Women and African Americans in Psychology

Women and African Americans in Psychology

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INTRODUCTION

In A Criticism of Our Own : Autonomy and Assimilation in Afro-American and Feminist Literary Theory (1989 , Elaine Showalter chronicles the differences among feminism critical practices and among the theoretical movements they represent . Showalter shows that African-American literary criticism and feminist criticism can be seen as having evolved through parallel stages in our confrontation with the Western literary tradition ' Both began in a separatist cultural aesthetics , born out of participation in a protest movement both then moved to

a middle stage of professionalized focus on a specific text-milieu in an alliance with academic literary theory ' Her essay enumerates influential books and essays in each of these approaches , and attends to figures in such fields as philosophy , psychology , and anthropology whose work has had a significant impact on feminist literature theory and practice (Herndl , 1997

Psychological theories often discuss separate paths of lifespan development for women and men as a result of the biological differences between them (gendercentrism . Ethnocentrism refers to personality theories assuming that development is identical for all individuals across all racial , ethnic and class groups

The psychology of women course , as recommended by Lord (1982 needs to treat girls and women as the norm , recognized racial , class and ethnic similarities and differences among women , as treat sexual orientation in a respectful manner . Treating girls and women as the norm , however , may make male student intemperate this as man hating Women have this perception , too , and can resist this as...