Feminist Visions of Gender Similarities and Differences

Winner of the Distinguished Publication Award 1996 from the Association for Women in Psychology, Feminist Visions of Gender Similarities and Differences opens a dialectic between the two traditions of feminism--similarities-based and differences-based--and generates useful scientific, political, and psychological tensions. Psychologists and scholars can benefit from Meredith Kimball’s analysis and the tensions she creates because they ultimately broaden feminist visions. She informs the political analysis of those working on the inside and those on the outside of feminism to end all forms of discrimination and oppression.

In opening the dialogue between the two traditions, Kimball

• presents a brief history of gender research and equal-rights feminisms in the early twentieth century, with an in-depth analysis of the work of Leta Stetter Hollingworth.
• analyzes women’s experience in and feminist critiques of science and technology.
• analyzes research on gender-related similarities and differences in mathematics achievement.
• presents a brief history of psychoanalytic gender theory and maternal feminisms in the early twentieth century, with an in-depth analysis of the work of Karen Horney.
• analyzes Kohlberg’s and Gilligan’s models of moral development.
• gives a broad overview and analysis of women’s caregiving in North America and cross-culturally in motherist-based political movements.
  
  The educated reader, whether actively involved in feminism or the general political arena, can apply the non-reductionist political analysis to their own theories and research. Because all oppressed groups face dilemmas of integrating into the dominant culture versus changing the dominant culture, members of these groups will appreciate the over-arching political analysis that forms the theme of Feminist Visions of Gender Similarities and Differences.