Writing some 40 years ago, Carolyn Wood Sherif left a legacy of critical reflections on the fledgling field of feminist psychology. Here I read her work, not as a record of the past, but with an eye to the future. In the two works I consider in this essay, Sherif offered a scrutiny of the knowledge-producing practices and social relations of the psychology of her time, as well as an agenda for feminist research practice. I draw on Ludwik Fleck’s sociology of science to reflect on Sherif’s thoughts. For Fleck, scientific communities are thought collectives with characteristic styles of thinking that come to seem like objective reality. Sherif took issue with many thought styles of orthodox psychology, particularly the dicta that limited psychological inquiry to narrow space-time frameworks, thus erasing culture, history, and social structure. In addition, Sherif advocated for a critical consciousness of the institutional relations of psychology, in particular the ways that psychology buttressed and was buttressed by the military. Sherif’s concerns remain urgent today. I urge readers to join epistemological debates and boundary-crossing conversations. I also call on readers to join with social critics in examining the discipline’s place as a social institution.
American Psychiatric Association (APA). (1952–2018). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM, 1st-5th eds). Washington, DC: Author.
2.
AustinJ. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
3.
BemS. L. (1974). The measurement of psychological androgyny. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155–162. doi:10.1037/h0036215
4.
BemS. L. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account for sex typing. Psychological Review, 88, 354–364. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.88.4.354
5.
BrinkmannS. (2016). Diagnostic cultures: A cultural approach to the pathologization of modern life. New York, NY: Routledge.
6.
ByrneB. M.CampbellT. L. (1999). Cross-cultural comparisons and the presumption of equivalent measurement and theoretical structure: A look beneath the surface. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 555–574. doi:10.1177/0022022199030005001
ChadwickN. (2018). Social justice, critical psychology, and clinical psychology (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
CohenJ.MarecekJ.GillhamJ. (2006). Is three a crowd? Clients, clinicians and managed care. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 76, 251–259. doi:10.1037/0002-9432.76.2.251
11.
CrawfordM.MarecekJ. (1989). Psychology reconstructs the female: 1968–1988. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 13, 147–165. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1989.tb00993.x
12.
CrenshawK. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, Article 8. Retrieved fromchicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8
DowningN. E.RoushK. L. (1985). From passive acceptance to active commitment: A model of feminist identity development for women. The Counseling Psychologist, 13, 695–709. doi:10.1177/0011000085134013
16.
FineM.TorreM. E. (2019). Critical participatory action research: A feminist project for validity and solidarity. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 43, 433–444.
17.
FleckL. (1979). Genesis and development of a scientific fact (BradleyF.TrennT., trans.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. (Original work published1935)
18.
FrancesA. (2009, June27). A warning sign on the road to DSM-V: Beware of its unintended consequences. Psychiatric Times, 26, 1–4.
19.
FrancesA. (2014). Saving normal: An insider’s revolt against out-of-control psychiatric diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the medicalization of ordinary life. New York, NY: Harper Collins.
20.
GaveyN. (2019). Just rape: The cultural scaffolding of rape. London, England: Routledge. (Original work published 2005)
21.
GillR. (2007). Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10, 147–166. doi:10.1177/1367549407075898
22.
HeafnerJ.MauldenL. (2018). Expanding systems thinking: Incorporating tools from medical sociology into MFT education and research. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 45, 244–255. doi:10.1111/jmft.12337
23.
HegartyP.AnsaraG.BarkerM. J. (2018). Nonbinary gender identities. In DessN. K.MarecekJ.BellL. C. (Eds.), Gender, sex, and sexualities: Psychological perspectives (pp. 53–76). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
HollwayW. (1984). Gender difference and the production of subjectivity. In HenriquesJ.HollwayW.UrwinC.VennC.WalkerdineV. (Eds.), Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation, and subjectivity (pp. 227–263). London, England: Methuen.
26.
HornerM. S. (1972). Toward an understanding of achievement-related conflicts in women. Journal of Social Issues, 28, 157–175. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1972.tb00023.x
27.
HydeJ. S. (2005). The gender similarities hypothesis. American Psychologist, 60, 581–592. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.60.6.581
28.
HydeJ. S.BiglerR.JoelD.TateC. C.van AndersS. (2019). The future of sex and gender in psychology: Five challenges to the gender binary. American Psychologist, 74, 171–193. doi:10.1037/amp0000307
29.
KirkS. A.KutchinsH. (1992). The selling of the DSM: The rhetoric of science in psychiatry. New York, NY: Aldine De Gruyter.
30.
LesterR. J. (2017). Self-governance, psychotherapy, and the subject of managed care: Internal Family Systems therapy and the multiple self in a US eating-disorders treatment center. American Ethnologist, 44, 1–13. doi:10.1111/amet.12423
31.
LevittH. M.BambergM.CreswellJ. W.FrostD.JosselsonR.Suárez-OrozcoC. (2018). Journal article reporting standards for qualitative research in psychology: The APA publications and communications board task force report. American Psychologist, 73, 26–46. doi:10.1037/amp0000151
32.
LopateH. Z. (1971). Occupation housewife. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
33.
