Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology
Narrative, Gender, and Performance
- Mary Gergen - Pennsylvania State University, USA
May 2001 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
Feminist Reconstructions in Psychology introduces a distinctive new mode in doing psychology. This psychology is based on an increasingly popular range of ideas called social constructionism. Within the book, new forms of theory and methods of inquiry relating social constructionism to feminist topics are introduced. Each chapter highlights different topics of special concern within gender studies, especially the psychology of women.
The book draws from the central tenets of postmodern inquiry, as played out in the positive framework of social constructionism. Emphasized are reflexivity, the social basis of reality making, the breakdown of traditional narrative forms, the loss of objectivity as a scientific standard, and the possibilities for new forms of doing research. In this respect, the book is unique and serves to provide a point of view on an intriguing movement that is gaining momentum across the social sciences and humanities.
PART ONE: STRAIGHT TALK: AN INTRODUCTION
The Emergence of Feminist Postmodern Psychology
Life Stories
Gendered Narratives
Talking about Menopause
Social Ghosts
Gaze and the Naked Maja
PART TWO: PERFORMATIVE PSYCHOLOGY: WHYS AND WHEREABOUTS
Woman as Spectacle, or Facing Off
Against Mod Mascu-linity and Post-Mod Macho
PART THREE: A CLOSING: INVITATIONS TO COMMENCE
“The book
is seriously provocative. It challenges all psychologists to be feminist and experimental
in their research. It is worth reading because of what we might find out if we
were.”
Contemporary Psychology