Sex and Gender: Watch Your Language! A View from the North

This paper presents a series of reflections on the concept of gender based on the personal experience of the author – a Norwegian archaeologist, who started working on gender archaeology at its very beginnings, when the basic concepts of analysis were those traditionally used in Norwegian society at large and which saw people as having a sex determinable by birth and various possible social roles, depending both on their sex and on various social arrangements. It discusses a series of challenges raised by the introduction of the concept of gender, especially given the generalization of writing in English, and it argues that in Scandinavian archaeology (illustrated in more detail by a case study on Vikings) it did not contribute to a better analysis, while for the contemporary Norwegian society it came across as unconvincing and led to rather unfavourable attitudes towards the claims of the social sciences – at least in the way these were explained to the wider public. The paper also argues in favour of better cooperation between archaeologists and linguists, as archaeology has to consider – among others – (gender) concepts from past and contemporary languages, as well as for a better relationship with the general public, to whom archaeologists need to learn to relate better in order to pass on the results of gender studies.