In the United States, women finally won theright to vote in 1920 with the ratification ofthe 19th constitutional amendment, or suffragebill. Many late 19th- and early 20th-centuryAmerican women psychologists, such as Chris-tine Ladd-Franklin (1847–1930) and HelenThompson Woolley (1874–1947), were women’srights supporters and activists.

Johnston and Johnson (2008) have also shownthat women in Psychology’s second generationwere more racially and religiously diverse thantheir first-generation counterparts. Thus, manyexperienced the double jeopardy of racism andsexism or anti-Semitism and sexism.

Although these early women psychologistsbegan the process of bringing a feminist con-sciousness to psychology, it was not until thelate 1960s that women’s understanding of them-selves changed so radically, and was experiencedso widely that they were able to successfullychallenge the androcentrism and sexism thatpervaded the field.

Postmodern feminist psychologistsexamine how psychological discourses—such asthe discourses of male–female differences, raceand ethnicity, mental health and illness, andsexuality—maintain oppressive power hierar-chies such as White privilege and patriarchy

We have mentionedfeminist empiricism, which takes as its aim theproduction of gender-fair science in the beliefthat if all sources of bias or irrationality in the re-search process are identified and eliminated, theresult will be an increasingly accurate reflectionof reality that can be used to formulate moreequitable social policy.

although violence against women cantake many forms, much Indian research has fo-cused on domestic violence and its relationship toa culture of male entitlement, wherein violence inthe marital relationship is largely tacitly accepted.Precipitating factors appear to be economic (e.g.,demands for dowry and extended dowry), as wellas cultural (e.g., perceived deficiencies in carry-ing out the responsibilities and obligations of the‘‘good wife,’’ sexual control of wives, and stressesresulting from joint-family situations)

Thus, we would expect that variations in domi-nant feminist ideologies and political trajectoriesfor women, and diversity in the issues facingthem, would influence the contours and contentof feminist psychology as it is developed aroundthe world. Although the dominant historical nar-rative in this chapter has been the evolution ofAmerican feminist psychology, other countrieshave had decidedly different narratives.

Starting in the 1990s, feminist psychologists,many of them women of color, began both tohighlight psychology’s lack of attention to themultiple identities that influence women’s livesand to theorize intersectionality.

Diversity, inclusion, and representativeness havebeen important issues in the psychology ofwomen and feminist psychology. Second-wavefeminism has been justifiably criticized as exclu-sively representing the concerns and outlooksof women at the center—generally heterosexual,White, middle-class women—and ignoring thecomplex intersections of gender with race, eth-nicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status,and other important identity categories

Women married to male psychol-ogists were often offered, and took, subordinatepositions so that the couple could remain to-gether, thus advancing the man’s career butdecelerating that of the woman.

Once graduated, first-generation womenfaced limited employment opportunities. Theywere often hired at women’s colleges that hadno or limited graduate programs.

These women also encountered obstacles dur-ing their training. Often, even when women wereallowed into graduate programs, they were de-nied access to laboratories, equipment, libraries,and special societies

In addition, many schools, especially theprestigious ones, simply did not accept women.Harvard did not grant PhDs to women until1963. Women who studied at Harvard beforethis time received their PhDs from RadcliffeCollege, its all-female counterpart. Many first-generation women psychologists, such as MaryWhiton Calkins (1863–1930), Margaret FloyWashburn (1871–1939), and Christine Ladd-Franklin (1847–1930), were special students orguests at their graduate institutions becausewomen were not admitted as regular students

Gilligan defends her position, stating,‘‘When I hear my work being cast in terms ofwhether women and men are really (essentially)[parentheses in original] different or who is betterthan whom, I know that I have lost my voice,because these are not my questions’’ (1982/1993,p. xiii). Rather, she is interested in the questionof how men and women come to speak ofthemselves in certain characteristic ways, of howgirls and women learn to silence themselves, andhow to make an ethic of care a more prominentpart of human development, not just women’sdevelopment

Sandra Bemhad suggested that each person has both femi-nine and masculine traits and, furthermore, thatan equal representation of each was character-istic of an androgynous—and psychologicallyhealthy—personality. She devised the Bem SexRole Inventory to measure androgyny, and thisspawned a copious amount of research in the en-suing years

As another example,they suggested that although childbearing andchild rearing had, at one time, taken up much ofwomen’s adult lives and made them ineligible forcertain occupational roles, smaller families andlonger life spans made this exclusion unneces-sary.

