Chapter 8
Psychology of Women
and Gender in the 21st Century
Janet Shibley Hyde & Amanda M.
Durik
University of Wisconsin
Introduction
Psychology of women has come a long way from
Helene Deutsch's (1944) psychoanalytic writing and the century-long
tradition of gender differences research in psychology.
Today it has a vibrant foundation of three decades of contemporary
research and a promising future built on this foundation, yet
with many questions unanswered. Psychology of women today
interweaves three strands: (a) psychological research focused
specifically on women, their psychological functioning, and women-associated
issues such as rape; (b) the psychology of gender, incorporating
traditional research on gender differences but expanding beyond
that to examine gender as a stimulus variable; and (c) feminist
psychology, rooted in feminist theory and an articulated set of
values that emphasizes equality of opportunity for women. We incorporate all three of these strands in
our review.
Here we will consider four major areas that
represent the current status of the psychology of women and, we
believe, will chart the future of psychology of women: theories
in the psychology of women; the intersection of gender with race/ethnicity,
sexual orientation, and disability; research methods in the psychology
of women; and applications of research on the psychology of women
in the areas of public policy, forensic practice, and the practice
of psychotherapy and counseling.
Theories in the Psychology of
Women
Few "grand theories" have been proposed
in the field of psychology of women; one of the few is gender
schema theory (Bem, 1981), reviewed below. This is not to say that
the field is atheoretical.
Rather than building grand theories, researchers have concentrated
on rewriting and redefining the androcentric theories upon which
psychology was established and building models to deal with more
circumscribed problems.
Feminist theory, often borrowing from the humanities, has
been a rich source as well.
Here we review each of these approaches, with examples.
Gender
Schema Theory
Many
studies support gender schema theory.
In testing the theory, Bem categorized participants into
gender-schematic persons (masculine males and feminine
females, as determined by Bem's test of androgyny [1974]) and
gender-aschematic people (androgynous males and androgynous
females). She argued
that gender-schematic people are more likely to engage in gender-schematic
processing of information, whereas gender-aschematic people engage
in it less. In a free-recall test
of a list of words, gender-schematic people were more likely to
cluster the words by gender (e.g., gorilla, bull, trousers), than
gender-aschematic people were. Reaction-time data indicated
that gender-schematic people, when responding "me" or
"not me," processed schema-consistent attributes faster
than they processed schema-inconsistent attributes.
Martin and Halverson (1983) found that, if five- and six-year-old
children were shown pictures of children engaging in stereotype-consistent
or stereotype-inconsistent activities, a week later the children
made errors in recall of the stereotype-inconsistent pictures,
recalling them as stereotype-consistent. That is, if they had seen
a picture of two girls boxing, they remembered that they had seen
two boys boxing.
Gender
schema theory is compelling for a number of reasons, one being
that it explains why gender stereotypes are so resistant to change
-- our gender schema simply filters out stereotype-inconsistent
information. The theory has also been criticized but the
reasons are too technical to go into here (e.g., Spence &
Helmreich, 1981). From our point of view,
the main limitation of the theory is that it is exclusively cognitive.
Emotion
is reemerging as a prominent construct within psychology in general,
and in the 21st century we look toward theories of gender that
integrate cognition (thought) and affect (emotion). For example, the expanding literature on self-concepts
and self-strategies (see review by Wood, 1989) is just waiting
to be incorporated into research on gender.
As we noted, gender schema theory provides a cognitive
explanation for why gender stereotypes are so difficult to change. However, another plausible,
and very exciting explanation might suggest that some people are
motivated to maintain their gender stereotypes. For instance, there may
be times when people accentuate or draw attention to their own
gender-stereotyped traits, if doing so makes them feel good about
themselves. People may feel more positively about themselves
and their own gender when they degrade the other gender.
On the
other hand, some people do indeed work on reducing their stereotyped
attitudes about gender, but what motivates them to work so hard
at this? Maybe there are situations
in which gender stereotypes become so personally limiting and/or
defeating that people want to reject them?
How do they do this?
Integrating self-concept research into research about gender
presents the opportunity to determine motivational factors underlying
why gender is such a salient interpersonal characteristic for
both women and men, and why its importance is so immutable.
