“It Is Hardly News that Women Are Oppressed”: Sexism, Activism, and Charlie Rhoda K. Unger Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/26/6/1324/1781125/jocn_a_00628.pdf by MIT Libraries user on 17 May 2021 I first met Charlie in 1961 when I was a teaching assistant focused psychology program at MIT and did not yet have in the Department of Psychology at the Massachusetts enough graduate students to help with the undergraduate Institute of Technology (MIT). This was a rather odd program. I still do not know who paid for this, but I got my position for me because I was in my second year of grad- tuition and a stipend as well. It proved to be an opportunity uate school in the department of experimental psychol- to get to know and work with Charlie. ogy at Harvard. This arrangement, however, illustrates Professor Teuber was very supportive when I told him the kind of discrimination against women in experi- I was interested in physiological psychology and intro- mental psychology during the early 1960s (as well as duced me to Charlie and Steve Chorover, who were earlier and later). I will briefly outline why I was working studying the frontal cortex of monkeys at that time. They at MIT to contrast the attitudes and behaviors of the allowed me to assist in operations and taught me how Harvard faculty with Charlieʼs kindness and support of to use stereotaxic devices. When I decided to do some women. research in a related area, the only animals available in Sexism was particularly virulent at Harvard. There were, the Harvard laboratory were pigeons and rats. Charlie of course, no female faculty members and only two female and Steve believed that the caudate nucleus of lower postdoctoral fellows during the six years I studied there. mammals had some of the functions of the frontal cortex The first week I arrived, Richard Herrnstein, the director in primates so I began to examine the effect of caudate of the graduate program, called a meeting of the first-year nucleus lesions on the ability of rats to make rapid tempo- graduate students and announced that only one in two ral and spatial shifts. This allowed me to use sophisticated menwereexpectedtoobtaintheirPhDandonlyone operant conditioning techniques available in Skinnerʼs lab. of four women. I do not know if the percentages were Harvard did not have any objection to this combination of correct. However, in an examination of PhD recipients physiological psych and operant conditioning, and Charlie during the time the program existed as a separate depart- became my more or less official advisor. ment (1951–1973), 99 men received their PhD and only The transition to official thesis advisor was made easy 14 women. because Charlie joined the Harvard experimental psychol- These figures might help explain why I was supervising ogy program as an assistant professor in 1964. I tried to a very large class in introductory psychology at MIT. The convince him not to do so because I believed he would Harvard department had been founded by E. G. Boring, be incompatible with its sexist and politically conservative who, like his mentor Titchener, did not believe that faculty. By the time I was finishing up my doctoral dis- women should be experimental psychologists (Furumoto, sertation in 1966, Charlie and Dick Herrnstein (another 1988). Boring did not believe that women could survive member of my doctoral committee because of the operant the grueling 80-hr week prescribed for scholarly success techniques I used) were barely on speaking terms. Some at Harvard. Men who survived the very difficult first-year of you may remember Herrnstein as the coauthor of The curriculum were routinely offered research assistantships Bell Curve, which argued that intelligence was genetically with one or another of the faculty members. Because they determined and underlay social class as well as racial dif- did not believe that women would go on to do productive ferences (Herrnstein & Murray, 1973, 1994). Charlie was scholarship and enhance their mentorsʼ reputations, very opposed to such social Darwinist theories and later women were not offered research positions. When I opposed Herrnsteinʼs giving a lecture at Princeton. passed my first yearʼs classes and requested financial aid, On the basis of the autobiography that Charlie wrote they “solved” the problem by making an arrangement with for the American Psychologist when he received APAʼs Hans-Lukas Teuber who was starting a neuroscience- gold medal for achievement in science (Gross, 2005), some might argue that Charlieʼs progressive beliefs were relatedtohisfatherʼs progressive politics. Ironically, Brandeis University Herrnstein came from a very similar background. He © 2014 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 26:6, pp. 1324–1326 doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00628 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jocn_a_00628 by guest on 27 September 2021 used to tell