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On the importance of difference: re-

envisioning sex and gender in ancient
Mesoamerica
a
Miranda K. Stockett
a
University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Published online: 15 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Miranda K. Stockett (2005) On the importance of difference: re-envisioning sex and
gender in ancient Mesoamerica, World Archaeology, 37:4, 566-578, DOI: 10.1080/00438240500404375

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 On the importance of difference:
re-envisioning sex and gender
in ancient Mesoamerica

Miranda K. Stockett
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Abstract

Models currently employed to investigate gender ideologies and practices in pre-Columbian

Mesoamerica tend to rely on binary constructions. As a result, if applied uncritically to archaeo-
logical case studies, they may obscure variability and marginalize the importance of difference in the
lives of past peoples. I propose that models such as gender hierarchy and complementarity have been
strongly impacted upon by processes of conquest and colonization, which may render them
inappropriate frameworks for investigating ancient societies. I conclude that we should turn our
attention away from debating the relative merits of these models and focus instead on the
exploration of pre-Columbian identity. By considering the ways that identity served to articulate
individuals into groups, as well as distinguish the individual from the group, we can avoid creating
grand narratives about past gender ideologies and appropriately situate the role of gendered
difference within its larger social context.

Keywords

Identity; gender complementarity; gender hierarchy, feminist theory, Mesoamerica.

Introduction

In this essay, I focus on the ways that questions of gender are engaged by investigators of
pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Here, archaeologists tend to champion one of two models,
which are often cast as opposing and describe socially normative gender ideologies: gender
hierarchy and gender complementarity. After briefly characterizing these two models, I
argue that, rather than extending the debate about the relative merits of one over the
other, we should instead exercise caution when calling upon either model to explain gender
ideologies and gendered practices in the distant past. This is so because gender hierarchy
and complementarity are both rooted in Western understandings of the sexual division of

World Archaeology Vol. 37(4): 566–578 Debates in World Archaeology

ª 2005 Taylor & Francis ISSN 0043-8243 print/1470-1375 online
DOI: 10.1080/00438240500404375
 On the importance of difference 567

labor, understandings which may not always accurately characterize past social systems.
Furthermore, models of complementarity and hierarchy tend to idealize social norms,
while downplaying variability and difference. I suggest that by shifting our focus away
from these models and towards a broader emphasis on exploring identities – both large-
scale and small – we may be better positioned to understand social norms and to expose
constructs of difference, thereby arriving at clearer and more nuanced understandings of
past gender ideologies and practices.
As a point of terminological clarity, I employ the word ‘gender’ throughout this paper
to reference the cultural expression of biological sex. I follow Conkey and Spector (1984),
Cohodas (2002: 16) and Brumfiel (2001: 57) in defining ‘gender ideology’ as a given
society’s beliefs and expectations regarding appropriate behavior for culturally recognized
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categories of gender. ‘Gendered practices’ refers to the behaviors traditionally engaged in

by those of a particular gender in relation to a prevailing gender ideology. Finally, when
referring to cases or examples drawn from diverse Mesoamerican societies (e.g. Maya,
Aztec, Zapotec, Olmec) the term Mesoamerican is used. When referring to a culturally
specific case or example, more explicit terminology is used (e.g. Late Classic Maya).

Situating the debate: gender hierarchy and gender complementarity

An increasing number of scholars have begun to take up the project of illuminating the
role of gender, and to a lesser degree sex and sexuality, in the lives of ancient
Mesoamericans (e.g. Ardren 2002; Ashmore 2002; Ayala Falcon 2002; Bell 2002; Brumfiel
1991, 1992, 1996, 2001; Burkhart 2001; Cohodas 2002; Cyphers 1993; Geller 2004;
Gillespie and Joyce 1997; Hendon 1997; Hewitt 1999; Josserand 2002; Joyce 1992, 1993,
1996, 1998, 2000a, 2000b, 2001, 2002, 2003; Klein 2001a, 2001b; Lesure 1997, 2001;
Looper 2002; Marcus 1998, 2001; McCafferty and McCafferty 1988, 1991, 1994a, 1994b;
Monaghan 2001; Robin 2002a; Silverblatt 1995; Sweely 1997; Tercero 1996). Pervading
many of these studies is a discourse about whether gender hierarchy or gender
complementarity most accurately represents gender ideologies, practices, and relations
in Mesoamerica’s pre-Columbian past.
For much of the history of Mesoamerican research, gender hierarchy has been the
implicit operating model for understanding this region’s past societies. As the term
suggests, gender hierarchy implies that relations between genders are unequal and ranked
with respect to one another. This model proposes that social life is structured around one
dominant gender (in this case, males), and that the roles of the other gender, females, are
defined positionally in relation to those of men (e.g. Ardren 2002; Haviland 1997; Stone
1988; Vail and Stone 2002). This model is inherently an argument about the way that power
(be it social, political, or economic) is asymmetrically allocated with respect to gender.
More recently, gender complementarity has become the dominant model for under-
standing gender relations in Mesoamerica, particularly by feminist researchers. This model
has been deployed to argue for more balanced power dynamics between male and female
genders in many Mesoamerican societies (e.g. Ashmore 2002; Bassie-Sweet 1999; Cohodas
2002; Hendon 1997; Hewitt 1999; Josserand 2002; Joyce 1992, 1993, 1996, 2000a;
McCafferty and McCafferty 1988, 1991, 1994a; Reilly 2002; Robin 2002a). Gender
 568 Miranda K. Stockett

