Abstract
In my first editorial in Psychology of Women Quarterly (PWQ; Brabeck, 2016), I looked back at the strong legacy of this journal, and I thanked the previous eight editors for their contributions to feminist theory, scholarship, and practice. As I end my tenure as the ninth editor of PWQ, I want to think back on the years of my editorship by introducing this final issue; I want to thank those who have accompanied me on my journey.
My term as PWQ editor began in 2016, the year that Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The #BlackLivesMatter movement had already become a corrective force, and #MeToo soon became the other social justice movement of the 2010s that affected our lives and our scholarship. I am grateful to all the scholars who stepped up to the challenges of the times. They extended transnational and intersectional theory and research and challenged us to use feminist consciousness and social justice resolve to improve lives through feminist scholarship. That is the work of PWQ, and it is work that matters (Yoder, 2015).
Introduction to the Special Section of the Current PWQ Issue
I have loved working with all the scholars who received the annual Carolyn Wood Sherif Award during my tenure. At the 2018 American Psychological Association (APA) convention, Jeanne Marecek gave the Sherif Award presentation (Marecek, 2018). She reflected on how psychology would be different if more psychologists took feminist scholars, like Carolyn Sherif, seriously. Marecek’s (2019) paper prompted me to invite two other feminist visionaries, Stephanie Shields and Michelle Fine, to join her challenge to mainstream psychology. Shields (2018) gave the Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award address and McCormick-Hunn, Warner, Settles, and Shields (2019) turned that talk into a paper on how psychology would be changed if scholars took intersectionality theory and approach seriously. Fine and Torre (2019) rounded out this feminist trifecta with their reflections on how psychology would be changed if scholars implemented critical and feminist participatory action research. These papers are replete with examples of feminist theory, methods, and knowledge. I introduce these papers in my last editorial, in order to pay tribute to all scholars who have moved psychology in feminist directions. This special section exemplifies and clarifies what feminist scholarship is: It is work that profoundly matters for individual lives, social justice movements, our knowledge about the psychology of women and gender, and the discipline of psychology.
The authors of the special section make specific methodological suggestions for scholars who seek to apply feminist, intersectional, and critical approaches to research design, analysis, and reporting. Jeanne Marecek describes how Carolyn Sherif criticized the research practices of psychologists that ignored cultures, histories, and social structures. Marecek (2019) worries that dominant psychological practices lead to “troubling moral and ethical lapses” (p. 428). Fine and Torre describe their programmatic work that is critical, participatory, action, and research. Affirming the liberational work of feminist scholarship, they describe how they “dive into, disrupt, and innovate critical psychological dynamics” (p. 441). They employ strong objectivity (Harding, 1992) to develop critical construct validity. And McCormick-Hunn and colleagues (2019) challenge us to use an intersectional framework to rethink how participants are selected; in so doing, they provoke us to make changes in the discipline of psychology that will make psychological science more relevant to real life problems and real people.
Practicing feminist psychology is neither simple nor easy. Marecek identifies concrete challenges to feminist clinicians: Feminist psychologists should reflect on and recognize our “thought styles,” critically interrogate diagnoses, and ask “who benefits?” Marecek provokes us to seek alternatives to the individualistic one-on-one therapy model and to identify the “social harms of diagnostic inflation” (p. 430).
The articles in this special section confront mainstream psychology and are useful for those who teach psychology of women and gender. I believe these papers will generate “rich talk,” to borrow Jeanne Marecek’s phrase. Tomorrow’s feminists will critique, debate, and extend the ideas put forth here, as the authors of these papers have done with the ideas of mainstream psychology. The authors of these three papers present challenges for the next generation of PWQ scholars and, in doing that, they will change the ways the discipline of psychology conducts research, policy, and practice; how that work is funded; and how it is reviewed and edited.
PWQ Today
All the articles in this issue reflect what PWQ is today: high quality quantitative and qualitative feminist research. The authors are early-career psychologists and senior scholars in the field of psychology of women; they present new and revised measures that increase the scope of feminist empirical work; their participants include diverse women who are marginalized, understudied, and outside of the United States; and they focus on research about women coping with choices about sexuality and parenting, managing eating disorders, and surviving the effects of abuse. The quality of the methods and the import of foci contained in this issue are what readers of PWQ have come to expect from the journal.
