Women psychologists growing older: Questions of identity

Abstract

The focus of this presentation/discussion is on questions of professional identity for women psychologists growing older. For many of us who became psychologists in the 1970s or thereabouts, professional and other social identities were hard-won in the context of barriers to women in academic and the professions. We were (and are, I hope) rebels. Feminism led us to call our discipline/profession to account, challenging the status of women in psychology and the ways in which it portrayed women (distorting, devaluing and damning difference, to quote from "D for Psychology", an invited address I gave to the NZ Psychological Society in the 1980s). Feminist psychologists developed networks of activism and support and thirty years on, some of these networks are still functioning, as exemplified by this conference. Those of us who participated in the early days of feminist psychology in Australia and New Zealand are now growing older. Some have moved out of psychology, some have changed careers and interests, some have relinquished full-on careers, some are still going strong and others continue to operate from the edges of the discipline, in terms of both professional and academic work. I would like to use this session to facilitate a discussion on our professional identities within psychology as we grow older. Can we learn anything from psychology about nurturing or leaving behind professional identities as we age? Is professional identity unduly shaped by our current occupational status and our ability to pay professional fees or go to conferences? Is our attachment to our discipline/profession enduring? (once a psychologist, always a psychologist?), or if we relinquish it, what do we put in that space? And can we challenge psychologies of ageing to take us into account? Twentieth century developmental psychology might not have much to say to us have-it-all baby boomers in the new extended landscape of ageing. The Eriksonian task of achieving wisdom (ego integrity vs. despair) for the over-65s is starting to sound quaint. I invite thoughts and discussion around these issues, both from older women present and anyone else who is contemplating getting older.