complementarity emphasizes interdependence in the productive roles of males and

females, and particularly highlights an idealized portrayal of their relationship as
grounded in separate but mutually supportive spheres of activity. The specifically gendered
activities of males and females, in concert, facilitate cultural expression in both mundane
and extraordinary social realms. While also inherently about the distribution of power,
gender complementarity focuses more explicitly on the ways that gender roles were valued
in different social contexts by pre-Columbian Mesoamericans.
Gender complementarity – and to some extent gender hierarchy – exerted undeniable
influence on the social lives of past Mesoamericans. As we cast our glance back into the
pre-Columbian past, we see men and women engaged in familiarly gendered tasks as
warriors and rulers and as wives and mothers. Yet, this picture is not the only one
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reflected. If we look closer, men wearing women’s clothing emerge, gods with male and
female aspects appear, androgynous figures confound, and women rulers and warriors
stare back at us from monuments. These scenes remind us that the interplay of gender and
sex in ancient Mesoamerica was not nearly as simple as either gender hierarchy or
complementarity would allow. And, while these models have most certainly been useful in
structuring our analyses, I argue that they rely on binary understandings of the
relationship between biological sex and gender and tend to obscure variability in ways we
should not ignore (also see Gero and Scattolin 2002).
Perhaps most problematic is the fact that both the gender hierarchy and gender
complementarity models are based on biological sex as it is represented by the sexual
division of labor. As a result, a one-to-one equation between binarily conceived biological
sexes and gender roles is, intentionally or not, championed. I do not dispute that there is a
relationship between biological sex and its cultural expression as gender. Rather, I
question the fact that the binary (male:female) expression of the sexual division of labor is
often translated into the view that gender identities and practices were similarly binary in
nature. The sexual division of labor, and resultant assumptions about binary genders, are
embedded in both gender hierarchy and complementarity models. I suggest this is, in part,
a legacy of the colonization of Central America by Spain.
The relationship between binary views of gender and Spanish colonization can be
described in two ways, each with significant outcomes and implications for understanding
pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. First, many of the sources drawn upon to support gender
hierarchy and gender complementarity have been filtered through the lens of the Spanish
colonial male, with all his sixteenth-century European beliefs and prejudices about sex and
gender (Stephens 2002). The views of such chroniclers often resulted in ‘an idealized
depiction of the lifestyle women were expected to adopt, [in the eyes of ] a colonial
authority figure’ (Vail and Stone 2002: 217), rather than a necessarily accurate
representation of everyday reality. Indeed, as Stephens notes, European males of the
colonial period understood the social order to be structured by a ‘strongly dichotomous
and hierarchical gender system’ (2002: 49). As a result of the apparent likelihood that
many occupants of Central America may have held different gender ideologies than did
the Spanish, misrepresentations and misunderstandings inevitably arose, and were codified
in colonial period sources.
Second, through the processes of conquest and colonization, the indigenous cultures of
Central America have blended colonial views with their own, resulting in ideologies and
 On the importance of difference 569

