Advocacy Versus Scholarship Revisited: Issues in the Psychology of Women

The apparently contradictory relationship between advocacy and scholarship is examined in this article, which attempts to determine how much of the dilemma is due to the nature of the psychology of women itself and how much is a result of interaction with the social institutions of academia and the structure of psychology as a scientific discipline. Factors which impede the legitimization of new paradigms are discussed from a sociology of knowledge perspective. The additional dilemmas of women as scientists, women as a content area, and feminism as a theoretical conception are also considered. It is suggested that professional legitimacy is a property largely conferred by those outside the field and that collective rather than personal activities will determine the extent to which the psychology of women will affect the field as a whole.