Abstract
When compared to the number of courses offered on the psychology of women, the number of texts remains relatively small. However, the quality of the texts available continues to be consistently high. Two books, both in their second edition, have much to offer instructors and students of the psychology of women. Engendering Psychology: Women and Gender Revisited and Our Voices: Psychology of Women are solid texts that cover both the standard topics of psychology of women texts, such as gender socialization, work and achievement, relationships, and mental health. However, each text has particular strengths and areas needing improvement.
Of the two, Engendering Psychology is written at a more advanced level, although both texts are suitable for undergraduates. In Engendering Psychology, the authors provide a substantial amount of information in the text with few photographs and occasional tables. As a result, the book has more of a scholarly feel to it. The authors report that their goals for the text include conveying gender as a social construct as well as recognizing the need for activism and change. Overall, I would argue that each of the chapters appears to meet these goals.
One of the strengths of Engendering Psychology is its significant coverage of sexuality. I was pleased to see strong discussions on Michelle Fine's work on the missing discourse of adolescent girls' sexual desire as well as sections on women's sexual subjectivity and disability. The section on mothering, too, provides not only the basics, such as the motherhood mandate and the experience of mothering, but also a section on mothers who do not conform to traditional expectations, including single mothers, mothers without primary custody, and stepmothers. Chapter 13, “Issues of Mental Health,” provides one of the only discussions of self-mutilation I have seen in a psychology of women text. As an instructor who has found that students are very interested in this topic and has had to seek out supplementary materials because of the lack of coverage in other texts, I was very pleased to see this topic included. The authors of Engendering Psychology also provide a chapter on the implications of mythology and religion. Although texts may mention the impact religion has had on attitudes toward women, the authors are unique in providing a whole chapter on the subject.
Engendering Psychology has a stand-alone chapter on culture, ethnicity, race, and class, authored by June Chisholm, which is the only chapter to have a separate author. In the past, a number of psychology of women texts included separate chapters on race or ethnicity, but more recently, books seem to have moved away from this format to integrate the experiences of diverse women into the entire text. The authors offer both a specific chapter to introduce the reader to issues of relevance to women of color, but also include them throughout the text. However, Denmark, Rabinowitz, and Sechzer do not provide as much coverage of the racial and ethnic diversity of women's experiences as Elizabeth Rider does in Our Voices. In Our Voices,I was very pleasantly surprised to see a list of diversity topics immediately after the table of contents. Rider not only lists where in the text specific women of color and other traditionally understudied groups (lesbians, poor women) are referenced, but also provides a reference for countries discussed in the text.
In Our Voices, Rider indicates that the goals for her text include providing current, theoretically and empirically strong information presented from multiple views. Indeed, many of her references are from the late 1990s and 2000 and beyond. She also provides a variety of perspectives, although she maintains a feminist perspective throughout. Perhaps the greatest strength of this text is its emphasis on the diversity of women's experiences. However, I was dismayed that Our Voices contained no chapter on women and aging. In fact, the book seems to give short shrift overall to the topic of women and aging. Also problematic is a chapter entitled “Relationships and Lifestyles.” I was taken aback to see the term “lifestyles” being used, because of its sometimes alienating impact when used to describe lesbian lives and relationships.
Rider includes in each of her chapters a “featured study” section, which includes more extensive discussions of specific studies. Our Voices contains more photos, cartoons, and figures than does Engendering Psychology, which arguably makes it seem more user friendly. While Our Voices offers Web resource links at the end of each chapter, Engendering Psychology provides discussion questions.
I was pleased to see both texts provide increased critiques of evolutionary psychology, a theoretical perspective that has major implications for feminist psychology. Additionally, both texts include discussions on sexual fluidity in their chapters on sexuality. Both offer good critiques of the brain lateralization and sex difference literature.
Each book is a more than an adequate text. Whether an instructor chooses to adopt one or the other might depend on what specific issues are of interest and the level at which the course is being taught. Overall, the texts are fine additions to the array of texts available for the undergraduate Psychology of Women instructor.