Psychology 339

Psychology of Women

Chapter 1
Introduction to the Psychology of Women
 Outline
Part 1
• Why a psychology of women course? / Themes in the psychology of women / Thinking
critically
Part 2
• Women’s Movements and the Rise of Feminism
– The 3 waves of the women’s movement in the U.S.
• River metaphor
Part 3
– Feminism
Part 4
• Types
Part 5
• Current Issues Related to Feminist Identification
Part 6
• Approaches to thinking about women and men
– Similarity ; Difference
• Thinking critically about research methods – Research Process & Potential Biases
Part 7
• Examples
 Part 1
Why a psychology of women?
–Women left out, viewed through male standard
–Focus was on differences between ‘males’ and ‘females’
–Psychology of women
•Focus on lives and experiences of girls and women
•Topics important to girls and women
–Evidence for growth in psychology of women
 Themes
1. Psychological sex/gender differences are typically small and
inconsistent
-Examine areas in which women and men are different,
but also similar
2. People react differently to men and women
3. Women are less visible than men in many important areas
• http://qz.com/521734/watch-what-happens-when-men-ar
e-photoshopped-out-of-politics/
• https://www.businessinsider.com/changes-in-gender-racial
-diversity-between-the-115th-and-116th-house-2018-12
4. Girls and women vary widely from one another
– Explore diversity among women – by paying attention to
differences between women
 Thinking critically about sex/gender
• Critical thinking is not criticism
– Question whether there are biases in the research process or
from the researcher/author/speaker
– Be on the look-out for statements and claims that are not
supported by evidence
– Question whether the evidence might be interpreted in a
different way
– Be wary of anecdotes; they are not evidence
– Think about what information is missing, but would be
important
– Consider perspectives of those outside of your cultural group
 Part 2
The Women’s Movement: First Wave
– 1848-1920
– Focus was on attainting equal treatment of women and
men under the law
• Economic
• Women’s suffrage (right to vote)
– Challenged idea of women’s inferiority
Second Wave
– Late 1960s-1970; Focus on equality for women
– Traced to Betty Friedan’s 1963 book - “The Feminine
Mystique”
– Expanded to focus on domestic violence, sexual
harassment, pay equality, and reproductive rights
– Challenged idea of women’s “proper” place in the home
• Primarily White middle-class women
The Women’s Movement: Third Wave
• Rebecca Walker (1992) – “Becoming the Third Wave”
– https://teachrock.org/wp-content/uploads/Handout-1-R
ebecca-Walker-%E2%80%9CI-Am-the-Third-Wave%E2%8
0%9D.pdf?x96081

