Timeline
Women, Feminism, and Psychology 1950-present
1950-1959
1953 - The Second Sex by feminist writer Simone De Beauvoir is published in the United States, using the term "women's liberation"
1954 - U.S. Supreme Court cites graduate work of Mamie Phipps Clark in the Brown v. Board of Education decision making racial segregation of the public schools illegal
1960-1969
1962 - Martha Bernal: First Latina to earn a PhD in psychology, in clinical psychology from Indiana University Bloomington
1962 - Nancy Bernal: First woman to receive the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award for her contribution in developmental psychology
1962 - Naomi Weisstein stages her first women's liberation demonstration in front of Harvard's Lamont Library, which was still males-only
1963 - Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique is published and becomes a best-seller
1966 - National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded
1967 - Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson institutes the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada in response to pressure by the women's movement
1967 - Karen Horney's Feminine Psychology appears
1968 - Mary Wright: First woman president of the Canadian Psychological Association
1968 - Association of Black Psychologists is founded, although its membership is mostly male
1968 - Naomi Weisstein presents her landmark paper, "Psychology Constructs the Female" an attack on sexism and methodology in psychology
1969 - Kate Millett's Sexual Politics, A Surprising Examination of Society's Most Arbitrary Folly becomes a widely-debated best seller
1969 - At the annual APA convention, three symposia on the topic of "Women as Scientists and Subjects" bring together women representing Psychologists for Social Action, the New University Conference, NOW, and various other liberation groups, to focus on job discrimination and sexist practices at the APA Convention and in academia and the professions
1969 - Formation of the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP)
1969 - Founding of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union
1969 - Joann Evansgardner: First (temporary) president of the AWP
1970-1979
1970 - At an APA Town Hall Meeting, with the support of AWP, Phyllis Chesler and Nancy Henley, prepared a statement on APA's obligations to women and demanded one million dollars in reparation for the damage psychology had perpetrated against women's minds and bodies
1970 - Helen Astin: First chair of the newly founded Task Force on the Status of Women in Psychology
1970 - Association Por La Raza (APLR) is formed
1970 - The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer is published
1970 - Boston Women's Health Book Collective publishes the first edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves which helps create a women's health movement
1970 - Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Bella Abzug lead the Women's Strike for Equality March up Fifth Avenue in NYC
1970 - Inge Broverman and colleagues publish their study showing that descriptions of a mentally health adult are closer to the descriptions of a healthy adult male than a healthy adult female
1971 - Carolyn Attneave: Forms The Network of Indian Psychologists
1971 - Creation of the Board for Social and Ethical Responsibility in Psychology (BSERP) in the APA
1972 - The Underground Symposium is held at the Canadian Psychological Association Convention. After having their individual papers and then a symposium rejected by the Program Committee, a group of six graduate students and untenured faculty, including Sandra Pyke and Esther Greenglass hold an independent research symposium which showcased work being done in the field of the psychology of women
1972 - Anne Anastasi: Third woman to be elected president of the APA
1972 - The Asian American Psychological Association is founded
1972 - Ms. Magazine makes its debut in a preview issue with Gloria Steinem as editor
1972 - Phyllis Chesler's Women and Madness is published
1972 - Matina Horner publishes her work on fear of success in women
1973 - the first commercial edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective is published
1973 - Division 35, later the Society for the Psychology of Women, of the APA is formed
1973 - Elizabeth Douvan: First president of Division 35
1973 - Leona E. Tyler: Fourth woman to be elected president of the APA
1973 - The Committee on Women in Psychology, of the APA, is formed
1973 - Martha Mednick: First chair of the newly created APA Committee on Women in Psychology
1973 - Landmark legal decision in Roe v. Wade makes abortion legal in the United States
1974 - APA Task Force on Sex Bias and Sex-Role Stereotyping in Psychotherapeutic Practice is appointed
