Association For Women In Psychology Research Articles

Conclusion to Anti-Racist Feminist Practice, Advocacy, and Activism Special Issue

In this special issue, we sought to expand and extend the work of feminist and womanist therapists, educators, and activists beyond the Association for Women in Psychology 2021 conference—uplifting ongoing work toward anti-racism and liberation within a dual pandemic context. Contributors to this special issue detailed their work and recommendations in these domains across levels of intervention from the interpersonal to the structural. In this concluding article, we synthesize the throughlines of healing and action in contributor narratives and offer our final thoughts to advance anti-racist work taking place across a number of settings.

Introduction to Anti-Racist Feminist Practice, Advocacy, and Activism Special Issue

This special issue draws together Black feminist, womanist, mujerista, and anti-racist approaches to theory and praxis. Authors provide recommendations and guidance toward liberatory approaches to psychology, therapy, activism, and healing. The collection builds upon presentations and conversations that took place at the Association for Women in Psychology 2021 virtual conference about how to best work toward a more just, anti-racist, and liberatory world as feminist and womanist therapists in increasingly difficult social contexts. The articles provide important herstories, testimonies, analyses, and promising actions. Together, these works invite readers to join together in imagining and enacting radically inclusive paths to healing and collective liberation.

Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Association for Women in Psychology: A Life in Feminist Psychology: A Long and Interesting Journey from Ft. Wayne to Newport (Herstory)

The present commentary addresses the radical history of feminist psychology and the Association for Women in Psychology. In it, I explore innovations with roots in feminist psychology that have been adapted and co-opted by mainstream psychology, and I propose some future directions for deconstructing feminist psychology’s remaining allegiances to the dominant cultures of academic psychology and psychotherapy.

The Legacy of Transformational Moments in Feminist Psychology

Important turning points in the history of feminist psychology can sometimes be traced to particular moments—specific publications or situations in which an individual or group sparked advancement of the field. Just as there are national milestones (e.g., formation of the American Psychological Association’s Division 35, the Society for the Psychology of Women and formation of the Association for Women in Psychology), there are also transformational moments with a local flavor, that is, events specific to a city, college/university, or specialization within psychology that play a role in the development of our field. In this article, I report the initial findings of a project aimed at collecting feminist psychologists’ first-person accounts of local events or activities (late 1960s to the present) that contributors believe have influenced, or are influencing, the development of feminist psychology, especially the scholarship of feminist psychology. Thus, this ongoing project focuses on the experiences of psychologists who organized, participated in, or benefited from the development of feminist psychology. Feminist psychologists in all phases of their careers in the United States and internationally are invited to participate by visiting the Division 35 website. The archive comprising these accounts complements existing archives of the history of psychology and individual biographies and autobiographies.

Sandra Lipsitz Bem (1944-2014).

This article memorializes Sandra Lipsitz Bem (1944-2014). Bem was a feminism psychologist whose incisive writing and research transformed the psychology of gender and contributed significantly to our understanding of sex-typing, psychological androgyny, gender schema theory, and sexual inequality. Bem and her husband, Daryl Bem, were active in the feminist community in Pittsburgh, and worked with the National Organization for Women to challenge gender-segregated job advertisements in a lawsuit against the Pittsburgh Press in 1969. The Bems co-wrote an influential article, "Case Study of a Nonconscious Ideology: Training the Woman to Know Her Place" (1970) using the word "sexism" when it was not widely known. She created the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and conducted research showing that conventional gender typing was not necessarily correlated with psychological adjustment. Her publications won her enduring recognition and awards, including the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution (1976), Distinguished Publication Awards from the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP; 1977, 1994), the Young Scholar Award from the American Association of University Women (1980), and, posthumously, the Distinguished Career Award (AWP, 2014).