Feminists have consistently argued thatwomen’s experiences of gender inequality, sexualharassment and discrimination, poverty, racism,and role stress must all be taken into accountto understand their lives. Feminists have alsoprotested the overprescription of psychotropicmedication to women and the lack of research onwomen’s response to medication

she argued, were oftenused as the basis for diagnostic categoriesthat pathologized women who conformed tothem; at the same time, women who did notconform to these gender stereotypes were seenas deviant and disorderly. In sum, both being toofeminine and not being feminine enough wereinterpreted as indications of psychopathology

One of their findings, not surprisingly, wasthat psychological research on, and knowledgeabout, women was deficient. Most psychologicalresearch being published in the field wasconducted with White, college-aged men, withthe assumption that these results could begeneralized to the universal human experience.Research on women’s experiences, such aspregnancy and child rearing, menstruation,sexual harassment, and rape, was simply absent.

he task force, chaired by Helen Astin,undertook a two-year study and published a de-tailed report of its findings and recommendationsin 1973. The study uncovered several practicesin the field of Psychology that were unfavorableto women and made several recommendationsfor action. For example, they recommended aformal mechanism for individuals to report sexistand discriminatory treatment in psychotherapy,they demanded accessible and open job recruit-ment, and they requested an affirmative actionplan to mandate equity in remuneration andpromotional opportunities for women.

like Weisstein, feminist psychologists met at theannual convention of the American Psychologi-cal Association (APA) to discuss sexist practiceswithin the field. These practices included jobadvertisements indicating that ‘‘men only’’ needapply, lack of childcare at the annual conven-tion, and overt sexual harassment. The result ofthese often angry and heated discussions was theformation, in 1969, of the first organization forwomen in psychology since the National Coun-cil of Women Psychologists in the 1940s: theAssociation for Women in Psychology

In the wake of the burgeoning women’s move-ment, feminist women psychologists (and a fewfeminist men) waged their own battles withintheir chosen discipline, demanding that andro-centric theories be acknowledged and reformedand that sexist institutional practices be elimi-nated. One of these psychologists was NaomiWeisstein (b. 1939), an ardent socialist femi-nist and one of the founders of the ChicagoWomen’s Liberation Union.

Women’s Strike for Equality march onFifth Avenue in New York City. Their mandatewas clear: to continue the work left undone bytheir first-wave predecessors by demanding equalopportunities in education and the workplace;access to safe, legal abortion; affordable childcare;and an equal share of political power. AsFriedan wrote in the epilogue to the 10thanniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique,‘‘By 1970 it was beginning to be clear that thewomen’s movement was . . . the fastest-growingmovement for basic social and political changeof the decade’’

Behaviorism ought to be a science that prepares men and women for understanding theprinciples of their own behavior. It ought to make men and women eager to rearrangetheir own lives, and especially eager to prepare themselves to bring up their own chil-dren in a healthy way.

Watson’s conditioned reflex experiments, such as the Albert study, persuaded himthat emotional disturbances in adulthood are caused by conditioned responses estab-lished in infancy, childhood, and adolescence. If adult disturbances are a function offaulty childhood conditioning, then a proper program of childhood conditioning shouldprevent the emergence of adult disorders. Watson believed this kind of practical controlover childhood behavior (and hence over the later adult behavior) was not only possiblebut absolutely necessary. He developed a plan for improving society, a program of exper-imental ethics, based on the principles of behaviorism.

