EAA Statement on European Gender and Women's Studies

EAA Statement on European Gender and Women's Studies was prepared by EAA task force composed of Laura Coltofean, Bisserka Gaydarska, Manuel Fernandez-Götz, Daniela Hofmann and Rachel Pope in April 2025 and officially approved and adopted by the Executive Board of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), on behalf of the Association. To be quoted as "EAA Statement on European Gender and Women's Studies“. Stable URL: https://www.e-a-a.org/European Gender and Womens Studies

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In late September 2024, a research group at the University of Roma Tre came under attack by political right-wing groups for researching gender creativity in childhood. Instead of condemning the attack, the Vice President of the Italian Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies called the research ‘ideological madness’ and demanded intervention – in effect supporting an attack on scholarship. This was not the first time that gender scholars, practitioners, and studies were attacked in Europe. Multiple anti-gender studies campaigns and actions have occurred in several European countries, the United States, and across the globe in the past decade.

The European Association of Archaeologists is committed to academic freedom and has already underlined the importance of gender in our discipline through the 2020 EAA Statement on Archaeology and Gender. As such, we solidly condemn all such attacks, both on individual researchers and on related university courses and departments. The termination of such scholarship undermines the principles of democracy and goes against academic freedom and Articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which the countries where anti-gender studies campaigns and actions have taken place subscribe. Indeed, the principle of free and independent research is foundational for all democratic nations

Global politics are in flux – politically, economically, militarily, socially, and culturally. Human lives, rights, and values are now threatened and undermined by divisive and populist ideologies. The reverberations are acute for millions of people, and those involved in education and research bear the added concern of political threats to academic freedom and critical thinking.

We are currently witnessing widespread efforts to ‘cancel’ or undermine gender studies that seek to understand issues of equality, diversity, inclusivity, and centre a respect of difference. These attacks uncritically and wrongly frame any study of gender as ‘gender ideology’ that goes against Christian values, rather than appreciating gender as a distinctly social and cultural phenomenon, with potential biological roots, that is to be studied. Such simplification is a hallmark of patriarchal regimes and serves their political and economic interests.

Gender science and gender studies are fundamentally important to scholarship, as we begin to learn and understand, through scientific endeavour, why it is that humanity varies as it does. By contrast, we see that lack of basic education in equality and diversity results in violence against women, aggravated homophobia, and hostile discrimination against minority groups.

Gender archaeology has made enormous contributions to our understanding of the past since its initial development in the late 1970s and 1980s. This research has allowed us to uncover many of the implicit (and sometimes explicit) biases about gender roles in past societies, criticised androcentrism and biological determinism, and drawn attention to issues in the present (such as the continued underrepresentation of women in higher-tier jobs and leadership roles within the discipline).

Gender studies are among the most dynamic fields of current archaeological research, encompassing a variety of perspectives, views, and approaches that have helped to counteract traditional stereotypes and acknowledge the crucial role that women have played in all human societies. Moreover, they highlight the need for recognising gender diversity beyond the traditional binary system. Gender perspectives are thus an integral part of archaeology as a discipline, being present in most archaeological handbooks and introductory courses.  

The European Association of Archaeologists believes most strongly in the need to retain gender studies as part of the curriculum in European universities. Gender scholars and studies should not be wrongly cast as a common enemy to be blamed for various societal problems. Only open research and open debate can help find knowledge-based approaches to social, economic, environmental, and other challenges.

In the current political climate – where individuals and movements on the right political spectrum openly assert that only two genders are natural, and, less openly, that the subordination of women is part of this so-called natural order – it is more important than ever to ensure that we work to advance knowledge in this important field of scientific learning.