By Arohi Sachar
If I ask you to name any five psychologists right this moment, how many would be women? Before writing this article, I knew two or maybe three women psychologists. Gender discrimination touched this field as well, especially in the early 90s. It’s not like we did not have females in this field, we did.
Roughly 12% of psychologists in 1960 in the United States were women but they faced a heavy backlash for pursuing this career choice.
Many were not allowed to study with men, were denied degrees they had rightfully earned or found it difficult to secure academic positions that would allow them to research and publish. Nevertheless, like every other field, they found and made a place for themselves too.
The beginning of psychology research presents very little information in the way of female psychology. Many women did not fight against oppression because they did not realize they were oppressed in the first place. Once the functionalist movement came about, which can be called the ‘philosophy of the mind’ study of sex difference began and a prototypical psychology of woman was developed.
The term ‘feminist psychology’ was coined by Karen Horney. Her book "feminine psychology" approach is often attributed to the pioneering work of Horney, She famously contradicted Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory, arguing that it is male-dominated and, therefore, harboured biases. For this reason, the theory cannot describe femininity because it is informed by male reality and not by the actual female experience. This was the start of active involvement of women in psychology.
In 1975, on the occasion of the first inclusion of the psychology of women as a special topic in the Annual Review of Psychology and the formation of a new American Psychological Association (APA) division on the psychology of women. Mary Parlee wrote an article on the impact of feminism on psychology, noting with approval that these developments meant that
“women, at least as a topic of research, are unlikely to be excluded with the same efficient thoroughness as they have in the past”
According to the American Psychology Association, Women represent the source of greatest growth for graduate education in psychology. As predicted in the 1995 report, most (up to 80%) health service provider–related programs are composed of women students, a demographic trend that is highly likely to continue.
From then, women played an integral part in Psychology. From Anna Freud to Mary Calkins, after working with men, they strayed away to form a path with their own theories. Mary Aimsworth’s groundbreaking work helped us understand child-parent relationships, Leta Stetter Hollingworth worked with gifted children and also another of her important contributions was her research on the psychology of women. The prevailing opinion at the time was that women were both intellectually inferior to men and essentially semi-invalid when they were menstruating. Hollingworth challenged these assumptions, and her research demonstrated that women were as intelligent and capable as men were, no matter what time of the month it was. Margaret Floy Washburn was the first woman to be awarded a PhD in psychology, Eleanor Maccoby was the first woman to chair the psychology department at Stanford University.
All these women knew how important it was to have their thoughts and beliefs represented and just because they "oppose change, receive passively, and add nothing of their own,” they could not contribute to the field the way they wanted to.
But if they did, who knows, you and I could be studying something completely different today.
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