Female Discrimination in the Field of Psychology

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Female Discrimination in the Field of Psychology

Discrimination, whether gender bias or race bias is an essential part of our world today. Although, over the years it may have gotten it better, it still has a heavy effect on how we are determined in our careers. The field of psychology provides an excellent example of how gender plays a key role in discrimination. It is very obvious that the career in psychology is growing steadily due to the many colleges and universities that offer psychology as a major. Although interest in the psychology is increasing, this trend is inspired by prominent leaders, theories, and contributions of philosophers. Again very few attention is paid to the place of women in psychology, due to many facts and figures. Those facts and figures are reduced now, so it is very safe to argue that the psychology is a steady growing field with females at is highest peak. But is psychology still dominated by the control of males and what should be researched? Psychology is now becoming more diverse but this has not always been the case.

History

In the early 1800's it was very rare to find women in any career, let alone the career of psychology. Many prominent females have paved the way for the some of female psychologist today. American Psychological Association (APA) was founded in 1892 and the first president of APA was Stanley Hall (Demir, 2000). However, an interesting point is that women started becoming a member of APA in 1893 by election. As women gained power, the number of women in the field increased. Mary Whion Calkins was the first women to be elected president of

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The American Psychological Association. Mary Whion Calkins earned a degree at Harvard University but the University refused her degree because she did not permit

degrees to women. Mary Calkins was successful enough to start one of the first psychology laboratories in the United States. This is an example in the start of taking a stand in the fight for equality in psychology. Mary Whiton and others paved the way for women to take part in their roles and interest in psychology. It has been highlighted that women outnumber men two-to-one as undergraduate psychology majors and now earn more doctoral degrees in psychology than men. (Palladino & Davis, 2005)

Feminist

Feminism can be described as the focus of women's lives and the oppression of women in today's world. Some female psychologist feel as though there are issues and concerns such as rape, sexual harassment, and abuse that have not been a main focus of research which has a great influence on the rise of females in psychology (Evans, 2005). The idea of women being bias and only dealing with these issues is a very important factor in why there was not a great deal of women in psychological studies and research. Could it have been that men felt as though these issues were not important enough? Or maybe they thought it could be done by a female but only to a female's point of view. What ever the case may be, it is an important issue brought to the attention of many people.