Elements in Psychology and Culture

Psychologies of women and gender have developed - both institutionally and intellectually - within distinct social, cultural, historical, and political contexts. In many cases, feminism has played an important role in catalyzing disciplinary engagements with gender and culture as categories of analysis and sites of theorizing rather than solely as variables defining groups to be compared. The intersections of gender, feminism, history, and culture are explored with reference to psychology, first in the United States, and then across three other national contexts. This exploration reveals the similarities and tensions between and among the approaches to studying culture and the approaches to studying gender, that psychologists have employed. It also reveals the historically - and culturally - contingent nature of psychologies of women and gender, and, by extension, of gender itself.