Specific
Models
Here we will provide two examples of research
building specific theoretical models to deal with specific questions.
Stereotypes and power.
Susan Fiske (1993) has proposed a model of the ways in
which power and stereotypes influence each other.
Two processes are involved: (a) Stereotyping exerts control
or power over people, pressuring them to conform; therefore, stereotyping
maintains the status quo. (b) Powerful people tend
to stereotype less powerful people far more than the reverse. Given that gender is an important status or
power variable, you can read "men" for "powerful
people" and "women" for "less powerful people." The theory is even broader
than that, though, and extends to other categories such as ethnic
groups.
Let's
consider the first process, in which gender stereotyping exerts
control of males and females.
Stereotypes can be prescriptive -- that is, they say how
people of a certain group should behave.
Adolescent boys should excel at athletics. Girls should not be aggressive.
If one fails to meet the demands of such stereotypes, the
penalties can be severe, such as social rejection by the peer
group. Stereotypes, therefore,
exert control over people.
Turning
to the second process, the powerful group (men) tends to stereotype
the less powerful group (women) more than the reverse. Less powerful people generally are motivated
to pay attention to the idiosyncrasies of powerful people because
those powerful people control outcomes for the less powerful. Servants know a great many details about their
employers and their preferences, for example, but the reverse
is unlikely. Powerful people pay less
attention to others and consequently rely on simple stereotypes. Powerful people pay less attention to the less
powerful in part because the less powerful have little control
over them.
Fiske
(1993) has conducted many clever experiments to test various aspects
of her theory. In
one study, undergraduates were given the power to evaluate the
summer job applications of high school students.
Some undergraduates were given more power in the final
decision and others were given less power. The students who were
given more power actually paid less attention to the applicants,
consistent with Fiske's model.
Fiske's
model and research were influential in an important Supreme Court
case, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins.
Ann Hopkins was denied partnership in the prestigious accounting
firm of Price Waterhouse.
Compared with her male colleagues who were also being considered
for partnership, she worked more billable hours, was well liked
by clients, and brought in millions of dollars in accounts. She was denied partnership
not because her performance was inadequate (it was in fact superb
by objective standards), but rather because she was not considered
feminine. Stereotype violation,
in short, was used as grounds for the denial of promotion.
Based
on Fiske's model, we can understand how stereotypes operated at
several levels in this case.
Men were in power at Price Waterhouse and women were outnumbered.
Therefore, the powerful men were likely to hold stereotyped expectations
about the women and to pay less attention to their individual
details, such as their qualifications. Hopkins, by being a successful
woman in a male-dominated profession was a stereotype violator
and received punishment for it.
The Supreme
Court ruled in favor of Hopkins, and the brief filed by the American
Psychological Association, reporting Susan Fiske's research, was
highly influential in the decision.
Men
who sexually aggress against women.
Some theorists argue that too much rape research has focused
on women who have been raped, when the real emphasis should be
on the aggressors. Only by gaining a scientific
understanding of them will we be able to reduce the occurrence
of rape. Neil Malamuth and colleagues (1991) developed a model
of the factors that predispose a man to engage in sexual coercion
with women and then tested it against data obtained from a large,
national sample of male college students. According to their model
-- and the data supported it -- four factors predispose a man
to engage in sexual coercion:
(a) Hostile home environment -- Violence between parents
or battering or sexually abusing the child increase the chances
that the boy will engage in sexual coercion. (b) Delinquency -- Being
involved in delinquency leads a boy to associate with delinquent
peers who, for example, encourage hostile attitudes and rationalizations
for committing crimes and reward a tough, aggressive image.
(c) Sexual promiscuity -- Often in the context of the delinquent
group, the young man comes to believe that sexual conquests bring
him status within the peer group, and coercion may seem to be
a reasonable way to achieve his goals. (d) A hostile masculine
personality -- This personality constellation involves deep hostility
toward women together with negatively defined, exaggerated masculinity--masculinity
characterized as rejecting anything feminine, such as nurturance,
and emphasizing power, control, and macho characteristics.