practices that are both similar to, and very different from, their pre-Columbian ancestors.
As several scholars have pointed out, disjunctions between past and present in
Mesoamerica can render the use of analogy precarious (Brumfiel 1991; Cohodas 2002;
Klein 2001b; Robin 2002a; Stephens 2002). Ethnographic and colonial period sources
provide an inherently troublesome model for archaeological interpretation, particularly
with regard to issues of sex and gender. While these sources can unquestionably illuminate
certain views of past social norms, as well as deviations from those norms (Silverblatt
1995), change in gender ideologies over time, documentary bias and questions of who is
doing the (mis)representing and why (Brumfiel 2001; Klein 2001b) render them potentially
problematic for use by scholars today. At best, ethnography and ethnohistory in Spanish
America reflect a very narrow, binary representation of the interplay between biological
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sex and past gender relations. Since these sources are central to our understandings of
gender complementarity and gender hierarchy, we must critically assess how accurately
such predominantly masculine, always heteronormative, and often Westernized views
truly represent the ways gendered individuals actually lived their lives and expressed their
identities in the Mesoamerican past. We must ask: ‘If we look back into the Mesoamerican
past, do we actually see the sexual division of labor operating to define the way biological
sex translates into gender, and gender into social and productive roles?’
To answer this question – to assess whether gender hierarchy and complementarity, with
their grounding in the sexual division of labor, are appropriate models for pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica – we need to consider how well archaeologically recovered data speak to
equations between binary constructions of sex and gender, and whether social roles were
actually predicated on such sex/gender equations. I approach this by considering evidence
for idealized views and actual practices relating to conceptions of sex and the body in
ancient Mesoamerica, as well as the cultural assignment and enactment of gendered social
roles on both mundane and extraordinary scales.

Third genders, sex, and bodies: Mesoamerican ideologies and practices

The sexual division of labor, which underlies models like gender hierarchy and
complementarity, is predicated on the existence of two dominant biological sexes that
can be easily translated into two culturally constructed genders: males and females. Within
this interpretative framework, the roles of women as wives and mothers are determined by
their reproductive biology, which effectively tethers them to the domestic sphere.
Conversely, males, by virtue of their larger size and physical freedom during the
gestation, birthing, and nursing of their offspring, are able to take on activities that range
more widely away from the home, including hunting, warfare and politics (for discussion
and debate on this topic, see Falk 1997; McKell 1993; Sassaman 1992; Spector 1983;
Watson and Kennedy 1991). From this grounding in biological sex comes a theory about
the binarily gendered division of labor in ancient Mesoamerica, a theory that is often
naturalized within models like gender hierarchy and complementarity. Presenting a
problem, however, with the wholesale application of these models, and especially their
accounting of male and female roles, is the fact that many Mesoamerican peoples may not
have viewed the physical body, or its gendered expressions, as either dichotomous or static
 570 Miranda K. Stockett

(e.g. Geller 2004; Joyce 1998, 2000a; Looper 2002; López Austin 1988). Rather, both the
sexual body and cultural expressions of gender appear to have been made malleable
through social context and social performance, which sometimes resulted in more than
two kinds of bodies and more than two kinds of gender.
For example, Joyce (1998) has pointed out that, while many representations of human
forms in Mesoamerican art explicitly depict biological sex by including male genitalia and
female breasts, there are many other figures in which chests and waists are exposed but no
sexual characteristics (primary or secondary) are marked. This, she suggests, may provide
evidence for ‘an alternative form of bodily materiality’ (1998: 164), perhaps a third sex or
gendered category representing sex/gender ambiguity or androgyny. Matthew Looper
(2002) has also proposed the existence of a third gender category among the Classic period
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Maya. In particular, he points to epigraphic and iconographic evidence depicting the

performance of ritual by elites. He references men-women and women-men from sites such
as Tikal, Palenque, Naranjo and Quirigua who are dressed in costumes traditional of the
opposite gender, which, he argues, work to evoke a third gender status embodied by the
Maize God and Moon Goddess (Looper 2002: 174). There are other ways to interpret
these same data, such as gender impersonation, mixed-gender identities, and androgyny,
as pointed out by Ashmore (2002), Geller (2004), and Looper himself (also see Bassie-
Sweet 1999; Joyce 2000a; Miller and Martin 2004; Reilly 2002). Yet, this and other
examples clearly suggest a strong sense of fluidity in pre-Columbian understandings of the
relationship between gender and sex, a fluidity that does not equate well with the binary
basis of the sexual division of labor.
If a man is dressed as a woman during the performance of a ritual, is he enacting a male
role, a female role, or a role that can be undertaken only by someone of a third or
ambiguous gender? There are ways to account for such performances that allow them to
be accommodated by either the gender hierarchy or complementarity model. We may
argue, as Stone has, that in bloodletting rituals males ‘mimic the female menstrual cycle’
(1988: 75–6), thereby appropriating female powers associated with fertility and
procreation. Or, as Joyce (2000a: 79–81) suggests, we could consider the use of net-skirt
costumes by both males and females as a means of expressing cosmological duality in ways
that transcend gender difference. Given the richness and complexity of Mesoamerican
cosmology and ideology, both sides of this interpretative coin provide likely explanations.
Yet, we are still left with an underlying paradox. The probable existence of more than two
genders, whether complementarily or hierarchically conceived, ultimately illuminates
shortcomings in models based on binary biological sexes and their automatic equation
with binary genders and gender roles.

