Abstract/Summary

Later Medieval archaeology rarely addresses gender explicitly. Is this because gender has ‘worked’, in other words, it is fully embedded in the discipline; or is it because it has failed to progress beyond tokenism? In this article, we reflect on the methodological challenges and key approaches that characterise the study of gender in later Medieval archaeology (c. 1000–1550 CE). We demonstrate how feminist standpoint research has transformed whole areas of the discipline, in particular monastic archaeology and castle studies, while others have been slow to respond (Medieval settlement studies). Through four thematic case studies, we identify areas where gender has been mainstreamed productively (the female life course and practices of care) and others where there is potential to progress beyond the current tokenism (Medieval masculinity and the daily life of the household). We conclude that the lack of explicit attention to gender is not because later Medieval archaeology has failed to engage with social questions or due to methodological challenges associated with gender ‘visibility’. Instead, the majority of researchers choose to integrate gender within broader concepts such as social identity, the body and the life course. This integrated approach neglects the integral ‘body-ness’ of gender and neutralises it as a social and analytical category, avoiding explicit theorisation of the lived experience of gender and critical reflection on Medieval gender inequalities. We need to talk about gender in later Medieval archaeology, urgently, explicitly, and politically.