Understanding
the factors that make some men rape-prone will be crucial for
intervention programs. What
other factors might be related to men sexually aggressing against
women, and might these and other factors interact or lead to one
another in a causal sequence? How could such models
be tested?
Feminist
Theory
Research and theory
about the psychology of women has been heavily influenced by feminist
theory (e.g., Jaggar & Rothenberg, 1993; Tong, 1989), much
of which has originated in the humanities.
An early example was Bem's (1974) theorizing and research
on androgyny, which was preceded by earlier writings in the humanities
(Heilbrun, 1973). We have no doubt that
this pattern will continue into the 21st century, as developments
in feminist theory are made in the humanities, and then translated
by psychologists into theory that is testable with empirical data.
Here we offer one recent example.
Nita
McKinley and Janet Hyde (1996) developed the Objectified Body
Conscious (OBC) Scale to measure women's experience of their own
bodies. The research began with
the writings of feminist theorists, who argue that the female
body is constructed as an object of male desire and exists to
receive the gaze of the male (Spitzack, 1990).
The result is that women experience objectified body consciousness
(McKinley, 1995). OBC consists of three
components: (a) body surveillance, in which the woman or girl
views her own body as if an external onlooker and constantly evaluates
it; (b) internalization of cultural standards that specify the
ideal female body and the ideal for beauty; because these standards
are internalized, conformity seems to be a matter of personal
choice rather than external pressure, and shame results when one
fails to control one's weight or appearance; and (c) beliefs that
one can control one's appearance and weight, which can lead to
unhealthy behaviors and eating disorders. Based on this feminist
theorizing, McKinley and Hyde (1996) developed the OBC scale to
measure these three components. Their data showed that
high scores on these scales were associated with disordered eating.
Now the scales are available to those doing further research
on this important topic.
One of
the most exciting aspects of the psychology of women is that it
is part of the interdisciplinary field of women's studies. As such, there are rich opportunities to learn
from developments in other disciplines and in turn to use psychology
to build on those developments.
Gender and Its Intersection with
Race/Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexual Orientation
One of the key tenets of feminist theory is
that gender does not act alone, but rather acts jointly with race/ethnicity,
disability, and sexual orientation, in influencing an individual's
life experience. Here we provide examples of some of this work
that looks at the conjoint influence of gender and these other
status characteristics.
Gender
and Race/Ethnicity
We can see the intersection
of gender with race/ethnicity most directly if we examine variations
in gender roles across ethnic groups in the United States.
For example, the evidence shows that some North American
Indian tribes had a system of egalitarian gender roles, in which
separate but equally valued tasks were assigned to women and men
and women had a strong role in government (Blackwood, 1984). The very work that is
considered acceptable for women or men can be determined by one's
ethnic group.
Among
Asian Americans, educational attainment is highly valued and both
males and females are expected to meet high standards. Asian American women graduate from college
at a higher rate than white men do (Hyde, 1996). There is no view that women are less worthy
of education. In this case, one's gendered
aspirations are defined by one's ethnic group.
As these
two examples indicate, we cannot begin to understand the impact
of gender roles on girls and women unless we consider ethnicity
simultaneously.
Gender
and Disability
Few individual characteristics
rival gender in their salience or impact in social situations,
but disability is one of them. It is surprising that only a small body of
research exists on the interaction of gender and disability; we
believe that this literature will continue to expand in the next
decade. Michelle Fine and Adrienne Asch (1988) have
edited an interdisciplinary volume on this topic.
They commented on the discrepancy between feminists strivings
for independence and disabled womens assumed dependence. This misconception may
be one reason why disability and gender have not been extensively
researched within the psychology of women.
Despite
the scarcity of research, some areas have been explored. For example, an analysis
of autobiographies written by blind people revealed that blind
women were more likely than blind men to seek jobs within the
blind community, teaching and counseling other blind people (Asch
& Sacks, 1983). Furthermore, blind women
were less likely than blind men to refer to intimate relationships,
but more likely to show concern about the visible features of
their disabilities.
Another
line of research on women and disability has focussed attention
on womens experiences of sexuality and mothering. Asrael (1982) articulated the discouragement
and difficulty that disabled women face when deciding to have
children, and then offered a useful model within which disabled
women are described as working with a team of professionals to
plan their pregnancies and deliveries. This compelling idea highlights
one of this areas complexities. For example, would this approach be appropriate
for all women with disabilities?
