Georgene Hoffman Seward (January 21, 1902 – September 19, 1992), an early feminist psychologist, was best known for her research on sex roles and sex behavior. Having experienced much sex discrimination in academia herself, she dedicated her life to researching sex differences and minority experiences, and encouraging women to pursue leadership in science.
Biography
Georgene Janet Hoffman was born in Washington, D.C., on January 21, 1902, to Georgene and Carl Henry Hoffman.(Ogilvie & Harvey, 2000) While she was young her mother died and her father remarried, leaving Georgene to be raised by her grandfather and great aunt in New York City. She obtained her B.A. from Barnard College for Women in 1922; her initial interest had been the classics, but instead she majored in psychology.(Sargent, 1993) She completed graduate work at Columbia University, became a Curtis Scholar, and obtained her master's degree in 1924. During this time she met another graduate student, John Perry Seward Jr., whom she would marry in 1927 and with would begin a lifelong professional collaboration. In 1928 she received her PhD from Columbia.
Georgene and John worked at many colleges and universities over the years, with John ultimately settling in at University of California at Los Angeles and Georgene settling in at the University of Southern California for the remainder of their careers. The couple had two daughters, Barbara and Joan Perry ("Jerry"). After the death of their eldest daughter Barbara Seward Price age 30, on September 3, 1958, the couple created a scholarship in her memory at Columbia University where she had studied that would fully cover the expenses of a General Studies Student's tuition at the university.
Her husband, John, died in 1985; Georgene died on September 19, 1992, in Los Angeles, California.
Professional career Following her doctoral training, Georgene Seward taught at Hunter College in New York City for one year, before returning to Barnard College to teach from 1930 to 1937. During this time, her husband taught at Columbia University. During her professional career at Barnard College Seward was consistently overlooked for promotion in favour of her less experienced, less competent, male counterparts. This anecdote would repeat itself during her seven-year professional career running the psychology department at Connecticut College for Women with her husband. The fourteen years without acknowledgement for her abilities and accomplishments pushed Seward to research and tackle issues related to the feminine role.
From 1937 to 1944 Drs. Georgene and John Seward together began running the psychology department at Connecticut College for Women. Here the couple worked in close collaboration with many other prominent researchers at the time, including Harry and Leta Hollingworth, Otto Klineberg, Gardner and Lois Murphy, and Robert Woodworth. Dr. Seward's time at Connecticut College was during the Second World War gave her the opportunity to cross paths with many famous German psychologist that were evacuating Nazi Germany including; Wolfgang Köhler, Max Wertheimer, Karl Bühler and Charlotte Bühler.
In 1944, Seward published one of her first seminal pieces. This piece, entitled "Psychological effects of the menstrual cycle on women workers", demonstrated that the menstrual cycle has no impact on the performance of working women, debunking the myth of menstrual invalidism.
In 1944, the Sewards left Connecticut College for Women; Georgene Seward took at teaching position at Simmons College and John Seward took a position at Boston University. In 1946, the Sewards accepted positions on the west coast and moved to California; John joined the faculty at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Georgene joined the faculty at the University of Southern California, where she remained until her retirement in 1972. At USC, Georgene taught social and personality psychology, clinical psychology, and ran the clinical training program. It was there that Seward then began also working in private practice, in addition to her teaching duties. She was also a clinical consultant for the Veterans Administration Hospital, Metropolitan State Hospital, and the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Clinic. She continued to work in private practice until 1987.
Both of the Sewards were dedicated antifascists and socialists, during the 1950s the McCarthy Era prosecutions brought both Georgene and her husband John under scrutiny with the Loyalty oath Controversy (Sargent, 1993).
While in California, Dr. Georgene Seward continued her work in gender and minority studies. It was here that she publish two seminal works on gender, some of the first texts of their kind. The first was "Cultural conflict and the feminine role: An experimental study" (1945); in this study, Seward investigated individuals attitudes toward women in post-war America. She found that attitudes toward women and the roles they filled varied and were based largely on context (post-war American families were transitioning from a patriarchal to a more democratic structure), leading her to believe that these attitudes were the result of the socialization of sex roles. Her second was Sex and the social order (1946); in this book, Seward summarized much of the literature on what was known of sex differences, or the lack thereof. She returned to these interests again later in her career, coauthoring two additional books: Sex Roles in Changing Society (1970) and Sex Differences: Mental and Temperamental (1980).