“It Is Hardly News that Women Are Oppressed”: Sexism, Activism, and Charlie

I first met Charlie in 1961 when I was a teaching assistant in the Department of Psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This was a rather odd position for me because I was in my second year of graduate school in the department of experimental psychology at Harvard. This arrangement, however, illustrates the kind of discrimination against women in experimental psychology during the early 1960s (as well as earlier and later). I will briefly outline why I was working at MIT to contrast the attitudes and behaviors of the Harvard faculty with Charlieʼs kindness and support of women. Sexism was particularly virulent at Harvard. There were, of course, no female faculty members and only two female postdoctoral fellows during the six years I studied there. The first week I arrived, Richard Herrnstein, the director of the graduate program, called a meeting of the first-year graduate students and announced that only one in two men were expected to obtain their PhD and only one of four women. I do not know if the percentages were correct. However, in an examination of PhD recipients during the time the program existed as a separate department (1951–1973), 99 men received their PhD and only 14 women. These figures might help explain why I was supervising a very large class in introductory psychology at MIT. The Harvard department had been founded by E. G. Boring, who, like his mentor Titchener, did not believe that women should be experimental psychologists (Furumoto, 1988). Boring did not believe that women could survive the grueling 80-hr week prescribed for scholarly success at Harvard. Men who survived the very difficult first-year curriculum were routinely offered research assistantships with one or another of the faculty members. Because they did not believe that women would go on to do productive scholarship and enhance their mentorsʼ reputations, women were not offered research positions. When I passed my first yearʼs classes and requested financial aid, they “solved” the problem by making an arrangement with Hans-Lukas Teuber who was starting a neurosciencefocused psychology program at MIT and did not yet have enough graduate students to help with the undergraduate program. I still do not know who paid for this, but I got my tuition and a stipend as well. It proved to be an opportunity to get to know and work with Charlie. Professor Teuber was very supportive when I told him I was interested in physiological psychology and introduced me to Charlie and Steve Chorover, who were studying the frontal cortex of monkeys at that time. They allowed me to assist in operations and taught me how to use stereotaxic devices. When I decided to do some research in a related area, the only animals available in the Harvard laboratory were pigeons and rats. Charlie and Steve believed that the caudate nucleus of lower mammals had some of the functions of the frontal cortex in primates so I began to examine the effect of caudate nucleus lesions on the ability of rats to make rapid temporal and spatial shifts. This allowed me to use sophisticated operant conditioning techniques available in Skinnerʼs lab. Harvard did not have any objection to this combination of physiological psych and operant conditioning, and Charlie became my more or less official advisor. The transition to official thesis advisor was made easy because Charlie joined the Harvard experimental psychology program as an assistant professor in 1964. I tried to convince him not to do so because I believed he would be incompatible with its sexist and politically conservative faculty. By the time I was finishing up my doctoral dissertation in 1966, Charlie and Dick Herrnstein (another member of my doctoral committee because of the operant techniques I used) were barely on speaking terms. Some of you may remember Herrnstein as the coauthor of The Bell Curve, which argued that intelligence was genetically determined and underlay social class as well as racial differences (Herrnstein & Murray, 1973, 1994). Charlie was very opposed to such social Darwinist theories and later opposed Herrnsteinʼs giving a lecture at Princeton. On the basis of the autobiography that Charlie wrote for the American Psychologist when he received APAʼs gold medal for achievement in science (Gross, 2005), some might argue that Charlieʼs progressive beliefs were related to his fatherʼs progressive politics. Ironically, Herrnstein came from a very similar background. He Brandeis University

Teenage desire in relation to sexual and reproductive health citizenship: Nolwazi Mkhwanazi interviews Catriona Macleod

Professor Catriona Macleod is Professor of Psychology at Rhodes University. She is author of ‘Adolescence’, pregnancy and abortion: Constructing a threat of degeneration, published by Routledge. This book received the Association for Women in Psychology's 2011 Distinguished Publication Award. Catriona has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in books. She trained as an Educational Psychologist and worked for the Wits Rural Facility (University of the Witwatersrand), the University of Zululand and Rhodes University/University of Fort Hare in East London. In July 2006 she joined the Rhodes Psychology Department as Professor and Head of Department.

Does Depression Affect Clinical Practice?

