Academic Professional Women Organizing for Change: The Struggle in Psychology

Abstract

This paper examines the organized efforts of women psychologists who confronted sex discrimination in two different historical periods: 1941–1959 and the period beginning in 1969. During the first period, the National and then International Council of Women Psychologists promoted the advancement of women in the profession. During the more recent period, the Association for Women in Psychology and then APA's Division 35 have performed similar functions. Source material to document these efforts is drawn from published sources and archives of the history of American psychology at the University of Akron, and from the American Psychological Association Archives in the Library of Congress. The paper compares women's efforts during these two very different historical periods and offers a long range perspective on social change for those working to improve the status of women in academe.