Embedded within this research topic is a challenge to recognize
differences and commonalities among peoples experiences who have
different disabilities.
Most
of what we know in this area is descriptive in nature and is based
on interviews with disabled women.
Although these studies are rich with detail and are an
important place to start, the underlying social and psychological
processes related to womens experiences will be identified only
when researchers apply psychological theory to this domain.
Disabled
women (and men) have been described as members of an }invisible”
population. Although
this description is true in general, some disabilities are more
invisible than others and have escaped the attention of researchers
to an even greater extent.
Examples of these invisible disabilities are learning disabilities,
mental illness, and some physical or sensory disabilities. These individuals who
can }pass” as not disabled at first glance may have unique
experiences and frustrations that are not socially recognized
or validated. Researchers
may gain insight into the nature of gender and stigma associated
with disability by focussing attention on how these women choose
to navigate through life labelled as disabled or not.
Another
area that is rich with research possibility concerns public attitudes
about women with disabilities.
Are women with disabilities evaluated more negatively than
disabled men when they need to advocate for themselves?
What attributions are made of their emotional behavior? In what ways do physical atypicalities influence
interpersonal behaviors among women with disabilities, and how
do these women deal with extreme standards of beauty and femininity
that may seem contradictory to their disabilities?
Approaching the topic from a more positive stance, are
women with disabilities more capable of challenging gender stereotypes
or expectations because of their often marginalized position? The answers to these questions are unknown,
and the questions continue to emerge.
Psychology of women has its work cut out for itself in
the arena of understanding the complex relationships between gender
and disability.
Sexual
Orientation
Issues of sexual orientation have personally
touched the lives of many within the field of psychology of women
and part of the research attention afforded this topic can be
traced to this interest. However, perhaps more powerfully, psychology
of women has a strong tradition of documenting and validating
the diversity in human experience. It is from this stance
that psychology of women has tackled the very complex issues related
to sexual orientation.
Like
no other area of academe, psychology of women has sought to describe
and validate the experiences of lesbians (Boston Lesbian Psychologies
Collective, 1987; Greene & Herek, 1994; Davis, Cole, &
Rothblum, 1996; Weinstock & Rothblum, 1996).
Some stereotypes have been shattered, but perhaps more
importantly, it has become clear that there is no single lesbian
experience. One important part of past research is that
psychologists have recognized and documented the challenges facing
lesbians who are building and maintaining relationships without
the support of family, friends, and/or social institutions.
Research
has also focussed on the qualities of lesbian relationships themselves. More specifically, these
relationships offer one of the only opportunities to witness the
dynamics of intimate relationships without the inherent inequalities
introduced by pairing women and men.
Although most lesbian relationships are more egalitarian
than heterosexual relationships (Peplau, Cochran, Rock, &
Padesky, 1978), one finding that was surprising to some was the
existence of violence within some lesbian relationships (Brand
& Kidd, 1986). This
finding is particularly relevant to future research in this area,
in that investigators will continue to disentangle the network
of status and power that exists between people even in relationships
where gender is equalized.
Issues
of sexual orientation are not limited to lesbianism. Future research will focus on bisexual women. Bisexuality has often
been brushed aside, without having an identity of its own, but
gradually it is becoming less marginalized.
Bisexuality offers a unique situation in which women have
the flexibility to alternate between }heterosexual” and
}homosexual” experiences depending on whom theyre currently
dating. The psychological and
social complexities that accompany this situation, and the nature
of a bisexual identity or identities, will be illuminated in future
research (Ault, 1996; Weinberg, Williams, & Pryor, 1994).
Finally,
research on sexual orientation will continue to address issues
related to social policy.
For example, one line of research shows that children are
not disadvantaged as a result of being raised by lesbian rather
than heterosexual couples (Flaks, Ficher, Masterpasqua, &
Joseph, 1995; Patterson, 1992). This type of research may be influential in
adoption cases where concern is raised regarding whether lesbian
couples are fit to be parents.