1974 - Sandra Bem publishes an article on the measurement of psychological androgyny, the Bem Sex Role Inventory
1974 - Eleanor Maccoby and Carol Jacklin publish the highly influential The Psychology of Sex Differences
1975 - Mary Wright: First chair of the newly founded Task Force on the Status of Women in Canadian Psychology
1975 - Georgia Babladelis: First editor of the Psychology of Women Quarterly
1975 - Denyse Barbet: First AWP representative to the United Nations
1975 - First APA sponsored Psychology of Women Conference
1975 - First issue of the journal Sex Roles published
1975 - First review article on psychology of women appears in the women's studies journal Signs, by Mary Parlee
1975 - The first time an article on the sub-field Psychology of Women is published in the prestigious Annual Review of Psychology
1976 - Interest Group on Women and Psychology (IGWAP) is formed in the CPA
1976 - CPA Status of Women Committee is formed
1976 - Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women founded
1976 - APA Task Force on Non-Sexist Language is appointed
1976 - First issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly published
1976 - Division 35 Task Force on Black Women's Concerns appointed; Saundra Rice Murray, Gwendolyn Puryear, Winnie Emoungo, and Carolyn Payton are founding members
1976 - Jean Baker Miller publishes Toward a New Psychology of Women proposing a relational model of women's development that informs a relational-cultural model of therapy
1976 - African-American psychologist Robert Val Guthrie publishes the first edition of Even the Rat Was White, the first African-American history of psychology; he profiles the lives and careers of several African American women psychologists
1976 - Ruth King: First woman president of the Association of Black Psychologists
1977 - Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association changed to prohibit sexual contact between therapist and client
1977 - Division 35 Task Force on the Concerns of Hispanic Women appointed
1977 - Genes and Gender Collective, headed by Ethel Tobach and biologist Betty Rosoff, is formed to challenge the use of genetic determinism to promote sexism and racism
1977 - Martha Bernal: First Chair of Division 35 Task Force on the Concern of Hispanic Women
1977 - Arnold Kahn: First male secretary-treasurer of Division 35
1977 - Women's Program Office in APA Headquarters founded
1977 - Nancy Felipe Russo: First officer of the newly established Women's Program Office in APA headquarters
1977 - Nancy Henley publishes Body Politics: Power, Sex, and Nonverbal Communication, an important feminist analysis of gender, power, and communication
1978 - Task Force on Black Women's Concerns becomes the Committee of Black Women's Concerns of Division 35
1978 - Pamela Trotman Reid: First president of the Committe of Black Women's Concerns
1978 - First Canadian Institute on Women and Psychology pre-convention conference hosted at CPA by IGWAP
1978 - Formation of the National Coalition of Psychologists for the Equal Rights Amendment. The mission of the Coalition was to articulate the positive benefits of equality for both sexes as well as the integrity of the family. Dr. Nancy Felipe Russo served as National Coordinator for the Coalition
1978 - Gloria Steinem presents an invited address to the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Toronto
1979 - Rhoda Unger publishes Toward a Redefinition of Sex and Gender in American Psychologist, highlighting the difference between the two terms for psychologists
1980-1989
1980 - Florence L. Denmark: Fifth woman to be elected president of the APA
1980 - IGWAP becomes the Section on Women and Psychology in the CPA
1980 - Guidelines for Therapy and Counselling with Women is adopted by the CPA
1981 - Ellen Langer is the first woman to be granted tenure in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University
1981 - bell hooks publishes Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism
1981 - Stone Center (now the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute) established
1982 - First meeting of the Feminist Therapy Institute
1982 - The feminist journal Women & Therapy is launched
1982 - Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, Psychological Theory and Women's Development is published
1982 - Stephanie Shields publishes The Variability Hypothesis: The History of a Biological Model of Sex Differences in Intelligencein Signs
1984 - Florence Denmark, Carolyn Payton, and Laurie Eyde receive the first American Psychological Association Committee on Women in Psychology Leadership Awards
1984 - Janet Spence: Sixth woman to be elected president of the APA
1985 - Division 44, Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual issues is formed
1985 - Section 1 of Division 35, the Section on the Psychology of Black Women is formed
