Hello Ms. Peixotto,

I hope these resources are not too basic to be useful for your request, but there are a number of resources, people, and networks to whom you might reach out in different communities of historical archaeology. A key is tapping a person in each network and I hope this provides a bit of a road map from an Americanist perspective.

Of course, the SHA's Gender and Minority Affairs Committee is a key resource:
http://www.sha.org/about/gender_minority.cfm
This committee has a long history. A group of professional archaeologists formed the Historical Archaeology Womens Caucus in 1988.  That group organized the SHA's Committee on Gender Issues in 1991, which was further expanded into the Gender and Minority Affairs Committee in 1994.
The GMAC chair is Florie Bugarin. Email:  [log in to unmask]

You will find this group and to be a very valuable resource. 

The Society for American Archaeology has a couple of related organizations, as does the American Anthropological Association (notably, COSWA) and the Archaeological Institute of America.
http://www.archaeological.org/interestgroups/156
https://ecommerce.saa.org/saa/staticcontent/staticpages/adminDir/committeeDisplay.cfm?Committee=COMMITTEE%2FSTAS
http://www.aaanet.org/sections/afa/
http://www.aaanet.org/committees/coswa/

In 2009 a group of my colleagues began a blog about their experiences, which they have not updated often since then, but you may find the contacts useful since it involved a number of maritime archaeologists:
http://womeninarchaeology.blogspot.com

Cheers
Tim Scarlett
 

On Nov 14, 2013, at 11:32 AM, Becca Peixotto wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> Hoping for ideas and suggestions from the histarch community:
> 
> I'm in a cave archaeology research group at the moment consisting of emerging scholars (all women) with a wide variety of archaeology and anthropology specialities.  We have been discussing ways to continue our work beyond the current field season with some sort of activism or outreach around women in archaeology, science, and exploration.  We're still in the early stages of this and our initial emphases are twofold.   We want to show that women can be and are active in field sciences and 'hardcore' exploration.  At the same time, we'd like to subvert the idea that we should be highlighted as 'women scientists' in the first place, as opposed to simply 'archaeologists,' 'scientists' or 'explorers.'  Those may be competing goals but we feel that both sides are significant.
> 
> I'd appreciate any advice, discussion or suggestions (on or off list) about framing these ideas, outreach strategies, experiences you have had with similar initiatives, existing programs, etc.  My colleagues are putting out similar messages on listservs in their own specialty areas. 
> 
> Let me just add that some of the initial media coverage of the Rising Star Expedition, at least here in South Africa, was truly appalling (and inaccurate) from a gender perspective.  Our focus, though, is how we might be able to challenge what we perceive to be persistent gender expectations in our various fields and to support young women with interests in science, exploration and archaeology.  
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Becca Peixotto
> MA, Public Anthropology (Historical Archaeology)
> American University, Washington, DC