Furthermore, through research, lifestyles that may seem
marginal to some people, become more normalized and acceptable. There is great power in
showing that women who are lesbian or bisexual are not necessarily
different from heterosexual women on variables other than sexual
orientation.
Research Methods in the Psychology
of Women
Researchers within psychology of women have
adopted, adapted, and cultivated a wide variety of research methods.
Part of this diversity has grown out of the challenges
feminist researchers encounter as they search for methods that
will effectively answer their research questions without contradicting
their feminist ideals. The selection and application of research
methods is a series of tradeoffs because each has its strengths
and weaknesses, and none is a methodological panacea. The tradeoffs typically center around two fundamental
characteristics of any research endeavor: (a) whether qualitative
or quantitative data are collected, and (b) the context in which
the data were collected. For clarity, we will discuss
these issues separately although they are intertwined.
Quantitative and Qualitative Research
Regarding the first issue, data can be either
qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative data come
in the form of verbal description and are usually summarized in
text, whereas quantitative data are in the form of numbers and
are analyzed via statistical procedures.
One of the most well-known studies of the qualitative type
was conducted on womens moral reasoning by Carol Gilligan (1982). Gilligan conducted a series
of elaborate interviews with women who were making the decision
of whether or not to have an abortion. She designed her research
in response to the androcentric theory of moral reasoning advanced
by Kohlberg (1969) in which he pronounced women to be less mature
in their moral reasoning than men.
In contrast, Gilligan concluded that women were not deficient
in their abilities to reason morally, but rather, reasoned from
different premises than did men. According to Gilligan,
men mainly use considerations of justice in their moral reasoning,
whereas women attend more to relationships and the imperative
to care for others. It is easy to understand
how Gilligan's interview-based methodology is congruent with the
feminist goal of documenting and validating the lived experiences
of women. This approach can uncover detailed information
about individuals' experiences by taking into account the contexts
in which they live and the intricacies of their lives.
Qualitative
methods such as these can definitely contribute a great deal to
the field. However, due to the elaborate
processes by which qualitative data are collected and synthesized,
these accounts typically represent the experiences of only a small
number of people; thus, the virtue of this method is also its
vice. Because of the rich detail and concern for
individuals unique experiences, it is often difficult to draw
general conclusions.
Investigators
using quantitative methods, in contrast, frame and seek to answer
research questions using statistical techniques.
For example, participants may be asked to report their
attitudes on a scale from say, 1 to 7, and by doing this they
are quantifying their attitudes rather than describing them in
their own words. Although there is considerable utility (for
example, one can collect data on a large, random sample) in being
able to summarize people's attitudes in this manner, this benefit
comes at a cost. It is likely, if not inevitable,
that part of individuals richness and depth are lost when they
are asked to report information in this way. In summarizing the distinction between qualitative
and quantitative methods then, we might say that whereas the benefit
of qualitative data is depth, the benefit of quantitative data
is breadth.
Contextual
and Design Factors in Research
Another important methodological distinction
is between naturalistic and laboratory studies.
Naturalistic investigations are conducted in the environments
where people live, work, and play, rather than in laboratories.
Because feminists stress the importance of context, many
would suggest that it is not optimal to strip these important
factors away from the setting in which research is conducted,
as in laboratory studies. However, there is also
much to be gained from laboratory research.
Superfluous contextual factors that may muddle a researchers
understanding of a particular phenomenon can be removed from studies
in laboratories.
Psychological
experiments, more specifically, introduce their own costs and
benefits. In an experiment, the
researcher seeks to demonstrate the causal effects of one entity
(the independent variable) on another (the dependent variable). When this is done in the laboratory, contextual
factors except for the causal entity need to be minimized or controlled. Thus, the }all powerful” experimenter
attempts to strip away contextual factors that might add }noise”
to the data. Then,
typically unbeknownst to the participants, the experimental environment
is manipulated or altered in some way and then the participants
are asked to respond. This manipulation (and
sometimes deception) produces a situation in which a hierarchical
relationship is constructed between the experimenter and the participants. The experimenter has considerable
power over the situation and control over the participants. This power differential has the potential of
leading the participants to feel exploited or demoralized, which
is the antithesis of the outcome that feminist researchers seek.