While recent autobiographical accounts of women psychotherapists with depressive illnesses have provided vivid and compelling portraits of therapists' experiences in therapy (e.g., Jamison, 1995; Manning, 1995), further research is needed to clarify the impact that depression and its treatment have upon both collegial relationships and clinical practice. A subset of the membership of the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) was surveyed concerning therapists' experiences with depression and its treatment. Of 220 respondents, 76% reported some form of depressive illness. Eighty-five percent of respondents indicated that they participated in personal therapy. When evaluating their clinical work, respondents reported both positive and negative consequences resulting from their depression. While some respondents noted improvement in collegial relationships, many felt judged and avoided.

Feminist Bibliotherapy

In this article we report on the results of a survey of 249 members of the Association for Women in Psychology who were identified in the membership directory as clinicians. Given the popularity of self-help and clinical books for lay readers, it seemed reasonable to ask feminist psychotherapists whether any of these popular books are good enough to be recommended to clients. The majority of the respondents (93%) indicated that they regularly recommend books to their clients, and they sent us their favorite recommendations. Here we provide the list of their most frequently recommended books and discuss some other interesting results of the survey.

A Brief History of the Association for Women in Psychology: 1969–1991

The Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) was founded in 1969 by American Psychological Association (APA) members who were frustrated with sexism in psychology, in the APA, and at the 1969 APA convention itself. The activism of the 1960s, together with the new women's liberation movement, gave the founders tools and justification for a new organization. This article, the first published AWP history, describes the founding circumstances, early skirmishes concerning structure and operations, evolution of major activities (such as the annual conference, importance of lesbians, growing attention to multiculturalism), and ongoing tensions between centralization and “feminist process.”

Stretching the Boundaries of Liberalism: Democratic Innovation in a Feminist Organization

Previous articleNext article No AccessStretching the Boundaries of Liberalism: Democratic Innovation in a Feminist OrganizationRobin LeidnerRobin Leidner Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 16, Number 2Winter, 1991 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/494660 Views: 11Total views on this site Citations: 32Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1991 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Su Yun Woo, Daniel Kübler Taking Stock of Democratic Innovations and Their Emergence in (unlikely) Authoritarian Contexts, Politische Vierteljahresschrift 61, no.22 (Apr 2020): 335–355.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-020-00236-4Joyce Rothschild, Katherine K. Chen, David H. Smith, Omar Kristmundsson Avoiding Bureaucratization and Mission Drift in Associations, (Jan 2016): 1007–1024.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-26317-9_40Christopher Corbett, Denise Vienne, Khaldoun Abou Assi, Harriet Namisi, David H. Smith Self-Regulation in Associations, (Jan 2016): 1025–1044.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-26317-9_41David Alberto Quijada Cerecer ‘A white guy who doesn’t get it, or does he?’: a multilayered analysis of one activist’s effort to build coalitions across race, Race Ethnicity and Education 13, no.22 (Jul 2010): 173–190.https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2010.483576Judy L. Hamilton ‘Caring/Sharing’: Gender and Horizontal Co-ordination in the Workplace, Gender, Work & Organization 4 (Oct 2009).https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2009.00468.xShana L. Maier Are Rape Crisis Centers Feminist Organizations?, Feminist Criminology 3, no.22 (Apr 2008): 82–100.https://doi.org/10.1177/1557085107310623Joyce Rothschild, Darcy Leach Avoid, Talk, or Fight: Alternative Cultural Strategies in the Battle Against Oligarchy in Collectivist-Democratic Organizations, (Jan 2008): 346–361.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-32933-8_23Myra Marx Ferree, Carol McClurg Mueller Feminism and the Women's Movement: A Global Perspective, (Dec 2007): 576–607.https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470999103.ch25Marian Court Changing and/or reinscribing gendered discourses of team leadership in education?, Gender and Education 19, no.55 (Sep 2007): 607–626.https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250701535642Jane Parker Towards Equality and Renewal: Women’s Groups, Diversity and Democracy in British Unions, Economic and Industrial Democracy 27, no.33 (Aug 2006): 425–462.https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831X06065963Karen Lee Ashcraft Feminist-Bureaucratic Control and Other Adversarial Allies: Extending Organized Dissonance to the Practice of “New” Forms1 A previous version of this paper received a Top Paper award from the National Communication Association's Organizational Communication Division., Communication Monographs 73, no.11 (Mar 2006): 55–86.https://doi.org/10.1080/03637750600557081Noelle Norton, Barbara Morris Feminist Organizational Structure in the White House: The Office of Women’s Initiatives and Outreach, Political Research Quarterly 56, no.44 (Dec 2003): 477–487.https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290305600409Karen Lee Ashcraft Organized Dissonance: Feminist Bureaucracy as Hybrid Form, Academy of Management Journal 44, no.66 (Dec 2001): 1301–1322.https://doi.org/10.5465/3069402Susan E. Smith A Wolf in Sheep's Clothes? How Welfare Reform May Threaten Domestic Violence Services, Affilia 16, no.44 (Sep 2016): 432–446.https://doi.org/10.1177/08861090122094352Ronnie Egan, Lesley Hoatson Desperate to Survive: Contracting Women's Services in a in Melbourne, Australian Feminist Studies 14, no.3030 (Oct 1999): 405–414.https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649993218JAN E. THOMAS “EVERYTHING ABOUT US IS FEMINIST”, Gender & Society 13, no.11 (Feb 1999): 101–119.https://doi.org/10.1177/089124399013001006Ira Silver Buying an Activist Identity: Reproducing Class through Social Movement Philanthropy, Sociological Perspectives 41, no.22 (Jun 1998): 303–321.https://doi.org/10.2307/1389479Rebecca L. 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Developing a Feminist Model for Clinical Consultation:

