Women, Psychology, and Social Issues Research

Katz, Phyllis A.

doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1991.tb00438.x

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Influential male psychologists perceived clinical psychology and its concrete applications, not to mention the high number of women in the field, as a threat to masculine-coded ‘pure experimentalism’, and hence to psychology as a profession (Rutherford, 2015: 269). From the 1940s onwards, North American women psychologists formed organizations to counteract sexism in psychological practice and ideas (Johnson and Johnston, 2010; Katz, 1991; Pyke, 2001; Radtke, 2011; Russo and Denmark, 1987; Unger, 1998).…”

Section: The Main Players In the Late 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

An even-handed debate? The sexed/gendered controversy over laterality genes in British psychology, 1970s–1990s

Cornel

2020

History of the Human Sciences

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This article provides insight into the entwinement of the allegedly neutral category of handedness with questions of sex/gender, reproduction, dis/ability, and scientific authority. In the 1860s, Paul Broca suggested that the speech centre sat in the left brain hemisphere in most humans, and that right-handedness stemmed from this asymmetry. One century later, British psychologists Marian Annett and Chris McManus proposed biologically unconfirmed theories of how handedness and brain asymmetry were passed on in families. Their idea to integrate chance into genetic models of handedness was novel, and so was their use of computerized statistics to parse out the incidence of handedness genotypes and phenotypes. Notwithstanding significant conceptual and methodological overlaps, McManus and Annett did not collaborate and proposed competing theories. I analyse the sexed/gendered dimensions of their controversy by drawing on published literature, unpublished documents, and oral history interviews. I first attend to the epistemological importance of sex/gender. Both psychologists published several iterations of their models, which increasingly relied on questions of sex/gender and reproduction. Annett additionally linked handedness with stereotypically gendered cognitive abilities. Second, I argue that using masculine-coded computer technologies contributed to Annett’s professional marginalization whereas similar methods endowed McManus with surplus authority. Finally, I show that Annett’s complicity in stabilizing sociocultural hierarchies within her theory mirrored her personal experience of marginalization based on sex/gender, age, education, and lack of institutional affiliation. This analysis exemplifies the entanglement of cognitive and social factors in scientific controversies and adds to the literature on 20th-century British women psychologists.

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Section: The Main Players In the Late 20th Centurymentioning

confidence: 99%

An even-handed debate? The sexed/gendered controversy over laterality genes in British psychology, 1970s–1990s

Cornel

2020

History of the Human Sciences

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“…It is no coincidence that many of the feminist psychologists who turned their attention to issues of method in the early days of the field had been trained as social psychologists. Further, there has been a well-documented history of overlap in membership between Division 35 (Society for the Psychology of Women) and Division 9 (the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) of the American Psychological Association, whose membership base is largely in social psychology (Katz, 1991;Unger, Sheese, & Main, 2010). Weisstein (1971), although not a social psychologist, based her catalytic critique of psychology's inability to theorize women's experiences, in part, on the same social psychological research that sparked the so-called crisis in social psychology (see Rutherford, Vaughn-Blount, & Ball, 2010).…”

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confidence: 99%

From the Ground Up

Rutherford

2011

Psychology of Women Quarterly

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It seems fitting to begin these Special Sections with a theme that is foundational to the field: the epistemological and methodological issues that underlie feminist scholarship and inform its methods and critiques. As Marecek remarked in her introduction to the 1989 special issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly (PWQ) on feminist metatheory, epistemology, and method: ''If what we know is determined by how we know, then our methods of study deserve close scrutiny'' (p. 370). There is indeed a rich history of lively debate and close scrutiny by social scientists and women's studies scholars about what makes a research method or methodology feminist, including the relationship between methods, methodologies, and epistemologies. Some of this debate has been

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“…The story of the NCWP has been featured in a number of contemporary historical analyses of 20th‐century women's participation in science (Capshew, 1999, Chapter 3; Capshew & Laszlo, 1986; Katz, 1991; Napoli, 1981; Rossiter, 1995; Walsh, 1985). In addition, some original participants have published firsthand accounts and histories (Armstrong, 1946; Bryan, 1983, 1986; Carrington, 1952; Portenier, n.d.; Schwesinger, 1943).…”

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confidence: 99%

Unfamiliar Feminisms: Revisiting the National Council of Women Psychologists

Johnson

Johnston

2010

Psychology of Women Quarterly

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Second-generation women psychologists lived and worked between the two waves of organized feminist protest in the United States. This period is usually described as a time when feminist activity was suppressed or put on hold, and women psychologists from this period are often depicted as being collectively nonfeminist in orientation. In particular, historical accounts of the National Council of Women Psychologists (NCWP), formed in 1942, call the strength and value of members' feminist activism into question. Recent scholarship on interwave feminist activity in the United States has offered a new way of looking at the NCWP, and exploring feminist historiography and using archival data, we suggest that women of the NCWP used a variety of strategies appropriate to their zeitgeist to improve the standing of women in psychology. Some of these strategies do not map well onto post-1960s' definitions of feminist activism and so their effectiveness may not be easily recognized. We argue that the NCWP provided a platform for second-generation women psychologists to document gender-based disparities, debate strategies, and raise awareness of women's contributions to the field. In doing so, the NCWP prepared the ground for second-wave feminist organizing of the 1970s. We suggest that a close look at the struggles and strategies of the NCWP offers important lessons for contemporary feminist organizations in psychology.

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Women, Psychology, and Social Issues Research

Cited by 8 publications

References 27 publications

An even-handed debate? The sexed/gendered controversy over laterality genes in British psychology, 1970s–1990s

An even-handed debate? The sexed/gendered controversy over laterality genes in British psychology, 1970s–1990s

From the Ground Up

Unfamiliar Feminisms: Revisiting the National Council of Women Psychologists

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