Integrating Research Approaches
Although quantitative methods and laboratory
experimentation have their flaws from a feminist point of view,
we contend that the discipline has nonetheless benefited a great
deal from these approaches. Powerful feminist arguments have been substantiated
from their use. For
example, only by quantitative methods is it possible to document
the widespread violence against women on college campuses (e.g.,
Koss, 1987) and only with experimental methods can one investigate
the direct causal effects of gender-biased language (Hyde, 1984).
To illustrate, one of us (JH) conducted an experiment to
determine whether childrens perceptions of a fictitious occupation
(wudgemaking) were influenced by the pronouns used to describe
people who did this for a living (Hyde, 1984). She found that participants
rated women as only moderately competent at the task when the
pronoun was masculine, but their ratings rose when either a gender-fair
or feminine pronoun was used. The use of the experimental
method allowed the researcher to determine the influence of masculine,
feminine, or gender-fair pronouns on childrens perceptions of
this fictitious occupation.
It is also noteworthy that although the children in this
study were in an experiment, they most likely were not led to
feel manipulated or controlled.
Issues
concerning hierarchy and control can emerge in almost any research
setting. For example,
personal and professional responsibilities may be blurred in an
ongoing interview study, where intimate information is passed
from participant to investigator. Thus, even qualitative,
non-laboratory researchers face ethical challenges in navigating
the path between data collection and interpersonal exploitation
or invasion of privacy. Laboratory experimentation,
however, has been most highly criticized by feminists. First, to provide a balanced view, it is notable
that participants are at minimal risk in most laboratory experimental
research. Furthermore, the ethics
of research procedures are monitored by a designated board of
people who review all proposed research with human participants,
so long as the research is conducted within a university context
(a practice that also is followed with research that is not experimental).
In addition, recognizing the usefulness of laboratory studies,
feminists have made strides in improving the situations into which
research participants enter.
Landrine, Klonoff, and Brown-Collins (1992) have made several
suggestions of how feminist psychologists can alter their methods
to coincide more with feminist ideals. For example, they
suggested that researchers provide monetary compensation for participants
service and never coerce participation as part of a course requirement.
Moreover, in an ideal world, research would be designed
so that the people under investigation actually benefited from
participation.
We suggest
that the methods just discussed have different strengths and weaknesses
and compliment each other well. Used in tandem, these methods may prove to
be extremely useful in terms of leading to our greater understanding
of gender and its intersection with other social and cultural
phenomena. For example,
an area of research may at first be investigated qualitatively
to determine what topics are important to participants lives. Then, once these more
specific aspects are identified, they can be investigated via
quantitative methods. Qualitative
and quantitative methods might also be used iteratively. That is, the first study on a question might
be qualitative, followed by a quantitative study, followed by
a qualitative study designed to clarify the findings of the quantitative
research, and so on.
Deborah
Tolman and Laura Szalacha (in press) provided an excellent example
of multiple-method research on adolescent girls experiences of
sexual desire. Narrative
data from 30 girls were collected, and then the data were summarized
both qualitatively and quantitatively.
The researchers were able to summarize the data at multiple
levels of specificity. They reported overall
patterns using statistical analysis and then returned to the original
narrative data to capture the richness of individual girls experiences
and to explore the nature of the overall patterns.
This type of research should inspire researchers within
psychology of women to liberate their research questions and paradigms
from the constraints of rigid boundaries between methodologies.
As psychology
in general continues to progress away from a positivist perspective
(Hare-Mustin & Marecek, 1988), peoples varied experiences
within a given situation will be recognized as important. In this way, the psychological meaning of a
situation, as constructed by participants, will become more central
and thus press the empirical methods used in psychology to be
more diverse and flexible. A challenge to researchers
in psychology of women is to lead the way in this use of multiple
methods. This approach may be more
difficult than it seems at first glance.
One area in which attention can be focussed in order to
bring this about concerns the training of scholars in these diverse
methods. Typically, one is trained to be either a quantitative
or qualitative researcher.
This boundary needs to be broken and open dialogue should
occur between researchers using both approaches.
A second area in which gains need to be made is in the
evaluative criteria for qualitative methods.