MagnussonE.MarecekJ. (2012). Gender and culture in psychology: Theories and practices. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
34.
MarecekJ.GaveyN. (2013). DSM-5 and beyond: A critical feminist engagement with psychodiagnosis. Feminism & Psychology, 23, 1–7. doi:10.1177/0959353512467962
35.
MarecekJ.SalvatoreJ. A. (2016). Out of place? Gender relations in a college fitness center. QMIP Bulletin, 22, 36–42.
36.
McCormick-HuhnK.WarnerL.SettlesI.ShieldsS. A. (2019). What if psychology took intersectionality seriously? Changing how psychologists think about participants. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 43, 445–456.
37.
MichellJ. (2005). Measurement in psychology: A critical history of a methodological concept. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
38.
OranskyM.MarecekJ. (2009). “I’m not going to be a girl”: Masculinity and emotions in boys’ friendships and peer groups. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24, 218–241. doi:10.1177/0743558408329951
39.
ParleeM. B. (1979). Psychology and women: Review essay. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 5, 121–133. doi:10.1086/493688
40.
PopeK. (2019). A human rights and ethics crisis facing the world’s largest organization of psychologists: Accepting responsibility, understanding causes, implementing solutions. European Psychologist, 24, 180–194. doi:10.1027/1016-9040/a000341
41.
QuinnN. (2005). Finding culture in talk: A collection of methods. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
RichardsG. (2010). Putting psychology in its place: Critical historical perspectives. London, England: Routledge.
44.
RileyS.EvansA.AndersonE.RobsonM. (2019). The gendered nature of self-help. Feminism & Psychology, 29, 3–18. doi:10.1177/0959353519826162
45.
RisenJ. (2014). Pay any price: Greed, power and endless war. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
46.
RoseN. (1996). Inventing ourselves: Psychology, power, and personhood. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
47.
RutherfordA.MarecekJ.SheeseK. (2012). Psychology of women and gender. In FreedheimD. K.WeinerI. B. (Eds.), Handbook of psychology, Volume 1: History of psychology (2nd ed., pp. 249–268). New York, NY: Wiley.
SalvatoreJ. A.MarecekJ. (2010). Gender in the gym: Evaluative concerns, gender norms, and women’s fitness goals. Sex Roles, 63, 556–567.
51.
SandbergS. (2013). Lean in: Women, work, and the will to lead. New York, NY: Knopf.
52.
SheppardL. D.AquinoK. (2017). Sisters at arms: A theory of female same-sex conflict and its problematization in organizations. Journal of Management, 43, 691–715.
53.
SherifC. W. (1979). Bias in psychology. In ShermanJ. A.BeckE. T. (Eds.), The prism of sex: Essays in the sociology of knowledge (pp. 93–133). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
54.
SherifC. W. (1982). Needed concepts in the study of gender identity. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 6, 375–398. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1982.tb01067.x
55.
ShieldsS. A. (1975). Functionalism, Darwinism, and the psychology of women. American Psychologist, 33, 739–754. doi:10.1037/h0076948
56.
ShieldsS. A.SignorellaM. L. (2014). Carolyn Wood Sherif (1922–1982): Feminist social psychology in the service of equality for all peoples. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38, 443–446. doi:10.1177/0361684314552193
57.
SkogerU. E.MagnussonE. (2015). What makes feminist knowledge legitimate for therapists? A study of Swedish child psychotherapists. Feminism & Psychology, 25, 489–405. doi:10.1177/0959353515585011
58.
SpenceJ.HelmreichR. (1972). The attitudes toward women scale: An objective instrument to measure attitudes toward the rights and roles of women in contemporary society. JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 2, 667–668.
59.
TakooshianH. A.StuartC. R. (1983). Ethnicity and feminism among American women: Opposing social trends?International Journal of Group Tensions, 13, 100–105.
60.
TeoT. (2014). Encyclopedia of critical psychology. New York, NY: Springer.
61.
TeoT. (2015). Critical Psychology: An geography of intellectual engagement and resistance. American Psychologist, 70, 243–254. doi:10.1037/a0038727
62.
TieferL. (2006, April). Female sexual dysfunction: A case study of disease mongering and activist resistance. PLoS Medicine, 3, e178. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0030178
63.
UssherJ. M. (2013). Diagnosing difficult women and pathologising femininity: Gender bias in psychiatric nosology. Feminism & Psychology, 23, 63–69.
64.
van de VijverF. J. R.TanzerN. K. (1997). Bias and equivalence in cross-cultural assessment: An overview. European Review of Applied Psychology [Revue Européenne de psychologie appliquée], 47, 263–280. doi:10.1016/j.erap.2003.12.004
65.
WhitakerR.CosgroveL. (2015). Psychiatry under the influence: Institutional corruption, social injury, and prescriptions for reform. New York, NY: Palgrave.
66.
WilkinsonS. (1988). The role of reflexivity in feminist psychology. Women’s Studies International Forum, 11, 493–502.
67.
WilsonM. (1993). DSM-III and the transformation of American psychiatry: A history. American Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 399–410. doi:10.1176/ajp.150.3.399
