The air stank of diesel and dust under the truck, but I was already dirty. Days were spent digging holes, afternoons jerry-rigging field vehicles, and evenings correcting survey data; bucket showers could never quite erase that oily-grainy feeling between my fingers. This is how I spend most of my summers, leading archaeological fieldwork in central Africa.
Two small feet appeared in front of my face. “Mom?” My middle son was standing by the truck. “There’s a bunch of people here to see you. And another person wants you to take them to the doctor.” Once again, it struck me how lucky I was to be here, but how caught I was in the myth of the “ideal worker”: an unattainable ideal of maximal productivity while managing multiple demanding roles.
In the Global North, women in my discipline have gone from almost no professional representation in the 1970s to equal or ...