Her subject was three-year-old Peter, who already showed a fear of rabbits, althoughhis fear had not been conditioned in the laboratory. While Peter was eating, a rabbit wasbrought into the room but kept at a distance great enough so as not to trigger a fearfulresponse. Over a series of trials lasting several weeks, the rabbit was brought progres-sively closer, always while the child was eating. Eventually Peter got used to the rabbitand could touch it without showing fear. Generalized fear responses to similar objectswere also eliminated by this procedure

Although Albert had been conditioned to fear white rats, rabbits, and Santa Claus masks,he was no longer available when Watson wanted to try to eliminate those fears. Not long afterstarting this research program, Watson left academics

To Watson, emotions were merely physiological responses to specific stimuli. A stimulus(such as a person suddenly threatening you with bodily harm) produces internal physicalchanges such as rapid heart rate along with the appropriate learned overt responses. Thisexplanation for emotions denies any conscious perception of the emotion or the sensa-tions from the internal organs.Each emotion involves a particular pattern of physiological changes. Although Wat-son noted that emotional responses do involve overt movements, he believed that theinternal responses were predominant. Thus, emotion is a form of implicit behavior inwhich internal reactions are evident in physical manifestations, such as blushing, perspi-ration, or increased pulse rate.

Behaviors that seemed inherited were traced to early childhood training. For exam-ple, he argued that children were not born with the ability to be great athletes or mu-sicians but were slanted in that direction by parents or caregivers who encouraged andreinforced the appropriate behaviors. This emphasis on the overwhelming nurturingeffect of the parental and social environment was one reason for Watson’s phenomenalpopularity. He concluded, simply and optimistically, that children could be trained tobe whatever one wanted them to be. There were no limitations imposed by geneticfactors.

As a youth and teenager, Watson was something of a delinquent. He characterizedhimself as lazy and insubordinate, and he never earned better than passing grades inschool. Teachers recalled him as indolent, argumentative, and sometimes uncontrollable.He got into fistfights and was twice arrested, once for shooting a gun within the citylimits.

Watson’s book, Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, appeared in1914. He argued for the acceptance of animal psychology and described the advantagesof using animal subjects in psychological research. Many younger psychologists andgraduate students found his proposals for a behavioral psychology appealing, insistingthat Watson was cleansing psychology’s muddled atmosphere by casting out longstand-ing mysteries carried over from philosophy.

And what about Little Albert? Did he hide from furry white objects for the rest of hislife? Did he have to undergo psychotherapy? Perhaps he became a psychologist. At-tempts have been made to discover his real name and whereabouts, but so far theyhave been unsuccessfu

Thus ended Watson’s promising university career. He was forced to resign fromJohns Hopkins, an act that “almost certainly altered the history of American psychology”(Benjamin, Whitaker, Ramsey, & Zeve, 2007, p. 131). A biographer wrote, “Watson wasstunned. Until the end, he had refused to believe that he would actually be fired. He hadbeen convinced that his professional stature would have rendered him impervious to anycensure of his private life”(Buckley, 1994, p. 31). Although he married Rosalie Rayner,he was never permitted to return to a full-time academic position. No university wouldhave him because of the notoriety attached to his name, and he soon realized he wouldhave to make a new life. “I can find a commercial job,”he wrote, “but I frankly love mywork. I feel that my work is important for psychology and that the tiny flame which Ihave tried to keep burning for the future of psychology will be snuffed out if I go”(quoted in Pauly, 1986, p. 39).

Watson concluded that our adult fears, anxieties, and phobias must therefore be sim-ple conditioned emotional responses that were established in infancy and childhood andthat stayed with us throughout our lives.

Albert (his surname remains unknown) was eight months old when the hammerstruck the metal bar behind his head. A healthy, happy baby, he had been chosen byWatson to be the subject of his research precisely because he seemed so emotionally sta-ble and not easily excited.

