Toward a New Psychology of Women by Jean Baker Miller
"Toward a New Psychology of Women," authored by Jean Baker Miller, presents a transformative perspective on female psychology developed during the early feminist movement of the 1970s. The work critiques the prevailing male-centric frameworks in psychology, asserting that women's identities have been shaped by a dominant culture that often undervalues traits linked to femininity, such as vulnerability and nurturing. Miller argues that these qualities, often perceived as weaknesses, actually hold the potential for strength and healthier interpersonal connections.
The book is structured in three main parts: the first examines the inherent inequality in male-female relationships; the second reinterprets traditionally feminine characteristics as strengths; and the third envisions a future where women embrace their creativity, power, and the importance of relationships. Through real-life vignettes, like that of Anne, a woman grappling with her identity as a caregiver and artist, Miller underscores the challenges women face in asserting their sense of self in a society that often prioritizes male perspectives.
Miller's work has had a lasting impact, influencing discussions across various fields, including psychology, sociology, and education, and encouraging a re-evaluation of women's roles and their psychological development. This book serves as a foundational text in feminist therapy, highlighting the significance of understanding women's experiences and the importance of personal growth in overcoming societal constraints.
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Toward a New Psychology of Women by Jean Baker Miller
First published: 1976
Type of work: Social criticism
Form and Content
Created by one of a group of women who were struggling to formulate a theory and practice of feminist therapy in the early 1970’s, Jean Baker Miller’s Toward a New Psychology of Women affirms a distinctly female psychology. Because men dominate in society, Miller contends that a woman’s way of being has been forced underground and, if it is seen at all, has been highly suspect. She claims that psychoanalysis, in its attempt to probe the depths of the human mind, has unearthed this domain of suppressed qualities that are, essentially, the feminine psyche.
Toward a New Psychology of Women is composed of three sections. In part 1, Miller argues that the male-female relationship is predicated on inequality. This fundamental inequality between men and women is not unlike the sociological imbalances of power found between races, religions, nationalities, and classes. The dynamic of domination-subordination demands that the subordinate group’s identity be constructed around the dominant group’s perceptions and needs. The male-dominated culture has deemed certain human potentials more valuable than others and has shunted the “less desirable” qualities onto women.
Part 2 develops the theme that these very characteristics relegated to women which seem to be weaknesses are, in fact, strengths that hold the potential for an advanced way of living. Qualities such as vulnerability, weakness, caretaking, dependency, and cooperation fuel the drive to be connected in relationships. The problem for women is that these propensities become subsumed into the male-centered system and that the female identity, apart from who a woman is in relation to others, is eclipsed.
Part 3 addresses the direction in which women are headed. Miller contends that the future holds a more authentic female identity for women who, grounded in the understanding that the organizing principle for women’s selfhood is affiliation, embrace cooperation, their own creativity and personal power, and constructive conflict.
Throughout the book, Miller illustrates her ideas with vignettes of women who struggle with these issues. One example is Anne, an artist with two children and a husband who feels free to paint only when she has done everything possible to meet her family’s needs. When her husband dies at a young age, she is overwhelmed by a sense of purposelessness. Her children and the need to support them keep her going, however, and she is able to embrace her art with deep concentration because it is now essential to her family’s livelihood. In doing so, Anne comes to feel a greater sense of herself than she ever had when her life centered solely on her husband’s and children’s needs. When she remarries and her work is not essential financially, she struggles once again with her commitment to her work. “She felt that she did not have the right to devote herself to something ‘just for me.’ ” Anne’s dilemma typifies that of many of the women Miller portrays. A woman’s tendency, Miller believes, is to derive meaning and satisfaction from her work “when it takes place in the context of relationships to other human beings—and even more so when it leads to the enhancement of others.”
Context
Miller’s small volume has become a classic in circles concerned with women’s issues. In the years since Toward a New Psychology of Women’s publication, the frequency of its citation in journal articles has only increased. In 1979, there were twelve references to this work in professional articles; in 1992, there were sixty-three. Miller’s book has broad implications, since it is cited in fields as diverse as women’s issues, health and medicine, psychology, sociology, education, and the law.
Toward a New Psychology of Women was seminal in suggesting that female psychological development is distinctive, thus challenging a cultural icon, the psychoanalytic tradition. Refuting the notion that a woman must either defer to expected roles or feel guilty for not doing so, Miller maintained that a woman’s impulse toward personal growth is good. She links one of the most common psychological problems women face, depression, directly to the suppression of the impulse toward personal growth.
Bibliography
Chernin, Kim. Reinventing Eve: Modern Woman in Search of Herself. New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Chernin offers her own journey of self-discovery and an interpretation of modern culture’s limitations on women’s lives. She uses religion, myth, literature, and psychoanalysis to suggest transformative images for women.
Chodorow, Nancy. The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Chodorow provides extensive psychoanalytic grounding for her argument that parenting should be shared equally by both men and women.
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Gilligan argues that developmental theories in psychology have been built on the observations of men. Grounded in research, her study illuminates the distinctiveness of female identity and moral development as rooted primarily in connectedness with others.
Gilligan, Carol, Annie G. Rogers, and Deborah L. Tolman, eds. Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance. New York: Haworth Press, 1991. This collection of essays focuses on the psychological development of adolescent girls. Highlighting the unique problems they face, how they cope through the teenage years, and how teenage experiences affect their adult lives, the essays also reveal the social pressures placed on girls to submit and “be nice,” and illuminate their resistance to accepting the limits of socially defined femininity.
Schaef, Anne Wilson. Women’s Reality: An Emerging System in White Male Society. 3d ed. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1992. Schaef elucidates the psychosexual differences between men and women. Based on her experiences as a psychotherapist, she writes an accessible analysis of women’s experience and reality vis-à-vis those of men.