• 1980s/90s to present
• Reproductive freedom, ending violence against women
• Focus on the diversity of women and their experiences
– Intersectionality of identities
• Emphasis on empowerment and self-expression
• Reject universal definitions of femininity
• Challenges second wave views about sex/gender and failing
to include diverse identities
 Intersectionality
•Within category “women,” there is a lot of variability
•Intersectionality emphasizes that people belong to
multiple social groups; primarily a theory of power.
•The idea that social identity categories (e.g., gender,
race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity) and
systems of discrimination (e.g., sexism, racism,
classism, heterosexism, transphobia, ableism) overlap
and interact to shape people’s experiences and
cannot be understood in isolation (Crenshaw, 1989;
1993; McCall, 2005).
The Women’s Movement: River Metaphor
– Wave metaphor may not be the best way to describe the
progress of the women’s movements
– Linda Nicholson (2010)
• Labeling “waves” in the women’s movement ignores
the work and progress made outside the waves (e.g.,
1920s – 1960s)
• Fails to acknowledge the diversity of feminists with
differing perspectives who contributed to each wave
– Laughlin et al. (2010)
• River metaphor better captures the development of
women’s movements over time
– At times expanding and narrowing, but always
flowing
 Part 3 - Feminism
• “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is:
I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express
sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat ..."
– (Rebecca West, 1913)
• Common elements among feminist perspectives (Crawford, 2012):
– Women are valuable and worthwhile human beings
– Social change is needed if women are to lead secure and satisfying
lives
• Old - A movement for the political, economic, and social equality of
women and men; and the legal and social changes necessary to
achieve that equality.
• bell hooks – this framing ignores important factors like race and class.
– “To which group of men would women like to be equal?”
– “A movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression,”
hooks (2000, p. 26).
 Feminism
• Feminism is a worldview/perspective/lens
– Continually evolving
• More towards intersectionality
• Young people will have to redefine it to fit their own
needs and experiences
• Tension between the second and third wave
– Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem (prominent second
wave feminists) insulted women for supporting Bernie
Sanders
– http://www.thirdwavefund.org/index.html
• Roxane Gay: "These essays are political and they are
personal. They are, like feminism, flawed, but they
come from a genuine place.“
 Part 4
Types of Feminism
• Feminism and feminist identities have
evolved throughout the different waves of
the women’s movement.
• A common misconception is that feminists
are all the same. In fact, feminists think in
many different ways.
 Types of Feminism
• Liberal Feminism
– Emphasizes equality between men and
women
– Focus on similarities between women and
men
– Given similar environment (removal of
structural inequalities) genders will behave
similarly
 Types of Feminism
• Radical Feminism
– Emphasizes male control & domination over
women
– Focus on idea that men (as a group) seek to
subordinate women (as a group) so men can have
power and dominance
• Patriarchy is the norm
– Seeks to rid society of rigid gender roles and
oppression of women
• Equity requires new ways of thinking that are
not androcentric, or male-centered
 Types of Feminism
• Socialist Feminism
– Links gender oppression with capitalism, an
economic system in which power is constructed
through work and production
– Myth of meritocracy: the perception that economic
mobility is easily attainable through hard work
– Factors such as class, gender, and race influence the
accumulation of wealth and affect the perceived
value of what a person does.
– Concerns: gendered division of labor, financial
burden of living as a girl or woman
 Types of Feminism
• Cultural Feminism
– Emphasizes women’s unique qualities and
contributions; women should be honored &
respected
• Gender essentialism – women and men are
fundamentally different because these are basic,
unchangeable characteristics that reside within
individuals
– Focus on fundamental differences between women
and men
– “Women are kinder and more gentle than men”
• No wars if women ruled the world.
 Types of Feminism
• Women of Color Feminism
– Emphasizes unique situation of women of color–
intersection between racism and sexism
• Women’s inequality deeply linked to white supremacy
• Ethnocentrism – tendency to regard one’s own ethnic
group as superior to others and to believe that its
customs and way of life are the standards by which
other cultures should be judged
• White-as-normative
– Focus on issues / social justice reforms that do not only
benefit girls and women
• Affirmative action, poverty, racism, prison reform, etc.
 Types of Feminism
• Queer Feminism
– Claims that inequality is related to the ways in which the
categories of woman and man have been constructed, studied,
and used to organize society
– Questions what is considered female and male
– Critiques heteronormativity, which is the idea that people fall into
a binary of two distinct sex categories that have aligning gender
roles and form sexual attractions
– Sex, gender, and sexuality are not always aligned in a predictable
way.
• Cisgender identity: This refers to people who are the gender
they were assigned at birth.
• Transgender identity: This refers to people who are a gender
that is different than the one they were assigned at birth.
 Types of Feminism
• Post-colonial/Transnational Feminism
– Connects women’s inequality to the legacy of
colonialism
– Critiques the belief that women in Western countries are
the most liberated in the world
– Sample concern: banning the hijab
– Third world feminism: claims that feminism should not
focus on commonalities among women but instead
should address issues from multiple perspectives and
not assume a unified position
Part 5 – Current Issues Related to Feminist
Identification
• Some women choose not to identify as feminist
because of the bias within the women’s movement
• Alice Walker coined the term “Womanist” in 1983
– Experiences of Black women and other women
of color
– “Womanist is to feminist as purple is to
lavender.”
– Kat Blaque (pictured in top-right corner) drew
this picture of Walker.
• Ada María Isasi-Díaz coined the term “Mujerista”
in 1992
– Critical of the marginalization of women of
color by White feminists
– Prioritizes the lives of Latinx women
 Current Issues Related to Feminist
Identification
• The experience of racism may influence feminist
identity for women of color.
– For example, Black women may place a higher
value on traditional femininity to combat racist
stereotypes about them being sexually
promiscuous, aggressive, and bad mothers.
• Some men prefer the label pro-feminist, because it
signals they aren’t speaking on behalf of women
but instead see themselves as allies.
– The role that boys and men can play
 Part 6
Research Process & Potential Biases:
Back to Critical thinking
 Psychological Approaches: Similarities
• Women and men are generally similar to each other
intellectually and socially
• Differences that are found are due to social forces
• Social Constructionism:
– What we agree to be sex/gender is produced in cultural
and situational contexts; the social world shapes our
gender
– Culture also informs our sense of reality – of what is
really “true”
– US culture has constructed men and women as different,
so differences are exaggerated
 Psychological Approaches: Differences
• Women and men are generally
different from each other
intellectually and socially
• Feminists working under the
differences approach emphasize
women’s positive characteristics
• Essentialism:
• women and men are
fundamentally different
because these are basic,
unchangeable
characteristics that reside
within individuals
 Theoretical
model

