2015 Association for Women in Psychology Conference

Research indicates that less than two percent of K-12 educators are African American males (National Center for Education Statistic, 2010). In order to recruit African American men into teaching, the project, “Black Men Teaching” targets African American youth, especially from low-income neighborhoods, in hopes of inspiring them to become educators. This facilitated discussion is designed to bring together advocates of underserved, minority populations in hope of formulating new ideas to resolve this dilemma. The lack of Black men in education is problematic. One of the main reasons for the dismally low number of African-American male teachers is that African-American males hold negative views toward teaching as a career. Teaching is often viewed as a woman's profession and as a low-paying field (Smith, 2004). Black youth have had little exposure to positive role models in the educational setting. Without these role models, African American children lack the guidance needed to pursue a career in education. In addition, White children are disadvantaged. Stereotypes exists about Black men; Caucasian children would benefit from exposure to positive Black male role models in order to debunk these beliefs and create a society with less prejudice. Black youth from low-income communities are faced with the realities of oppression every day, causing them to make choices that may lead them to incarceration or even worse, death. By targeting these communities with an advocacy program such as “Black Men Teaching”, I believe we can help these children create promising futures. My goal for this facilitated discussion is to bring together professionals who are working in a similar area or have an interest in advocating for underserved, minority groups. I hope to create a space where we can discuss and develop new ways to recruit Black youth into education. In addition, this space can be used to discuss forms of oppression and barriers Black youth face, and ways to combat these problems.

Resources exist for women interested in moving into administrative leadership positions (e.g., HERS program). However, there is little guidance for those interested in leadership opportunities within the faculty (e.g., department chair, faculty committee chair). Knowing that service is often evaluated in promotion and tenure decisions with less emphasis than teaching and scholarship, junior faculty often wait until after they are tenured to become significantly involved in faculty governance. However, this impedes them from having a track record necessary to be perceived as faculty leaders amongst their colleagues and by the administration (Chrisler, Herr, & Murstein, 1998). For women, there are still additional hurdles for entering leadership positions, because institutions which reproduce inequality within their governance structure are resistant to change (Dean, Bracken, & Allen, 2009). Although women are able to move into leadership roles (e.g., department chairs) in traditionally male-dominated professions, they are still expected to exhibit both masculine/agentic and feminine/communal behaviors in order to be successful (Isaac, Griffin, & Carnes, 2010). Formal faculty influence in institutional governance is steadily decreasing (O’Meara, LaPointe Terosky, & Neumann, 2008), yet faculty involvement directly affects the strength and influence of their participation in critical institutional decisions. This structured discussion will be facilitated by women who serve (or have served) in such roles in recent years. We will discuss strategies for becoming an effective faculty leader (e.g., networking, cultivating a reputation as an independent thinker, understanding the culture and political climate of the institution, as well as the issues affecting higher education) based upon personal experiences, as well as the existing literature (e.g., Kezar & Lester, 2009; Lester & Kezar, 2012; Schoorman & Acker-Hocevar, 2010). NOTE: Sponsored by the Early Career Caucus

Media coverage of Michael Brown’s murder and Ferguson protests have brought into the national spotlight issues that have affected communities of color, particularly black communities, for decades. Although various activist organizations have joined in solidarity with this movement (Bosman, 2014), mainstream media attention is waning and the U.S. government has taken a passive approach (Horwitz & Kindy, 2014; Trott, 2014). As students in counseling psychology, we have found ourselves wondering what the role of psychologists (and future psychologists) can and should be in this movement. Within our own graduate program, a discussion group has evolved out of these events, but deciding how to take action beyond discussion has proven more difficult to accomplish. Racial justice is long overdue--over 150 years since the abolition of slavery, and we are still waiting. Considering the conference theme, we seek to explore what restorative justice might look like in in the case of communities like Ferguson. In areas with a long history of institutional power being used to exploit and oppress, where might the community even begin to restore justice? How can psychologists be most helpful to the social movements already in progress to combat these injustices? What about graduate students? Certainly, research on white privilege and racial prejudice has been one major contribution of the field and should not be discounted. For example, Eberhardt, Goff, Purdie and Davies (2004) found that white males processed weapon imagery faster when primed with black male faces compared to the no-prime control and processed these same images slower when primed with white faces compared to the no-prime control. Although published in 2004, the research remains pertinent today and has clear implications for legislation surrounding events like Michael Brown’s murder. But what is our responsibility to more immediate action when innocent people are dying?

