Revisiting the Sexual Division of Labor: Thoughts on Ethnoarchaeology and Gender

In gauging the impact of Susan Kent's scholarship, we examine how a controlled ethnoarchaeological comparison of gender and subsistence in circumpolar societies may be used to reassess a bedrock concept of anthropology: the sexual division of labor. Much discourse on this topic is marred by an exclusionary tone. That is, the sexual division of labor is presented as a list of things women cannot do, should not do, or are prohibited from doing by...