Social roles in labor and politics: Mesoamerican ideologies and practices

The same shortcomings can also be identified with regard to gendered social roles in both
mundane and extraordinary settings. Our two models suggest that pre-Columbian
Mesoamerican women engaged in domestic pursuits such as weaving, cooking,
childrearing, domestic ritual, and animal husbandry, while men built and maintained
homes, hunted and farmed, engaged in warfare and were leaders in politics and public
 On the importance of difference 571

ritual (Ashmore 2002; Brumfield 2001; Cohodas 2002; Hendon 1997; Joyce 1993;
McCafferty and McCafferty 1991; Pohl 1991). And, indeed, these assumptions, which are
rooted in ethnography and ethnohistory, are supported by some archaeologically
recovered materials. Artistic media deriving widely from non-Maya Honduras to Aztec
Mexico depict women weaving, carrying pots, children and animals, and even giving birth
(e.g. Brumfiel 1991; Joyce 1992, 1993), and they show men carrying shields and spears,
communing with the gods and acting as leaders for their people. These examples abound,
and may signal the existence of normative gender roles or the presence of temporally
enduring social ideals about a gendered division of labor. Yet, numerous archaeological
examples point out exceptions to and deviations from this norm, suggesting that the
binary basis of the sexual division of labor does not always accurately reflect the ways that
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pre-Columbian Mesoamericans structured and experienced their gendered lives.

For example, Cynthia Robin’s (2002a, 2002b) work at the Late Classic Maya community
of Chan Nóohol, Belize, indicates that farming – an occupation gendered male in both
hierarchy and complementarity models – was not a strictly male activity. Robin tests
assumptions based on ethnographic and ethnohistoric sources (which indicate a fairly strict
division of labor with regard to males and farming and females and the domestic sphere)
against data gathered from archaeological activity area analyses. She finds that, contrary to
expectation, men, women, and children probably all participated to varying degrees in both
farming and domestic tasks (Robin 2002a). In particular, she addresses the ways in which
ethnographic data may provide an inappropriate model for the archaeological past, noting
that changes from dispersed to nucleated settlements, house to field distances and the
modern incidence of schooling result in an uneasy ‘fit’ between ethnographically observed
practices and pre-Columbian farming (Robin 2002a: 18–21). As this example shows, the
structure and gendered division of farming labor among the Maya was not always static
and based on biological sex, but sometimes temporally, spatially, and socially fluid with
regard to sex, gender and other identity factors, such as age.
Beyond masking variability in the ways that labor may have been assigned to different
genders in everyday life, gender hierarchy and complementarity also obscure complexity
evident among the social roles of Mesoamerican elites. For example, both models
presuppose that men were the primary actors involved in politics and warfare. Numerous
examples, however, indicate that women played important roles in Mesoamerican, and
particularly Maya, politics (Ayala Falcon 2002; Bell 2002; Hewitt 1999; Josserand 2002;
Marcus 2001; McCafferty and McCafferty 1994a, 1994b), and not only as wives and
mothers. Notably, Erica Hewitt (1999: 251) has pointed out several instances in which
female figures were granted appellative phrases that ‘served to ‘‘masculinize’’ them through
the marking of their names’. In arguing that women served as rulers in their own right,
Hewitt emphasizes the fact that, in taking on this role, they also temporarily adopted a
gender that did not correspond with their other biological or social roles. Under the rubric
of a gender ideology founded strictly on the sexual division of labor, this type of behavior
would have been seen as deviant and transgressive. Within a Mesoamerican framework,
however, it appears to have been accommodated – and even celebrated – by a more fluid
understanding of the relationship between biology, gender, and elite social roles.
As this example also implies, the data suggest not only that Maya gender ideologies may
not have been founded on a belief that binary biological sexes translate into binary
 572 Miranda K. Stockett

