Frameworks for Studying Women and Gender 253Despite its drawbacks, the woman-as-problem framework
has remained prominent in the field of psychology of women.
It has extended to the realm of self-help psychology, with its
largely female audience and its offerings based on the
premise that women’s problems are of their own making
(Worell, 1988). Perhaps this framework has been so popular
because it fits comfortably within both conventional psychol-
ogy and popular culture. It is individualist, it fosters research
on sex differences, and—unlike the study of power relations
between the sexes or structural obstacles to equality—it does
not call for social change.
Sex Differences and Similarities
In the decades preceding the second wave of feminism, psy-
chologists had assumed profound differences between men
and women in cognitive capacities, emotions, personality
traits, values, and inclinations. These presumptions furnished
support for the norm of male superiority and justified a range
of inequities between men and women. Thus, one of the first
projects of feminists in psychology was a program of correc-
tive research, aimed at reexamining purported differences be-
tween men and women. In 1974, Eleanor Maccoby and Carol
Jacklin published a review of sex-difference research in psy-
chology that soon became a classic. Surveying over 1,400
studies covering more than 80 psychological traits and skills,
they found reliable evidence for sex differences in only four
areas. Indeed, many of the studies were so flawed that noth-
ing could be concluded from them.
Studies of the psychological differences and similarities
between men and women still continue. However, a number
of important methodological and conceptual advances have
been made. Feminist researchers have pointed out repeatedly
that a sex-difference finding does not signify a difference that
is inherent or biologically determined. A great deal of femi-
nist research has examined the power of roles, norms, and
expectations to influence behavior, as well as the penalties in-
curred for role violations. Indeed, the correlational design of
most sex-difference studies makes it impossible to draw any
conclusions about causality. Another significant advance is
the adaptation of meta-analysis for use in investigations of
sex differences (Hyde & Linn, 1988). Like a narrative review
of the literature, meta-analysis collates the results of selected
studies into a single integrated summary. Meta-analysis,
however, cumulates the results statistically. Meta-analysis
also calculates the size of a gender difference (Johnson &
Eagly, 2000).
Feminist psychologists challenged psychology’s con-
ception and measurement of masculinity and femininity.
Anne Constantinople (1973) pointed out that standard
psychological inventories were constructed with masculinity
and femininity as opposite ends of a single, bipolar contin-
uum. The test format rendered them mutually exclusive. Con-
stantinople argued against this built-in assumption, pointing
out that an individual could embrace both masculine and fem-
inine traits and behaviors. Going a step further, Sandra Bem
(1974) argued that optimal psychological functioning and per-
sonal adjustment required that an individual possess both
masculine and feminine qualities, that is, embrace an androg-
ynous sex-role identity. Bem designed the Bem Sex Role In-
ventory, a scale of masculinity and femininity that permitted
respondents to endorse both masculine and feminine attributes
(or neither). Bem’s ideas, her inventory, and an alternate mea-
sure of sex-related attributes, the Personal Attributes Ques-
tionnaire (Spence & Helmreich, 1978) framed much feminist
research, as well as feminist approaches to therapy, for the
next several years. Although the field has now moved beyond
the conception of androgyny, the work in this era laid the
foundation for subsequent theorizing on gender identity.
In the early 1980s, a new line of feminist inquiry emerged.
Instead of pursuing comparisons of men and women, some
researchers shifted their focus to women’s unique emotional
capacities, identities, and relational needs. In a Different
Voice(Gilligan, 1982) is a prominent example of this line of
endeavor. By putting women at the center of inquiry, re-
searchers could reexamine and reevaluate feminine qualities
that had been ignored, disdained, or viewed as deficiencies or
signs of immaturity. Gilligan’s initial investigations, for
example, put forward the notion of a distinctive feminine
mode of moral decision making, one that emphasized what
she called an ethic of care.
Questions about male-female differences and similarities
remain unresolved, even after many thousand empirical stud-
ies. Hare-Mustin and Marecek (1990) used the terms alpha
biasto indicate an inclination or tendency among some re-
searchers to maximize differences and beta biasto indicate
an inclination to minimize or overlook differences. They
pointed out that the focus on gender-as-difference diverts at-
tention away from a focus on gender as domination. That is,
questions about the differences between men and women
distract researchers from examining the power relations be-
tween them and the way in which gender serves as a vehicle
for distributing power and resources. In addition, the focus
on male-female differences presumes that each gender is
homogenous. It distracts attention from differences among
women associated with ethnicity, class, age, and other social
categories. It also distracts researchers from interrogating re-
lations of power among women. Thus, Hare-Mustin and
Marecek, as well as some other researchers, have called for
feminist psychologists to lay aside the question of gender