students about his father carrying him on his relegated to clerical and service jobs. His description of shoulders during May Day parades in New York City. But legal, economic, and educational discrimination as well the two men did not get along, and I had to relay com- as the use of women by the media to sell virtually every- munications about my thesis. As you might expect, it was thing is indistinguishable from feminist critiques of the not a pleasant thesis defense. I may have only survived time. What is unusual is that the chapter was written by a because of the sexist assumption of the department that man who had already embarked on an eminent career in having suddenly married a few weeks before my defense, neuroscience. “ ” I had other things on my mind. Charlie drew on evidence from comparative and phys- Downloaded from http://mitprc.silverchair.com/jocn/article-pdf/26/6/1324/1781125/jocn_a_00628.pdf by MIT Libraries user on 17 May 2021 Charlie continued to support me, and I did get a iological psychology to debunk the idea that womenʼs tenure track position at Hofstra University, which had inferiority to men was based on sex differences in biology. no laboratory facilities for physiological research and no He listed a series of biological myths about female in- intention of spending money to develop one. Unlike feriority and then debunked them. These included the most of the men at Harvard, I had never received any idea that, among primates, dominance and leadership informal instruction on how to write grants or introduc- are male traits. He described a number of primate species tions to potential senior collaborators. During the period where such gender differences do not exist. He argued for of social unrest of the mid 1960s and early 1970s I also consideration of environmental influences and pointed found myself drawn into civil rights and anti-Vietnam out that male dominance was greatest among those spe- War activities as well as feminism. With a colleague cies that lived on the ground rather than in the trees. He at Hofstra who had been trained in verbal learning, I concluded this section by asking whether we really want began to publish social psychological studies examin- to take the Hamadryas baboon as our social and ethical ing racism and sexism. I kept Charlie informed about model. my shifting interests, and he remained supportive, He next went on to question data arguing that male although it became more difficult for him to write letters bonding in primates was a unique evolutionary develop- of recommendation. ment that made men more suitable for political leadership Because I had not yet officially abandoned physiological and that women are unsuitable for leadership positions psychology, I decided to join Division 6 (Comparative and because of mood shifts basedonthemenstrualcycle. Physiological Psychology) shortly after I joined APA in He described conflicting data in both areas and noted 1972. To my surprise, the division turned down my ap- the absence of research on what is now known as “jet plication as well as that of Mary Brown Parlee, who had lag” as well as on circadian rhythms in both sexes. worked with Richard Held and received her PhD from Finally, he discussed the evidence for a genetic basis MITataboutthesametimeIhadreceivedmine.The for masculine and feminine characteristics. The original official reason was that neither of us had published in studies on biologically anomalous humans by John Money the area although we had given papers at conferences. that emphasized the role of the environment have proved Charlie was appalled especially because there was nothing to be incorrect. It is, of course, impossible to separate in the divisionʼs by-laws requiring professional publica- humans from the awareness of their own genitalia. Cur- tions for simple membership. rent literature emphasizes that the sexes form two exten- Charlie introduced me to Ethel Tobach—a renowned sively overlapping distributions in virtually all behaviors. comparative psychologist and tireless social activist. They Unfortunately, they also show that many psychologists managed to convince the division to grant us member- prefer to look at sex differences rather than at sex simi- ship. As you might expect, the division had a low per- larities. We are not as free from sexist biases as Charlieʼs centage of female members (about 15%) at the time we earlier remarks promised we could be. applied. Ethel Tobach has told me recently that she met Many feminist psychologists have discussed issues in- Charlie because they worked together to force Division 6 volving the biological bases of sex and gender. It is im- to live up to its by-laws and accept Mary Parlee and me as portant to remember, however, how many years ago this members. Soon after this, Ethel and Charlie collaborated chapter was written and that it was written by an eminent on a book entitled, The four horsemen: Racism, sexism, man in the field.