theories provide frameworks that increase our understanding of the complex meanings and significance of material culture. Feminist theories provide information about cultural ideologies, structures, institutions, habitus, and processes that support, enforce, or diminish patriarchy. Thus, feminist theories can provide the insight that a specific historical event or process is not unusual or unique but is in fact part of a long-term patriarchal structure or process. Feminist theories can also provide insights into the methods used by reformers to diminish male domination. Feminist theories are substantiated and enlarged by historic case studies in book chapters that provide details revealing how theories were operationalized in actual practice. In addition, knowledge of feminist theories brings to light contributions to those theories made by some chapters. Perhaps most importantly, knowledge of feminist theories enlarges the questions about gender that we can consider researching from material and historical perspectives. Feminist research asking these new questions provides important historical context for archaeological gender research. Feminist theories are explicitly applied in chapters in this volume by Joyce Clements, Elizabeth Arwill-Nordbladh, and Suzanne Spencer-Wood.