Visual Representation of Gender in Archaeology Magazine (1948-2020)

Archaeology is a discipline that has long captured the imaginations of the public. Despite the reality that female archaeology graduates have been in the majority since the 1980s, women's persistence in the discipline has not been parsimonious with male archaeologists in terms of rates of academic publication, grants, and levels of employment. The present study explores patterns in gender representation within popular conceptions of archaeological field and lab work. We recorded visual trends within Archaeology magazine, a publication of the American Institute of Archaeology, and the field's most popular general public magazine, from 1948 to 2020. Through examination of the photographs featured within the articles, we find that men are over-represented in all aspects of pictorial representation. Although the rates of women photographed as archaeologists has increased through time, only in the last five years have women been represented as more than 30% of archaeologists. As the magazine has increased the number of photographs per article throughout the years, our data indicates that total images of men will likely continue to outpace that of women into the future. We discuss these findings in terms of the challenges that non-men face in archaeology, highlighting the intersections between gender and other social categories.