Will More Women Mean Less Money, Status in the Field?

Women on the way to majority in the fields of psychology and psychiatry have not brought universal joy for men and women in those professions.

Although many look forward to the diversity of thought and approach the change may bring, they also are uneasy about what this demographic shift will mean for their professions.

Will there be a loss of status and prestige? Will there be a loss of income?

There is good reason to worry.

Last November, the American Psychological Assn. established a nine-member task force on the “Feminization of Psychology.”

As described in the association’s publication, “The APA Monitor,” the task force will ask:

“Why is this shift occurring, and what can be done to ensure that psychology does not suffer the reductions in power, prestige and remuneration experienced by other professions with similarly changing sex ratios?”

Task force member Toni Bernay, a Los Angeles clinical psychologist, predicts enormous positive change but adds:

“When a profession becomes feminized, in the eyes of our society it becomes devalued, and remuneration goes down. We want to build some safeguards and do some damage control.”

Mary Beth Kenkel, academic dean at California School of Professional Psychology at Fresno and a task force member, has already researched the topic.

“Feminization is always thought to be the death knell of an occupation,” she says. “My whole position is that generally things are happening out there which cause men to leave it. There are more openings, and women come in.”

In the case of psychology, Kenkel says, funding for training has decreased, and students usually must incur debts.

Managed health-care systems, stricter insurance policies and the closing of psychiatric hospitals and clinics are having an effect.

Turf wars with the medical professions over everything from access to hospitalized patients to Medicare eligibility are a threat.

At the same time, more places for students are becoming available, and women are filling them, she says, drawn especially to clinical psychology--a healing, nurturing profession that draws on their feminine qualities.

It adds up to fewer men, more women.

Kenkel cautions that psychology may follow other female-dominated professions and become ghettoized. Women may wind up in lower-paying and less-prestigious areas of those professions.

Although 85% of librarians are women, for example, very few hold top positions, she says.

“Women need to go after leadership positions,” Kenkel says.

Her task force colleague, Ronald Fox, dean of professional psychology at Wright State University, agrees: “It’s not just an issue of fairness. I’ve been telling the men it’s not a women’s issue. It’s in your selfish interest.”

With men retiring and women entering the field, Fox says, “we’re going to change fairly rapidly. What helps a profession’s earning power depends how well you defend the turf and how well you lead. We need to get women in. They’re going to be carrying the ball.”

Although some colleagues think time will take care of it, Fox sees more urgency.

“The whole health-care system is going to change over the next decade. We need to be there protecting ourselves. Men shouldn’t set up something and then expect women, who were not involved, to take care of it.”

Less dramatically changed thus far, the American Psychiatric Assn. has no plans for a similar task force, although research and commentary about “the feminization of psychiatry” can be found in its American Journal of Psychiatry.

“We welcome more women,” says Dr. Lawrence Hartmann, president of the association. “I think it’s good to look at it as part of a larger social task that involves bright, ambitious women in many things. It’s high time there were a few dozen more women in the senators, CEOs and a couple of (U.S.) Presidents.”

A clinical psychiatrist and faculty member of Harvard Medical School, Hartmann describes psychiatry, a field of medicine, as more professionally secure than psychology, but he concedes in general that “fields do tend to get stigmatized (by becoming female-dominated). It’s a reasonable concern, but I think a better way of looking at it is to say: ‘It’s good for psychiatry and psychology.’ ”

Why so?

“It means a larger pool of bright people with a variety of points of view and ideas--about child-rearing, about making choices, perhaps, that favor children, families, education over guns and butter. There will be more sympathy for victims for sexual abuse.

“It does not mean one point of view is right, the other wrong. It’s different.”