There is general consensus in psychology about what methods
are acceptable among quantitative approaches (e.g., appropriateness
of statistical tests, adequacy of comparison groups), but this
is less true of qualitative methods. Guidelines have begun
to be defined (e.g., Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Olesen, 1994) and
these should continue to be developed so that adopting qualitative
methods from other backgrounds will feel more confident in this
methodology.
Finally,
given that we embark on our research with a clear feminist perspective,
it is important for the psychology of women that we make every
attempt to communicate to others our message and our research
in a way that others will }listen” to and respond to affirmatively. It is imperative for feminist psychologists
to conduct careful, well-planned research so that our results
will be respected and taken seriously.
Only by conveying our research in a way that is compelling
to psychology as a whole will we be successful in accomplishing
our goals and improving the lives of women.
Applications of Psychology of
Women in the Real World
Public Policy
One of the most neglected public policy issues
in the United States is parental leave, which refers to the leave
from work that a mother or father takes at the time of the birth
(or adoption) of a baby (Hyde, Essex, Clark, Klein, & Byrd,
1996). We offer this
issue as an example of the ways in which psychological research
can have an impact in the policy arena.
In 1985, the United States was the only developed nation
to have no national policy providing parental leave for new parents. In 1993, the federal Family and Medical Leave
Act (FMLA) became law.
It provides for a minimum leave of 12 weeks for new mothers
or fathers. The leave must be job-guaranteed -- that is,
the employee has the right to return to the same job or a comparable
one. The minimum requirement
is for unpaid leave, but employers may be more generous and provide
paid leave. These requirements hold
only for persons employed by a company that has 50 or more employees;
small businesses are not required to comply.
This policy is considerably less generous than policies
in European nations.
When
Congress was considering whether to pass the FMLA, it called on
psychologists to provide expert testimony.
The research of experts -- most of whom were developmental
psychologists and testified that infants need 4 to 6 months with
their mother, father, or other stable caregiver in order to form
a secure attachment, which is crucial for later adjustment --
was instrumental in passing the bill.
Our research
team, examining the expert testimony, noticed that it focused
exclusively on infants and their well-being, and that the well-being
of mothers had been ignored.
We launched a project, the Wisconsin Maternity Leave and
Health Project, to provide data on this crucial issue and, we
hoped, to inform future public policy decisions (Hyde et al.,
1996; Hyde, Klein, Essex, & Clark, 1995). We found, for example,
that a short leave (6 weeks or less) acts as a risk factor, when
combined with other risk factors such as a troubled marriage,
for elevated levels of depressive symptoms in women.
We also found that 66% of the women took a shorter leave
than they would have preferred (Hyde et al., 1996). The reason? Finances. Most could not afford to stay away from work
any longer, when the leave was unpaid.
The results from this project should help to inform decisions
about parental leave policy in the future.
They build a strong case for strengthening the current
legislation to provide for paid leave.
Efficacy
of Therapy
One of the hot questions
in psychology today is whether various forms of psychotherapy
"work" -- an issue variously known as the efficacy of
therapy or empirically supported therapies (Chambless & Hollon,
1998; Compas, Haaga, Keefe, Leitenberg, & Williams, 1998). This question has been
asked of feminist therapy and of therapies used to treat disorders
in which a preponderance of the affected people are women, e.g.,
eating disorders (e.g., Compas et al., 1998).
Is feminist
therapy effective? The
bottom line is that we do not have enough good research to be
able to answer the question.
Ideally, an evaluation study should randomly assign clients
to feminist therapy or no therapy (the latter group receives therapy
later, after the research is completed), and then evaluates the
clients at the end of therapy compared with the no-treatment controls.
We know of no study that has used such a design. One of the few relevant
studies compared women in feminist therapy with women in traditional
therapy (Marecek, Kravetz, & Finn, 1979). Unfortunately, the women
had selected the therapy themselves rather than being randomly
assigned, so we cannot be certain whether differences between
the groups were a result of the different therapies or pre-existing
differences.
Evaluating
the effectiveness of feminist therapy will surely be an important
research topic in the next decade.
