PSYCHOLOGY LOVES THE STATUS QUO

There's a box in Media, Gender and Identity entitled 'Psychology loves the status quo' which briefly argues that the academic discipline of psychology, in its treatment of gender identities, tends towards conservatism. Here, online, is an expanded version of that argument, with more examples. It begins with an attack on psychology textbooks...

The malign influence of psychology textbooks

Whilst readers are always able to consider texts critically, it would be too much to expect students of a subject to continually second-guess their textbooks. Because the development of gender identity is usually seen as a 'psychology' subject, it is worth considering briefly some of the common questionable messages sent out by the textbooks.

The first complaint is levelled at a whole textbook and associated university classes: The Psychology of Women by Margaret Matlin (fourth edition, 2000). There is also a journal, Psychology of Women Quarterly; the American Psychological Association has a large 'Psychology of Women' division; and there are several other books and teaching materials which refer to 'the psychology of women'. It seems breathtaking that people who are upset about gender inequalities in society can think that they will be performing a useful service by reproducing discourses about 'the psychology of women'. To encourage the idea that it makes sense to talk about 'women's psychology' as a coherent and unique entity plays directly into the hands of sexist ideology, and indeed one wonders if this stuff is actually produced by a right-wing movement eager to impose 'traditional' sex role divisions. But apparently not; Matlin's textbook supports the view that gender is socially constructed. It also highlights the fact that women may have certain experiences, such as pregnancy and childbirth, which men will never have; and rightly highlights that fact that women may be the targets of sexist discrimination. These are important topics. But I would argue that we should study all this as part of the psychology of gender. To separate out the 'psychology of women' seems absurd, or at best, problematic. To take a parallel case, racism unfortunately remains an important social concern, and victims of racist abuse or discrimination are likely to be psychologically affected. But a university course about the 'psychology of black people' would be deeply controversial! What is at issue is how society treats and relates to different social groups - not an innate quality of the groups themselves.

It might be argued that pregnancy and childbirth are experiences which make women unique - indeed, this sounds obvious. But if pregnancy is the main factor which makes the fact of being a woman important, then are sex and gender irrelevant to women who have not yet had children? Are they not yet 'women'? What about women who have no desire, or are unable, to have children? And surely focusing on child-bearing as women's distinctive function is problematic politically - it hardly seems a 'feminist' message.

Since Matlin's textbook - by virtue of its title alone - is instrumental in propagating the idea that it makes sense to talk of a unique 'psychology of women', it is ironic that she complains about people misusing the terms 'sex' and 'gender' (2000: 5-6). (As we know, 'sex' is the biological category of male or female, whereas 'gender' is the culturally-informed performance of identity). She suggests that 'sexism' should be renamed 'genderism' - which indicates an alarming lack of understanding. Sexism is all about expectations associated with sex, specifically - men should not behave in a particular way, women should not be allowed to do a certain thing. Sexism doesn't take in different personality traits or the details of gender performance. It's all about whether you've got male or female genitals. So sexism is just the right word. (Whilst 'genderism' might seem appropriate sometimes because, say, the assertion that a man shouldn't cry, or arrange flowers, is an argument about his gender performance, it is actually saying that such acts are wrong for a man - so it is all about sex, not gender).

Elsewhere, the contents of The Psychology of Women aren't so bad. At least, for example, Matlin (2000: 12) acknowledges that earlier studies in this area, from the 1970s, showed an alarming tendency to identify women's lower levels of status in society as being due to women's own inability to be confident and successful (!). That some feminist researchers should end up blaming women's personalities, rather than social structure, does not seem wise; perhaps, to be kind, it shows the power of psychology's own paradigms. (The discipline of psychology, we are sad to find, is powerfully oriented towards a supposedly 'descriptive' view of people, which is fixed and which serves to further paralyse, and which lacks a critical understanding of cultures and social structures). Matlin is also aware - despite her book's title - that women are actually far from being a single or unified group.

The second complaint about psychology textbooks is that there is a tendency to allow some traditional cultural ideas to pass unchallenged. For example, Introductory Psychology, whilst trying to explain the biological account of gender differences (which, to be fair, the authors do not seem to be convinced by), notes that 'In nearly all cultures, women are the main caretakers, while men are the warriors and protectors' (Malim & Birch, 1998: 517). But this 'observation' is of dubious value even in relation to our own society, today. As roles change within modern societies, it becomes far from common to find a woman whose primary role is 'caring' and, of course, even less common to find a man who is a 'warrior'! If our own everyday experience does not support this supposedly universal point, then it can hardly be considered useful.

Third, psychology textbooks have a tendency to report the conclusions of research studies as if they are universal fact, rather than the possibly-contentious claims made by researchers on the basis of a localised study which used particular methods (all of which we need to know the details of in order to assess the study's claims). For example, in Social Psychology (Pennington, Gillen & Hill, 1999: 300) we are casually told that 'Women are more likely to use indirect verbal aggression such as talking behind another's back, spreading gossip and rumour (Hines & Fry, 1994)'. This comes across as a general statement of fact, whereas really - like most studies - it is the interpretation made by some authors of their own research data, collected in this case amongst women in Buenos Aires, Argentina. To be fair to Hines & Fry, it is not their fault that their own focused research is badly presented as a universal truth in a textbook. And to be fair to the critical abilities of the modern student, I know that many would read a statement like this and say 'Oh really?!', preferring their own observations of everyday life (that men and women can be equally gossipy and back-stabbing, say) to the claims made by a particular study. But textbooks have a responsibility to convey well-founded information in a reliable manner, so the willingness of these psychology texts to pass on questionable 'facts' about gender remains a worry.

Why pick on psychology?

It might seem unfair to single out psychology, when many disciplines reproduce themselves through textbooks which inevitably have to over-simplify existing knowledge. But the problem in the discipline of psychology lies in its façade of scientific certainty. The desire to present psychology as a science which is using reliable methods to gather empirical facts means that psychologists typically suppress the fact that all of the knowledge is based on questionable methods deployed by humans who usually have a point to make. (This is the case across the humanities, of course, but elsewhere scholars are more willing to be explicit about their assumptions and uncertainties). The hidden insecurity of psychologists about the 'scientific' status of their work can be seen in their embarrassing use of ultra-scientific discourses in a bid to 'paper over the cracks'. The idea seems to be that if psychology is only ever spoken of as a body of scientific fact, then it will somehow become one.

The point here is not that claims made by psychologists are necessarily wrong. Maybe they are often right. But the discourses used by professional psychologists, and required of psychology students, weaken the discipline in the 21st century, because their persistence in making confident universal assertions about how things are in the world, reminiscent of 1950s information films, is viewed with suspicion by many today. The reason for this scepticism is not (simply) that cynical eyebrow-raising is a fashionable position; rather it is the healthy and sensibly cautious view - unless taken to extremes - that knowledge is not produced impartially by disinterested observers, but rather is the product of certain methods selected by particular people, and used in specific ways, to make a point.

 
References

Matlin, Margaret W. (2000), The Psychology of Women - Fourth Edition, Fort Worth: Harcourt College.

Pennington, Donald C.; Gillen, Kate, & Hill, Pam (1999), Social Psychology, London: Arnold.

Malim, Tony, & Birch, Ann (1998), Introductory Psychology, London: Macmillan.