The Psychological is Political

A recent history of feminist psychology in Vienna, 1972-2000

“The Psychological is Political” aims to analyze how knowledge about the psychological dimensions of gender discrimination developed in Vienna between 1972 and 2000. In the early 1970s, activists of the women’s movement began examining the conditions and psychological effects of discrimination against women. Observing how inequality or discrimination caused harm, activists were soon offering specialized counseling and psychotherapy. In the course of time, this focus was broadened to include the lives and experiences of those who experience ethnic or racial discrimination, who do not comply with heterosexuality or who do not identify as the sex they were assigned at birth. While the history of knowledge production about the psychological conditions and consequences of gender inequality is well documented particularly in the USA, Canada and Great Britain, there is strikingly little literature on the subject in the Germanspeaking countries. This project is designed to fill this gap.

It is our contention that knowledge about the psychological dimension of gender inequality, for example, has burgeoned in Austria especially since the late 1970s, only that for various reasons it has not been able to gain a foothold in academia. Through archival research and oral history interviews, we will reconstruct how this knowledge was used and produced in Vienna, in feminist consciousness-raising groups (e.g., AUF Aktion Unabhängiger Frauen and at so-called ‘Volkshochschulen’), in women’s counseling and information centers (e.g., Frauen beraten Frauen, Peregrina, LEFÖ, Miteinander Lernen, …), and at the Department of Psychology at the University of Vienna from 1972 until the the year 2000. In our analysis, we will focus on the institutional and social context of psychological knowledge about the psychological conditions and consequences of gender inequality in order to get a sense of the conditions that have facilitated or hindered the development of knowledge about the psychological dimensions of gender inequality.

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Latest Presentation of Research Results

LIVE TALK + DISCUSSION:   Psychologization in and through the women’s movement: Consciousness-raising in Austrian feminist activism in the 1970s. Nina Franke & Nora Ruck, presentation at Cheiron and ESHHS joint virtual meeting, July 9-11, 2020.

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