Two distinct questions can be asked: (a) Is feminist therapy
effective compared with no therapy? and (b) Is feminist therapy
as effective or more effective than traditional therapies?
Beyond that, we can ask more complex questions, such as
whether feminist therapy is particularly effective in treating
certain problems. The first question is important and feasible
to answer. The second question probably
will not lend itself easily to research because most feminist
therapists incorporate elements of traditional therapies into
their treatment, as appropriate to the particular problem (Enns,
1993). It would therefore be difficult to separate
out the effect of the particular feminist components.
Forensic
Psychology of Women
A substantial number
of feminist psychologists -- some of them academic researchers,
some of them feminist therapists -- work in the area of forensic
psychology. This
area may include analysis of psychological harm arising from trauma
(e.g., domestic violence, sexual harassment), evaluation of parents
in child custody cases, or preparing an attorney to cross-examine
an accused rapist (for a review, see Brown, in press). Feminist forensic psychologists develop their
expert opinions based on a combination of basic research in the
psychology of women and accumulated clinical experience of themselves
and others in treating women who have experienced such traumas.
In this role, they strongly influence legal outcomes. Examples include judgments about whether a
mother loses custody of her children following a divorce, whether
a woman can sue an employer for damages on account of psychological
trauma she suffered as a result of sexual harassment on the job,
and whether an accused rapist is convicted.
As one
specific example, feminist forensic psychologists gradually accumulated
an argument that was upheld in many legal cases. Specifically, they argued that a battered woman
might well be in constant fear for her life, even if a knife was
not held to her throat at a particular moment; therefore, if she
killed her batterer, it could reasonably be regarded as self-defense
(Brown, in press). Feminist forensic psychology is an exciting
area that doubtless will expand in the future.
Advice to Aspiring
Feminist Researchers
One of the most important goals of feminist
psychologists is the improvement of the lives of girls and women
and a commitment to that goal will surely extend into the 21st
century. If we are to improve the
lives of girls and women, so many areas desperately need more
research and more talented researchers.
We have only begun to glimpse the complex behavioral and
cultural mechanisms that will help us unravel the puzzles before
us in feminist topics, such as sexual assault, sexual harassment,
eating disorders, homophobia, the double whammy of racism and
sexism. Without basic
research to give us an understanding of these issues, we cannot
hope to be effective in treating those affected by these problems,
much less in preventing them.
If you
want to pursue a graduate degree specializing in feminist psychology,
you will need to be especially careful in accepting the appropriate
graduate program. For
example, not every department is supportive of feminist approaches. Some may actively discourage research related
to women and gender. If
possible, select a university that is strong in both psychology
and womens studies. Ideally, you should take graduate courses
in womens studies as well as psychology.
Mentorship
is also a significant factor in establishing a successful research
program as a feminist psychologist.
Interview faculty members in the department who express
an interest in feminist psychology.
Find out which feminist psychologists have graduate student
positions available. Then find out if those
individuals would be willing to work with you specifically. Chances are that feminist mentors may be especially
supportive in helping you survive the rigors of graduate training.
Many entire textbooks
have been written about the psychology of women and gender (e.g.,
Hyde, 1996). Our coverage here has been necessarily brief
and has omitted much. As
we think forward to the 21st century, we have a solid foundation
of three decades of research and theory on which to build.
It is exciting to be part of this effort.
Feminist researchers especially welcome new researchers
into the fold who can continue to work energetically for causes
important to girls and women. We think that it is exciting
to be part of this effort.
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| Janet Shibley Hyde is Professor of Psychology and Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin--Madison. She earned her PhD in 1972 from the University of California, Berkeley. She teaches undergraduate courses on Psychology of Women and Human Sexuality, and is the author of a textbook for the psychology of women course, entitled Half the Human Experience: The Psychology of Women. One line of her research has focused on gender differences in abilities and self-esteem. Another line focuses on women, work, and dual-earner couples. |
The author may be reached at jshyde@facstaff.wisc.edu |
| Amanda Durik is a graduate student in the Psychology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her B.S. in Psychology at Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky. In graduate school, she has conducted research in the areas of sexism, gender steretotyping of emotion, and women, family, and employment. |
The author may be reached at amdurik@students.wisc.edu |
