| Naomie Weisstein |
Naomie Weisstein
"Psychology has nothing to say about what women are really like, what they need and what they want, for the simple reason that psychology does not know."
Naomie Weisstein began her career at Wellesley College
Her graduate training started with clinical psychology but was later switched to perceptual and cognitive psychology. She got her Ph.D. from Harvard.
Her post-doctoral research was done at the Committee on Mathematical Research at the University of Chicago.
In Naomie’s main area of research she has published over 40 articles and 5 articles on the female position, or lack thereof, in psychology.
Her first article on this subject, "Woman as Nigger," published in 1969, outlined the fact that the current trend of psychological study has no idea about the state of woman, what she wants, needs, etc.
"Except for the genitals, I don’t know what immutable differences exist between men and women. Perhaps there are some other unchangeable differences; probably there are a number of irrelevant differences. But it is clear that until societal expectations for men and women are equal, until we provide equal respect for both sexes, answers to this question will simply reflect our differences."
Naomie went on to research ocular fields with respect to motion after effects, line segment discrimination against figures or grounds, flickering and non-flickering regions in depth, phantom effects, and M and P pathways among others.
In 1991 after working with individuals from many areas over her career (Chicago, New York, Connecticut, Denver, Pittsburgh, new Orleans, just to name a few), Naomie was the major professor for University of Georgia’s own Dr. James Brown.
In 1992 Naomie wrote another feminist article for the book Seldom Seen, Rarely Heard – Women’s Place in Psychology. Her contribution was a bit of an expansion from her 1969 Psychology Today article with new insights but the same sad conclusion.
"In brief, the uselessness of present psychology (and biology) with regard to women is simply a special case of the general conclusion: one must understand the social conditions under which women live if one is going to attempt to explain the behavior of women. And to understand the social conditions under which women live, one must be cognizant of the social expectations about women."
Articles of Interest
Weisstein, N. (1969). Stimulus/Response: Woman as Nigger. Psychology Today, 3 (5), 20-22, 58.
Brown, J. M. & Weisstein, N. (1992). Visual search for simple volumetric shapes. Perception and psychophysics, 51, 40-48.
Books of Interest
Weisstein, N. & Janis, S. B. (1992). Seldom seen and rarely heard. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Weisstein, N., Maquire, W., & Brannen, J. R. (1992). Applications of Parallel Processing in Vision. Amsterdam, Netherlands: North Holland.
Currently, Naomie is in New York City
She is conflicted with Chronic Immune Deficiency Syndrome
Ratcliffe College at Harvard University is in the process of compiling all of her works (feminist, scientific, and others) and some memorabilia from her earlier days (ex. She was a drummer for a female rock band in Chicago in the 1960s).