gendered identities, but also that other aspects of social identity such as age or class may
have played a more prominent part in determining gender roles than biology. Indeed,
though gender hierarchy and gender complementarity assume that the bio-social variables
of gender and sex were the most important structuring principles in Mesoamerican life, the
archaeological data have repeatedly demonstrated that other factors often took
precedence over them in determining how people might have behaved, or been perceived,
in particular social contexts. Many scholars (e.g. Brumfiel 1991; Haviland 1997; Joyce
2000a; Hendon 1997; Sweely 1997) have emphasized, for example, the ways that age and
class in particular served to mediate experiences of gender across cultures in pre-
Columbian Mesoamerica. Notably, Joyce (2000a) has suggested that among the Aztec the
transformation to adulthood, rather than the practice of gender, served as the primary
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touchstone for the construction and manipulation of social identity. Occupation, sex,
gender and even status, though certainly implicated in the life-cycle process, were
nevertheless often made subordinate to it (Joyce 2000a). Among Maya royal women,
status sometimes served to mediate socially dictated gender roles, while among the Aztec,
sex and gender were more often constructed and altered with respect to age. These
examples suggest that gender ideologies were neither fixed nor proscribed in the same
ways, either across Mesoamerican societies or within them. Indeed, contrary to the
expectations of models like gender hierarchy and complementarity, other identities often
took precedence over gender in the enactment and experience of Mesoamerican social life.

Situating difference: identity and its role in the broader relevance of gender studies

Given the critiques offered here, I contend that we as archaeologists need to re-frame the
way that we approach studies of gender in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. While both
gender hierarchy and gender complementarity can offer useful insights into the lives of
past peoples, they are also limited by their tendency to describe an essentialized social
norm. If peopling the past is a real goal of archaeologists, then we need to recognize that
these predominant models of gender ideology often serve as grand narratives. We need to
acknowledge the silent analogies embedded within them – the legacy of colonial processes,
the primacy of the sexual division of labor and the presumed homogeneity of gender roles
across different segments of society, irrespective of age or class. And, we need to appreciate
that these assumptions can hinder our ability to interpret the past.
In other words, one grand narrative (or two competing ones) about how ideologies of
gender were related to biology, and were conceived, expressed, and enforced, does not
allow sufficient room for the role of difference. As discussed above, the past decade of
research on this issue has demonstrated this point amply – the emergence of an over-
abundance of ‘exceptions’ to models such as hierarchy and complementarity suggests that
they do not sufficiently address issues of difference and contextuality. I am not proposing
that we should discard these models entirely; indeed, there is much that remains useful and
valuable about them. For example, it is through their exploration that both our knowledge
of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican gender ideologies, as well as our awareness of its
diversity, has emerged. Rather, I suggest that we need to resist the temptation to view these
models as capable of providing tidy answers to our questions about past peoples. As such,
 On the importance of difference 573

we cannot apply them holistically, assuming that one or the other is capable of fully
describing the ideologies of gender and sex present in a particular cultural context.
Enough evidence signaling the importance of difference has been exposed – both in
terms of individual behaviors and in relation to our understanding of larger social
ideologies – that we can no longer ignore its importance when constructing our
interpretations of the past. Indeed, such expressions of difference may reflect a mingling of
gender/sex/sexuality ideologies (Ashmore 2002; Cohodas 2002), or even previously un-
theorized understandings of these social identities. For example, Traci Ardren (2002: 87)
reminds us that, while complementarity appears to describe many aspects of Maya gender
relations, significant evidence also indicates the presence of marked inequalities between
genders, which could signal the simultaneous existence of gender hierarchy. In short, the
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growing dissatisfaction with grand narrative models of gender (e.g. Gero and Scattolin
2002), as well as the increasing need to modify them to accommodate ‘exceptions’,
indicates that we need to start approaching these questions differently.
In light of this, I propose an alternative view. I suggest that researchers turn away from a
tight focus on women and gender, and instead investigate these issues as part of a larger
project to understand social identity (e.g. Canuto and Yaeger 2000; Gell 1998; Gillespie
2001; Meskell 1999; Stockett 2005; Yaeger 2000). This approach would be productive, as
the study of identity can effectively mediate the tension between large-scale, socially defined
and small-scale, individually enacted understandings of sex and gender. Introducing the
idea of scale, which is crucial in understanding the ways that identities are constructed,
negotiated and enacted, can be beneficial to studies of sex and gender in many ways.
Not the least of these is the attention that it necessarily focuses on the inherent tensions
between social norms for behavior and individual practices in response to those norms –
essentially on the places where identity is defined and changed through the manifestation of
difference.
By foregrounding the practice of identity, and attending to the role of difference in
mediating affiliations between persons and groups, we can begin to view gender and sex as
variably constituted components of a larger suite of factors that shape social and personal
identities. Rather than being static and fixed by dominating social norms (such as gender
hierarchy and complementarity), identities come into being within particular historical
circumstances through the changing discourses, desires, needs, memories, and beliefs of
people and the range of groups they form. As such, they are ultimately composed of
sentiments of affiliation and the repetitive practices that follow from them, support them,
and inscribe them upon the material world (Stockett 2005; Yaeger 2000). It is through
practice that identities are enacted by persons and groups, which inevitably lends them an
idiosyncratic flavor. Yet, the ways they are conceived and concretized are undeniably
guided and influenced by existing social norms and collective views (following Bourdieu
1977; Giddens 1981). Mediation of this tension between structure and agency references a
crucial arena of practice in the lives of past peoples. It is at this juncture that grand
narratives about gender and sex break down and difference can begin to emerge.
Indeed, while we as scholars may consider social identity more as a theoretical tool for
describing specific cultural-historical phenomena, it gains greater meaning if we regard it
as a means by which people experienced the world in a given context (Stockett 2005).
Social identities such as gender, sex, and sexuality cannot be usefully understood or
 574 Miranda K. Stockett