We have seen that when scientific psychology formally began, it was eager to ally itselfwith the older, well-established, and more respectable natural science of physics. Thenew psychology tried to adapt natural science methods to its own needs. This tendencyis most obvious with behaviorism.Watson insisted that psychology restrict itself to the data of the natural sciences,to what could be observed. To put it simply, psychology must restrict itself to the objec-tive study of behavior. Only the most stringently objective methods of investigation wereacceptable in the behaviorist’s laboratory. To Watson, these methods included thefollowing:•Observation with and without the use of instruments•Testing methods•The verbal report method•The conditioned reflex method

Watson’s attack on the old psychology and his call for a new approach were stirring appealsfor many psychologists. Let us reconsider his major points. Psychology was to be the sci-ence of behavior, not the introspective study of consciousness, and a purely objective, ex-perimental natural science. Both human and animal behavior would be investigated, andpsychologists would discard all mentalistic ideas and use only behavior concepts such asstimulus and response. Psychology’s goal would be the prediction and control of behavior.

Before Watson died the following year, he burned all of his letters, manuscripts, andnotes, feeding them into the fireplace one by one, refusing to leave them to history.

It appearsthat Watson’s behavioral approach to child rearing was not exactly a success within hisown family.

This book also was extremely popular, and it transformed American child-rearingpractices. A generation of children, including his own, was raised in accordance withthese prescriptions. Watson’s son James, a California businessman, recalled that his fa-ther was unable to show affection to him and his brother. He described Watson asunresponsive, emotionally uncommunicative, unable to express and cope with any feel-ings or emotions of his own, and determined unwittingly to deprive, I think, my brotherand me of any kind of emotional foundation. He deeply believed that any expression oftenderness or affection would have a harmful effect on us. He was very rigid in carryingout his fundamental philosophies as a behaviorist. We were never kissed or held as chil-dren; we were never shown any kind of emotional closeness. It was absolutely verbotenin the family. When I went to bed at night, I recall shaking hands with my parents....Inever tried (nor did my brother Billy) to ever get close to our parents physically becausewe both knew it was taboo. (quoted in Hannush, 1987, pp. 137–138

Watson was credited with pioneering the use of celebrity endorse-ments of products and services and for devising techniques to manipulate our motivesand emotions. Later research has shown that although he strongly promoted these tech-niques, they were already in use before he joined the advertising world (see Coon, 1994;Kreshel, 1990). Nevertheless, Watson’s contributions to advertising were highly effectiveand soon brought him prominence and wealth.

Watson believed that human behavior is not unlike that of machines. Therefore, thebehavior of people as consumers of goods and services could be predicted and con-trolled, just like the behavior of other machines. To control a consumer, he said,it is only necessary to confront him with either fundamental or conditional emotionalstimuli. ...tell him something that will tie up with fear, something that will stir up amild rage, that will call out an affectionate or love response, or strike at a deep psycho-logical or habit need. (quoted in Buckley, 1982, p. 212)He proposed laboratory studies of consumer behavior. He stressed that advertisingmessages should focus on style rather than substance and should convey the impressionof a new and improved image. The purpose was to make consumers dissatisfied with theproducts they were using and to instill the desire for new goods.

He began to pur-sue an active social life and developed a reputation as a womanizer, not unlike his father.

He published his dissertation on the neurological and psychologicalmaturation of the white rat, research that showed his early preference for animalsubjects:I never wanted to use human subjects. I hated to serve as a subject. I didn’t like thestuffy, artificial instructions given to subjects. I always was uncomfortable and actedunnaturally. With animals I was at home. I felt that, in studying them, I was keepingclose to biology with my feet on the ground. More and more the thought presenteditself: Can’t I find out by watching their behavior everything that the other studentsare finding out by using [human observers]?

Watson held several part-time jobs, working as a waiter in a boarding house, a ratcaretaker, and an assistant janitor responsible for dusting Angell’s desk. He began tohave acute anxiety attacks toward the end of his graduate school years, and for a whilehe was unable to sleep without a light on in his room.In 1903 Watson received his Ph.D. at age 25, the youngest person in the University ofChicago’s history to earn a doctoral degree

Watson remained at Furman for another year, receiving his master’s degree in 1899,but during that year his mother died, which released him from his vow to become a cler-gyman