WORKING TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN

Feminist critics of an androcentric bias in psychology have argued that the tendency to either exclude women from study or include women and men as comparison groups has resulted in faulty over generalizations about women's psychology, exaggerations of gender differences, and evaluations of women as deficient relative to a male-defined baseline. The authors warn of a parallel bias that could affect progress in the field of the psychology of women if a White, privileged female norm is adopted inadvertently by researchers. The fallacy of such a norm, its consequences, and suggestions for avoiding it are discussed.