I have worked with a number of master’s students and undergraduate volunteer assistants over the years of my tenure. Recently, Saya Popli, an undergraduate intern, examined the progress that the journal has made in becoming more inclusive (2019). She reviewed each article published in PWQ across the decades, beginning with the first issue in 1976 (e.g., Volumes 1, 10, 20) and each of the four years that I served as editor (Volumes 40–43; see Tables 1 and 2). She catalogued the participants’ nationality and race/ethnicity.
Summary of International and Racial Diversity of Participants by Volume of Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Note. This table is used with permission from Popli (2019).
Summary of International Participants’ Nationalities by Volume of Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Note. This table is used with permission from Popli (2019).
Popli (2019) found that the diversity of the participants who were included in studies published in PWQ has steadily increased over the years. In 1976, all authors who specified participants’ race (and almost 40% did not) included White subjects. Only 20% of the studies included Black or African American participants, and authors reported no other diversity of participants. However, over the past four years, the race and ethnicity of participants was identified in each article published (except a few articles, in which participant race and ethnicity were not relevant). Each volume (four issues each) published in the past four years, that involved U.S. participants, included White, Black and African American, Hispanic and Latinx, Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander participants (see Tables 1 and 2). In the first volume, only one study included participants from outside of the United States. However, by 2016 (Volume 40), 30% of the articles involved international participants—from, for example, France, Australia, India, South Africa, Poland, United Kingdom, China, Colombia, Uganda, and Puerto Rico. Globally diverse participants have been included in each volume of recent years (see Tables 1 and 2). Popli’s work exemplifies the efforts across the decades that have been made to enhance the reach and relevance of feminist scholarship published in this journal.
Expressions of Gratitude to Contributors to PWQ
I am grateful to the wonderful associate editors (AEs) who have managed the PWQ review process so expertly during my tenure: Kelly Cue Davis, Asia Eaton, Sarah Gervais, Tawanda Greer, Annette Kluck, Bonita London, Shannon Lynch, Jacqueline Mattis, Lindsay Orchowski, and Dawn Szymanski have provided strong feminist leadership and colleagueship throughout my term. There is an extraordinary amount of mentoring that is done by the AEs and our many and gifted consulting editors, reviewers, and methodological consultants. The journal has been prudently served by these generous feminists.
I thank Ellen Cole, Book Editor; Britney Brinkman, Teaching Brief Editor; Clare Mehta, Teaching Supplements Coordinator; Lisa Rubin, Student Advisory Board Mentor; and our partners at SAGE Publications, who produce the Practitioner Digest. These innovations were ushered in by past editors of PWQ. Each extends the scholarly work of the journal to meet the needs of members of the Society for the Psychology of Women, who are teachers, clinicians, activists, and scholars.
We have also worked to extend the reach and usage of the journal. I am grateful to Leah Sobel (2019), who built a list of “hot topics” that grouped articles on investigating similar questions (see https://journals-sagepub-com-s.web.bisu.edu.cn/page/pwq/hottopics/index). Leah also helped build our social and popular media outreach. PWQ is now quoted in the popular press, for example, Stylist, Asia One, Phys.Rog, and Glamour; and by news outlets, including Economic Times, Huffington Post, USA Today, USA Online Press, Daily Health Advisors, NY Daily News, The Conversation, APA Monitor, and PsyPost. Thanks to all who have helped us give away feminist scholarship by following and liking us @PWQ4U on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media outlets. This helps achieve our goal of improving the lives of women and others through feminist scholarship.
I leave PWQ in the capable hands of its 10th editor, Dawn Szymanski. Editor Szymanski has been an author, reviewer, associate editor, senior associate editor, and now editor of PWQ. She is a feminist scholar and activist who has personally and systematically made psychology research and practice more feminist. And I am grateful to Anna Hillary, assistant editor, who started with me in 2015 when we began managing and editing PWQ submissions, and stayed with me to the final issue. She and Kitty Barnes (see Brabeck, 2018) have kept the standards for language and APA style high and have been dear and feminist colleagues and friends.
I have named a lot of the feminists, but certainly not all, who have accompanied me over my term as editor of PWQ. My last and most enthusiastic thanks goes to the authors who have trusted us with their work: the scholars who are doing work that matters, and the clinicians, teachers, policy makers, and activists who are making the world better through feminist scholarship. I look forward to following the bright trajectory of Psychology of Women Quarterly.
Footnotes
Acknowledgment
The author thanks Anna Hillary, Saya Popli, and Dawn Szymanski for reviewing a version of this article.