COSWA monitors the status of women in the discipline and the American Anthropological Association, advising the Executive Board and educating members. The Committee reports to the Executive Board. Members are elected from and by the AAA membership at large.

Since 1995, the Committee on the Status of Women in Anthropology (COSWA), a standing committee of the AAA, has considered several new initiatives of interest to the membership. The initiatives include attention to sexual harassment, part-time employment, issues in academic and nonacademic employment, and issues of "productivity," assessment which is so important to promotion and tenure.

As part of our ongoing effort to monitor problems relating to gender, we invite AAA members to send examples they may have of gender-based discrimination, in the form of brief notes, to the AAA Office c/o Suzanne Mattingly.

Items should be submitted without names, and without expectations that COSWA will resolve the issues; our goal at this point is to see what sorts of issues matter to AAA members so that we might include them in the Committee's future work.

Committee Charge

Objectives: Monitor the status of women in the discipline and the American Anthropological Association advise the Executive Board on the status of women in the discipline and the Association to educate members.

Duration of Committee: Permanent; The AAA Association Operations Committee will review each committee advisory to the Board at least once in five years.

Committee Reports to: The Executive Board

Responsibilities:

• To monitor gender discrimination within the discipline
• To pursue greater parity for women in the discipline by means of:
  1. monitoring, including gathering information that illuminates issues that effect the diverse women in anthropology as well as efforts to obtain existing comparable survey data,
  2. advocating, including bringing findings before the Association's members, in the form of resolutions, when appropriate and
  3. educating, including distributing brochures, meeting with department chairs, setting up an interactive presence on the internet/web and writing periodic updates for the AN.
• To identify forms of sexual harassment in all settings where anthropologists work and learn including the varieties of biases that complicate issues regarding race/ethnicity, gender stereotyping and preferences, class, and disabilities.
• To interact on an ongoing basis with the Association's long range planning process on issues of gender parity.

Membership and Appointment:

• 9 member committee including the Chair
• 3 year terms
• Committee members are elected at-large with designated seats for:
  • Practicing/professional anthropologist
  • A graduate student anthropologist
  • As well as 5 undesignated seats
• President and President-elect serve ex-officio
• Chair is by the Committee from within the Committee

Product: An annual program report and other periodic reports shall be submitted to the Executive Board. A summary of each regular meeting of the committee is published in the AN. As an AAA committee, the Committee sponsors a regular session and conduct a special forum during each Annual Meeting. Occasional additional meetings, workshops or conferences on important issues may be convened as necessary.

Meetings and Schedule: Two meetings are held each year: one during the late winter/early Spring and another during the Annual Meeting of the Association.

Staff Liaison and contact information: Suzanne Mattingly, Controller, American Anthropological Association, 4350 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203-1620, (o) 703/528-1902, (f) 703/528-3546.

Review Body AOC: Review Date, May 2004

Adopted by Executive Board: May 2004