Materializations of Changing Western Patriarchal Beliefs About Children, Childhood and Parenting; Socialization Practices and Diverse Children’s Social Agency

Feminist theories and research on historical changes in Euro-American patriarchy provide new understandings, insights and interpretations about meanings of sites and objects. The application of material feminist theory with feminist structural, intersectionality, bodily and social agency theories allows for the primary thesis that children with diverse identities were not passive recipients of socialization, but were social agents who negotiated in dialogues with adults, sometimes resisting patriarchy and creating cultural change. By arguing that a lack of data has meaning, the usual interpretation of an absence of excavated toys as indicating a lack of children is re-interpreted to mean that children, who always play and were present at most sites, played with perishable toys, natural objects, and adult objects that are either seldom preserved or not identified with children. Further, sites and objects that are usually only associated with adults are re-interpreted as also used by children working with adults and being socialized into patriarchal roles.