“We would not take no for an answer”: Women Psychologists and Gender Politics During World War II

This essay explores the complex relationship among gender, professionalization, and ideology that developed as psychologists mobilized for World War II. Upon being excluded from mobilization plans by the male leaders of the profession, women psychologists organized the National Council of Women Psychologists to advance their interests. But while their male colleagues enjoyed new employment opportunities in the military services and government agencies, the women were confined largely to volunteer activities in their local communities. Although women psychologists succeeded in gaining representation on wartime committees and in drawing attention to their professional problems, they were unable to change the status quo in psychology. Situated in a cultural milieu that stressed the masculine nature of science, women psychologists were hampered by their own acceptance of a professional ideology of meritocratic reward, and remained ambivalent about their feminist activities.