explored without addressing the ways in which they work to connect or separate persons
and groups in lived experience. As such, these bio-social variables may be imposed,
interpreted, and manifested contextually, not only in relation to other aspects of identity,
but also to the given social setting in which they are expressed. Indeed, by approaching our
subject through identity, feminist researchers may contribute to a long-standing debate in
world archaeology, and one that reaches far beyond specific questions about gender. As
alluded to above, through investigating identity, we may productively explore the juncture
between society and the individual.
The need for a means to address this intersection is attested by more than a century of
dialogue about what I believe is a central dilemma in our discipline: are we best served by
studying societies as operative wholes or by investigating the profusion of individuals and
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groups that compose them? Is it better to define the norm or valorize the margins, or, is
there, in fact, some satisfying middle ground? I argue that making room for the
consideration of difference can help us reach that middle ground. Deviations from socially
defined norms not only suggest the imperfections of grand narrative approaches to the
past, but they can also significantly inform our understanding of what social norms do and
do not mean, and how they are interpreted and acted upon by individual members of
society. Through consideration of the ways identities are formed and expressed, the study
of past gender ideologies and practices provides one small arena of archaeology in which
we can examine how issues raised by debates over norms and differences are, can and
should be making themselves felt. In these ways, room is made for investigation of the
larger cultural milieu and its mechanisms for perpetuating and enforcing idealized norms.
And, at the same time, difference is not marginalized, but foregrounded as an important
means by which identities are shaped and enacted.

University of Pennsylvania
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Acknowledgements

This paper is the outgrowth of a much longer-term dialogue I have engaged in about the
nature of gender ideologies in Mesoamerica and their relation to both biological sex and
sexuality. Earlier formulations of these ideas were presented at the 2005 Society for
American Archaeology conference in Salt Lake city and at the 2004 Chacmool conference
at the University of Calgary, ‘Que(e)ry Archaeology: The Fifteenth Anniversary Gender
Conference’. I owe the organizers of the session I participated in at this latter conference –
Kathryn Reese-Taylor and Meaghan Peuramaki-Brown – thanks for including me. I also
thank Thomas Dowson for encouraging me to continue developing my ideas about gender
complementarity, and for suggesting I contribute a paper to this ‘debates’ issue of World
Archaeology. Thanks must also be extended to Pamela Geller, who has long served as a
sounding-board for my ideas on this subject. Finally, I thank Wendy Ashmore, Greg
Borgstede, Elin Danien, Matt Liebmann, Rachel Scott, and Bob Sharer for their
thoughtful feedback and commentary on early drafts of this paper. All errors found
herein, however, are my responsibility alone.
 On the importance of difference 575

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Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Miranda K. Stockett received her PhD in anthropology from the University of

Pennsylvania in 2005. Her research focuses on issues of identity in pre-Columbian
Mesoamerica, and on feminist anthropology. She is currently a Penn Writing Fellow at the
University of Pennsylvania, a Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and co-Director of the Proyecto
Arqueologico Valle de Jesus de Otoro in central Honduras. She is co-editor, with Pamela
Geller, of Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future (in press), and her recent
articles include ‘Approaching social practice through the use of access analysis’ (2005).