Profile
Rhoda Unger
Birth:1939
Training Location(s):
Ph.D. (Experimental Psychology), Harvard University, (1966)
M.A. (Experimental Psychology), Harvard University, (1964)
B.S. (Psychology), Brooklyn College, (1960)
Primary Affiliation(s):
Women's Studies Research Center, Brandeis University, (1999-present)
Montclair State University, (1972-1998)
Hofstra University, (1966-1972)
Media Links:
Professional Website
Rhoda Unger at Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center
Interview
Psychology's Feminist Voices Oral History Transcript
Biography:
Career Focus: Feminist psychology; epistemological issues in psychology; sociology of knowledge approaches; contextual and individual factors influencing commitment to social change.
Rhoda Unger began her graduate training in psychology at Harvard University at about the same time as several other women who would go on to become well-known feminist psychologists such as Naomi Weisstein and Carol Gilligan. However, at the time, like many of her peers, she did not embrace a feminist identity or identify the institutionalized sexism that surrounded her.
As the women's movement accelerated, Unger began to get very excited about the awareness and activism that was growing around her, but she did not locate herself in the larger social and political movement. However, she was certainly at the forefront of the feminism in psychology: "I was part of the women's movement in psychology; it was always part of my contact with psychology, to be involved with women." She was an activist within psychology as an early member of the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP), the Society for Women in Psychology (APA Division 35), and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI). However, Unger claims that she did not fully realize her own feminist identity until she co-authored a textbook with Florence Denmark, called Woman: Dependent or Independent Variable (1975). Through the process of compiling the textbook, she read as much literature on the psychology of women as was available at the time.
Unger recalls from her first experiences teaching psychology of women courses that the environment in the 1970s was truly electric: "We had a lot of older women coming back who had not finished college or maybe not even gone. And they were really motivated and very interested in the field; ate it up, were eager to learn. I mean it was not just a faculty member teaching a student, we were all learning together; it was a very exciting period."
In her own work, Unger has resisted the temptation to adopt a theoretically-driven, top-down position from which to conduct her research. Instead, social problems drive her research: "I am going to ask questions that have social meaning, that have to do with politics, that have to do with social movements, and that's how I generate my questions. I don't necessarily generate them from theory". Instead, she characterizes herself as an empirical psychologist. "...I [have] always believed that you can use empirical research as a kind of rhetorical device to demonstrate, maybe it is the obvious, but people are not willing to accept the obvious when you tell it as an anecdote, but they might be able to accept it if you demonstrate it empirically."
In addition to empirical research, Unger has published extensively on epistemological issues in psychology. She has openly challenged psychology's understanding of the concepts of sex and gender, as well as the way they are used in research. Her work has garnered much attention, and in return she has received many awards honoring her scholarship. She has received the Distinguished Publication and Career Achievement awards from AWP, and she was named a Fulbright scholar in 1988. Most recently, she was awarded the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Psychology in the Public Interest from the American Psychological Foundation. Unger became Professor Emerita at Montclair University in 1999, and is currently a resident scholar at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
by Laura Ball (2010)
To cite this article, see Credits
Selected Works:
Unger, R. K., Sheese, K., Main, A. (in press). Feminism and women leaders in SPSSI:Social networks, ideology, and generational change. Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Unger, R. K. (2000). Outsiders inside: Positive marginality and social change. Journal of Social Issues, 56(1), 163-179.
Unger, R. K. (1998). Resisting gender: Twenty-five years in/of feminist psychology. London, UK: Sage.
Unger, R. K. (1986). SPSSI Council: A collective biography. Journal of Social Issues, 42(4) 81-88.
Unger, R. K. (1983). Through the looking glass: No Wonderland yet! (The reciprocal relationship between methodology and models of reality). Psychology of Women Quarterly, 8, 9-32.
Unger, R. K. (1979). Toward a redefinition of sex and gender. American Psychologist, 34, 1085-1094.
Unger, R. K. & Denmark, F. L. (1975). Woman: Dependent or independent variable? New York: Psychological Dimensions.
Photo Gallery:
Video(s):
Interview with Rhoda Unger: Psychology and the women's movement
Interview conducted on January 18, 2006 by Alexandra Rutherford in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Interview with Rhoda Unger: The right questions
Interview conducted on January 18, 2006 by Alexandra Rutherford in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Interview with Rhoda Unger: Psychology in context
Interview conducted on January 18, 2006 by Alexandra Rutherford in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.