Feminist therapists have often felt outside the mainstream of clinical practice. The on-going process of developing our theoretical base has both strengthened our effectiveness and decreased our sense of professional isolation. Few mentors, colleagues or supervisors share this feminist philosophical base. One response to this dilemma has been the development of feminist organizations, such as the Feminist Therapy Institute and the Association for Women in Psychology. A complementary response is the creation of local feminist consultation groups for ongoing clinical consultation and for personal support. This paper discusses the process of developing one such group and the role that the interaction that commonality and diversity has played in its creation and evolution. The dialectical relationship between commonality and diversity is also explored in a broader sense. Finally, the beginning of a developmental view of this group's evolution is offered, emphasizing the links for women between connectedness a...

Epistemological Values of Feminists in Psychology

The theoretical orientations and values of North American feminist psychologists were studied by surveying all participants at the 1985 conferences of the Association for Women in Psychology and the Canadian Psychological Association's Section on Women and Psychology. On dichotomous measures of theoretical orientation in psychology, scores of respondents tended to be subjectivist rather than objectivist. Respondents also tended to place more emphasis on the exogenous (external or social) determinants of human behavior rather than the endogenous (internal or biological) determinants. Feminist psychologists also endorsed values about the role of science in society that were consistent with rejection of traditional positivist assumptions about the value neutrality of science. Endorsement of a value-laden concept of science was associated with a preference for subjectivist epistemology. Differences were found between heterosexual and lesbian feminists (the latter group tending to favor a more subjectivist and more exogenist theoretical orientation than the former) and between feminist academics and practitioners (the latter group tending to favor a more subjectivist, but less exogenist, theoretical orientation than the former).

The Psychology of Women: A View from the States

The history of the field of the psychology of women in the USA has three distinct phases. The first, between 1940 and 1960, saw the struggle for recognition by women psychologists. The second, during the late 1960s and early 1970s saw women demanding to be taken seriously as psychologists as well as researchers and research subjects. This led to the establishment of the Association for Women in Psychology and the Division of the Psychology of Women. One complements the other although they both have their own roles. Their efforts have led to a rise in status and visibility of the psychology of women as a field and of women psychologists as members of their profession. The third phase, which started in the 1980s and continues now, must deal with the old issues as well as new issues of maintaining commitment and enthusiasm.

Academic Professional Women Organizing for Change: The Struggle in Psychology

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.