Formulate a specific Resea

hypothesis
rch
Design the
research Proce
Collect the ss
data

Analyze the
data

Interpret the
data
Results read
Communicate
by other
the results
researchers
 Bias in theoretical models and
hypotheses
• Sometimes the basic ideas (theories) underlying the
research are biased against women
– Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
– Theory may be based on unrelated research

• The questions that researchers choose to test can

also be biased
– Women’s mood cycles tested, but not men’s

•A (partial) solution to this form of bias – include

members of the groups to be studied in the
formulation of theories and questions
 Bias in research design
• The way a variable is operationalized can lead to biased findings
– Operational definition: how researchers measure a variable (characteristic)
– Sex/Gender differences in aggression

• Choice of participants
– Many well-established psychological findings were derived from all-male samples
(e.g., Milgram’s obedience research)
– Overgeneralization: An error in which the results are said to apply to a broader
group than the one sampled
• LGBTQ+ samples lumped together, ignoring differences

• Confounding variable
– Any characteristic other than the central variable that is not equivalent under all
conditions (e.g., between men and women)
– SAT math – familiarity with situations described
– Spatial ability – practice with spatial tasks (e.g., playing video games)
 Bias in data collection
• Researcher expectancy
– Experimenter effects
• When some characteristics of the experimenter affect the way
participants behave and therefore affect the research outcome
• Sex/Gender, race, clothing, personality, etc.
– Observer effects
• When the researcher’s expectations affect their observations
and recording of the data
• Sex/Gender stereotypes may influence how participants are
perceived
• Participant Expectancies
• Participants may act in ways that are consistent with
stereotypes
 Bias in data analysis
• Most common statistics are designed to
detect differences, not similarities.
• Qualitative methods produce descriptive
data without the need for statistical
analysis.
• Participatory action research (PAR)
includes participants in the decision
process during every stage of the
research.
 Bias in interpretations
• Once data have been analyzed, a researcher must
interpret the findings. What do the numbers mean?
• Statistical significance vs. practical significance
– Results are not likely to occur by chance vs.
meaningfulness of results
• Ignoring alternative explanations
– Female deficit model: A theory or interpretation of
research in which women’s behavior is seen as deficient
• Overgeneralization of results
 Communicating the findings
• Biased language choices?
• Bias in journal publication process
–Studies that find group differences are much more
likely to be published than studies that do not find
differences
–The topic of the research also influences the
likelihood that it will be published
• Implications for psych of women research

• Distortion in secondary sources

 Theoretical Biased
model model

Formulate a specific, Ask only certain

testable question questions
Biased
tests
Design the
Sampling
research Experimenter Resear
effects ch
bias
Collect the Proces
data Observer s
effects
Confirmation Analyze the
bias Statistics to detect
data differences

Interpret the Biased

results interpretation

Results read Publish only

Publish the significant
by other
results statistics
researchers
Critical Thinking in research evaluation
• Who conducted the study? How might their
background or motives have influenced the research?
– Be aware of the inherent power dynamics involved in
research
– Reject the myth of the impartial researcher
• What questions were being asked? What other
questions could have been asked?
• Carefully evaluate the research design. Were there
biases in the measurement, sampling, or data
collection?
• Are explanations of the findings supported by the data?
What other explanations are possible?
 Part 7 – Example 1
• Researcher wants to study the effect of a new drug
on hypertension
• Study design - two groups: one gets new drug and
one gets old drug
• Individuals with hypertension are randomly
assigned to one of the two conditions
• Researcher works at a hospital where average
hypertension patient is a middle-aged, White man;
thus more men in the sample than women
• Results indicate that new drug works better than
old drug
 EXAMPLE 2
• A study finds that depression is more
common in women than men.
• The study researchers suggest that this
difference is due to women’s greater
emotionality and emotion-focused coping
(as compared to men’s rationality and
problem-focused coping)
 EXAMPLE 3
• A research study examines whether
there are gender differences in
helping behavior.
• A women is used in the research
study as a confederate.
• Results indicate that men engage in
more helping behavior than women.
 EXAMPLE 4
• Research studies find that women are more
likely to turnover (leave their job) than men.
• Researchers suggest that the difference is
because women are less committed to their
jobs.