I thought I should stick this piece on my Archaeology Blog, too. It’s inter-generational women’s history.
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From Greenham Common to Clapham Common
Two generations of vigil & protest
Rape - the Use and Misuse of Ideas about Sexual Violence
So, I’m currently reviewing Archaeologies of Gender and Violence (eds Uroš Matić and Bo Jensen 2017); and I came across a (happily favourable) mention of a paper I wrote a long time ago on the use – and, more importantly, the misuse – of rape narratives by evolutionary sociobiologists. The sociobiologists had theorised that rape was understandable as an adaptive mating strategy by males, and made clear that they saw this stretching back into evolutionary prehistory. I see sexual violence as, well, sexual VIOLENCE writ large - violence carried out against women of all ages, children of both sexes from infancy, and men; and as all about power. I was concerned that some of this mangled nonsense from evolutionary sociobiology might permeate some strands of prehistoric archaeology and anthropology.
Anyhow, it also reminded me that I hadn’t yet scanned and posted up this particular paper on my website, so here’s a link to it: ‘The use and misuse of rape in prehistory’, from Indecent Exposure: sexuality, society and the archaeological record (ed Lynne Bevan 2001).
Read moreGreenham Common Peace Camp - Women's History and Competing Masculinities
I look at my photographs of Greenham Common from the early 1980s and I see more now than I saw then. I see the women again, certainly: defiant, rainbow-colourful and vibrant; and I see the sharp razor wire perimeter and the police presence; but I also see competing masculinities that I hadn't thought about before.
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