During her time in California, Seward also began to explore how culture and minority status impact clinical practice. It was then that she published two additional important books: Psychotherapy and Culture Conflict (1956) and Clinical Studies in Culture Conflict (1958). In these books, Seward investigated the unique neuroticisms and stress experienced by minorities. These two books, having influenced both social psychological research and clinical practice, are often considered her two greatest contributions to the field. Throughout the remainder of her career, she continued pursuing such important work and encouraging other women to do the same.
In 1972 Seward retired as a professor emeritus at USC; at the same time John retired from UCLA. She continued to run her private clinical practice for another 15 years and returned to active collaboration with her husband. Seward's continuing impact is best known among Feminist psychology professionals and clinical workers, as her books, Psychotherapy and Culture Conflict (1956) and Clinical Studies in Culture Conflict (1958) were considered highly influential among professionals in the field at that time. Her observation and dedication to the effects of minority status encouraged greater understanding of how the social pressures that arise from cultural influences shape patient and therapist dynamics (Seward, 1956). Including the idea that female patients should have the opportunity to be treated by a female therapists.
Dr. Georgene Hoffman Seward was a dedicated researcher, clinician, and mentor, who remained involved in her work until 1987. In 1987, only five years before her death, Dr. Seward was awarded the Distinguished Psychologist Award by the California State Psychological Association in recognition of her own leadership in teaching, research, and community service.
Contributions to psychology Seward was one of the first female psychologists to explore, and debunk, various theories of sex differences. She was also one of the first clinical psychologists to consider the impact of culture and minority status on clinical settings and treatment techniques. She was a researcher devoted feminist issues, and was an early advocate seeking culturally appropriate and sensitive mental health treatment. As stated by Lisa Held, of Feminist Voices in Psychology, "she has become a role model for feminist psychologists". She was not only a brave pioneer in the field of gender studies, but was an avid supporter of female leadership in psychology.
Early academic career During the Sewards’ early postdoctoral years they formed a professional relationship with the creator of the Pap test, G. N. Papanicolaou. This relationship would result in a number of studies on the reproductive behaviours of the guinea pig, including a comparison of male and female guinea pig sex drives and the specificity of the sex drive in male guinea pigs. Seward's early feminist works included The Psychological Effects of the Menstrual Cycle on Women Workers (1944) and an experimental study called Culture Conflict and the Feminine Role (1945). These works would be the prelude to a more comprehensive collection of social sex differences called Sex and the Social Order (1946).
Psychological effects of the menstrual cycle on women workers (1944) The close of World War Two called for rapid re-evaluation of women's perceived ‘biological handicaps’; in particular the focus was upon the menstrual cycle, historically seen as a time of bed rest and delicacy. Dysmenorrhea essentially was extreme pain and disability associated with the menstrual cycle (Seward, 1944). Seward (1944) gathered reports on women workers from two main areas; industrial and education settings. In the industrial setting menstrual invalidism seems to be the ‘go-to’ explanation of the trend that women workers miss more work days than their male counterparts (Seward, 1944). However, little collected data of the time supported the belief that menstruating women were unable to effectively contribute. This included studies that looked to compare performance abilities that found little difference in reaction times between menstruating and non-menstruating women; further studies with male controls found little difference between males and menstruating females (Seward, 1944).
Seward (1944) accumulated evidence from a number of sources that employed female workers; the overall findings do not support the need to shelter females from work due to dysmenorrhea. One of these sources included a division of General Motors that not only employed female workers, but also had a clinic set up to help women workers deal with the negative consequences of dysmenorrhea with pain medication and simple exercises; and reported no significant absenteeism from women (Seward, 1944). Seward (1944) also reviewed differences between female students and their performance effects. Nursing students were compared to other female university students due to the difference in physical demand and revealed a significant difference in the number of dysmenorrhea related problems. This suggested that despite popular belief that work and activity were more beneficial than harmful for women (Seward, 1944). These findings did not support the code of menstrual invalidism that often took place in order to discriminate against women workers (Seward, 1944).
Culture Conflict and the Feminine Role (1945)
The feminine role with the close of World War Two was to become a huge social concern; with men returning from war, women would be expected to return to their original, dependent roles The cultural setting of the time cemented the male/female dichotomy as an absolute; this view idolized the male/female identity as something that was beyond human control and was most likely biologically driven (Seward, 1945). Seward (1945) rebutted this view through redefinition of the feminine role as a cultural aspect that was assigned to women to their role depending on the social pressures of the time. The core of the argument suggested that the feminine role was not an absolute across all cultural groups; even the traditional predominately patriarchal Western culture had variations in the expectations of the feminine role across time (Seward, 1945).