1985 - AWP presents "An International Feminist Mental Health Agenda for the Year 2000" at the final event of the U. N. Decade for Women conference in Nairobi, Kenya
1985 - Evelyn Fox Keller publishes Reflections on Gender and Science
1985 - Donna Haraway publishes A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century
1986 - AWP members picket the annual APA convention in protest of several new diagnostic categories in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
1986 - Angela Ginorio: First chair of the newly founded Committee of the Concerns of Hispanic Women - the Committee replaced the previous Task Force founded in 1977
1987 - Bonnie R. Stickland: Seventh woman to be elected president of the APA
1987 - Elizabeth Scarborough and Laurel Furumoto publish Untold Lives: The First Generation of American Women Psychologists
1987 - Janet Stoppard leads the Women and Mental Health Committee of the Canadian Mental Health Association
1988 - Janet Spence: First president of the Association for Psychological Science
1988 - Mary Crawford chairs the newly founded Task Force on Feminist Research and Epistemology
1988 - Section 4 of Division 35, the Section for Lesbian and Bisexual Women's issues formed
1988 - Psychology of Women Section of the British Psychological Society is established
1988 - Rachel Hare-Mustin and Jeanne Marecek publish The Meaning of Difference: Gender Theory, Postmodernism, and Psychology in American Psychologist
1989 - historian Londa Schiebinger publishes The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science
1990-1999
1991 - First issue of Feminism & Psychology published
1991 - Susan Faludi's Backlash, The Undeclared War on American Women is published, documenting the backlash against the feminist movement
1991 - feminist philosopher Sandra Harding publishes Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking From Women's Lives
1992 - Report of the APA Task Force on Violence against Women
1992 - Carol Tavris publishes The Mismeasure of Women: Why Women are Not the Better Sex, the Inferior Sex, or the Opposite Sex
1992 - Stephanie Riger publishes Epistemological Debates, Feminist Voices: Science, Social Values, and the Study of Women inAmerican Psychologist
1993 - Sandra Bem publishes The Lenses of Gender, Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality
1995 - Christine Iijima Hall: First woman president of the Asian American Psychological Association
1995 - Report of the APA Task Force on the Changing Composition of Psychology
1995 - Division 35 becomes the 4th largest division of the APA
1996 - The Status of Women Committee of the CPA is dissolved
1996 - Dorothy Cantor: Eighth woman elected president of APA
1997 - Pro-Choice Forum is established and sponsored by Division 35
1997 - The Women's Ways of Knowing Project which analyzed and coded 135 in-depth interviews asking women about their gender, relationships, ways of knowing, and moral dilemmas culminates in the book, Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind
1999 - The first National Multicultural Conference and Summit is held in California. It is sponsored by the Society for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues, the Society for the Psychology of Women, the Society of Counseling Psychology, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues
2000-2009
2000 - Report of the APA Task Force on Women in Academe
2000 - Chela Sandoval publishes Methodology of the Oppressed
2001 - Norine G. Johnson: Ninth woman to be elected president of the APA
2004 - Diane F. Halpern: Tenth woman to be elected president of the APA
2004 - March for Women's Lives in Washington, DC; an estimated one million people march to support women's reproductive rights
2004 - Paula Caplan and Lisa Cosgrove publish Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis, sponsored by the Association for Women in Psychology, part of a sustained, ongoing struggle against diagnostic labels that pathologize and harm women
2005 - Janet Shibley Hyde publishes the Gender Similarities Hypothesis in American Psychologist
2007 - Sharon Stephens Brehm: Eleventh woman to be elected president of the APA
2007 - Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls
2010 - Carol Goodheart: Twelfth woman to be elected president of the APA
2011 - Melba Vasquez: Thirteenth woman, and first woman of color, to be elected president of APA
2011 - The Society for the Psychology of Women Special Committee on Violence Against Women publishes a report on the trafficking of women and girls.
If you know of an important historical event that should be listed here,please email the date and a few lines about the event to alexr [@] yorku.ca.Links to further information and photos (with proper permissions) are also appreciated.