Sexual Harassment Among California Archaeologists: Results of the Gender Equity and Sexual Harassment Survey

Abstract

Gender equity and its role in archaeological discourse has been under investigation for decades. Recently, increasing attention has been given to women’s experiences and safety with regard to sexual harassment in field situations. The UCSB Gender Equity Project created a survey to investigate this issue among members of the Society for California Archaeology. A qualitative survey on gender equity and sexual harassment was distributed to the membership in August 2016, and this article focuses on the harassment results. Survey responses indicate that women and marginalized community members, including people of color and LGBTQ+ archaeologists, experience higher frequencies of harassment compared to other demographic groups. These data also capture harassment dynamics related to perpetrator/victim relationships, locations where harassment most often occurs, and reporting patterns. Collectively, the results offer a means to consider how our discipline can take action to promote safety by increasing harassment training, supporting diverse identities, eliminating offensive field banter, and expanding our efforts to help victims and to increase reporting rates.

Falta de equidad de género y su parte en el discurso arqueólogo ha estado bajo investigación por décadas. Recientemente, más atención se le ha dado a las experiencias y la seguridad de mujeres, con respecto al acoso sexual en situaciones del campo de trabajo. Hemos creado una encuesta para investigar este problema entre miembros de la sociedad de arqueólogos de California. La encuesta cualitativa fue distribuida a los miembros en augusto del 2016, y este papel se enfoca en los resultados. Mujeres y miembros de comunidades marginadas, como personas de color y arqueólogos queer, tienen experiencias de acoso más frecuentemente comparado a otros grupos demográficos. Esta información captura la dinámica del acoso en la relación entre el perpetrador y la víctima, la localización donde el acoso más ocurre, y el patrón en el que se reporta. Los resultados ofrecen un modo de considerar como la disciplina de arqueología puede tomar acción para crear un medio ambiente más seguro para estudiantes y profesionales arqueólogos.

Acknowledgments

Foremost, thank you to the members of the SCA that participated in the GESH survey. I am indebted to Amber VanDerwarker for being a tremendous mentor and for providing the opportunity for me to participate in the UCSB Gender Equity Project. I am particularly thankful to my collaborators, Kaitlin Brown and Toni Gonzalez, as well as friends and colleagues, Dana Bardolph, Brian Barbier, and Emily Bales, for offering comments and feedback throughout the entire project. I am grateful to Terry Jones, Jill Gardner, and two anonymous reviewers for comments that greatly improved this article. I also thank Sophia Farrulla for assisting with the GESH survey, and Alex Garcia for providing the Spanish translation. Finally, I acknowledge the strong women and men in my life and thank them for being role models.

Notes

1 Sexual orientation and gender are not interchangeable concepts; however, for the purposes of our study, these groups have been combined to expose the difficult experiences faced by LGBTQ+ archaeologists.