Feminist multicultural therapists assert that contextual factors, such as oppression and discrimination, contribute to psychological distress, limit access to resources and information, and isolate individuals from sustaining communities (e.g., Brown, 2010). They suggest that participation in social justice activism contributes to psychological wellbeing, such as increased empowerment, social connectedness, and resilience (e.g., Arczynski, 2014; Worell & Remer, 2003). Activism is also a way people may nurture and care for themselves as well as others in their community(s) while reducing oppression, harassment, and marginalization. Hagen (2013) demonstrated that individuals with diverse circumstances, with varied social identities, and from various social contexts may prefer different types of social justice activism. Further, the different activisms people reported preferring and engaging in held different socio-cultural-political meaning and relevance based on their beliefs, values, and experiences of oppression and privilege (Hagen, 2013). The purpose of this structured discussion is to cultivate participants’ empowerment to create positive social change in their varied communities. We will encourage a broad conceptualization of activism in order to include behaviors and strategies on micro, meso/community, and macro levels. We will give attention and sensitivity to different socio-cultural perspectives on oppression, power, and privilege. First, we focus on discussing specific concerns and experiences of oppression and marginalization relevant to participants’ communities (e.g., home, work, churches, families, friend networks). Then, we anticipate dialoguing about specific social justice activisms that participants presently engage in or have interest in doing in order to target oppression observed in participants’ local and national communities. Last, we will encourage participants to brainstorm strategies for collaborating with other people to increase social support; challenge discrimination, and increase access to opportunities, information, and resources. In this structured discussion, we will address challenges and benefits associated with engaging in activism.

Join us for a structured discussion focused on conference planning for the 2016 conference in Pittsburgh, PA. The theme of the conference will be “Strong girls and wise women: Sustaining feminism for the future.” Our primary goal for this conference is to highlight and explore the ways in which a feminist ethos can benefit girls and women throughout the lifespan. In particular, we are interested in exploring how AWP can focus on girls. We will consider ways in which feminism can supplement girls’ natural resilience in order to assist them in navigating the challenges they will face as participants in a patriarchal culture. Presenters will be prepared to provide examples of specific key issues facing girls and young women today, and we would like to solicit other examples from session attendees. In addition to our focus on girls, the conference co-coordinators would also like to foster a discussion about the challenges faced by older women and consider the ways in which older feminists can provide support and wisdom for future generations. This structured discussion will also involve exploration of specific programming that attendees would like to see carried out at the next conference (2016), as well as ideas for conference activities and events that attendees have found to work well at past conferences. Opportunities to assist in conference planning include tasks that can be done from a distance. Examples of ways to become involved include working with a specific sub-committee (such as Activism events) or working on specific conference related tasks (helping with registration).

The purpose of this structured discussion is to address the issue of sexual exploitation and trafficking among young women in the Bay Area, and explore potential ideas for creating opportunities for healing, restorative justice, and social change that meet this population’s unique needs. “Every day of the year, thousands of America’s children are coerced into performing sex for hire. Some of these children are brutally beaten and raped into submission. Others are literally stolen off the streets, then isolated, drugged, and starved until they become “willing” participants” (California Child Welfare Council (CCWC), 2013, p.5). The presenter will discuss her experience working with these young women and the therapeutic benefits she has observed when incorporating art therapy with the feminist approach and survivor-informed practices to facilitate empowerment and healthy expression. According to Riley (1990), art therapy is helpful with adolescents because the problem becomes externalized within the art image, which shows that the problem is the problem and not the client (p. 249). This discussion will focus on the systems of oppression related to the victims and survivors of sex trafficking in response to race, gender, age, socio-economic status, and psychological resources. Victims whom are forced into captivity and continually abused after previously being abused, induce more harm and trauma to the body, mind, and soul (Herman, 1997, p. 18). Many of them return back to the streets because specialized services are not in place and majority of victims do not have supportive families to return to (CCW, 2013). Participants will explore ideas of community-based interventions and incorporating art as part of the healing process. The goal of this structured discussion is to collaborate with women in the field of psychology and explore therapeutic practices that will aid this unique population in restorative justice, healing, and community change.

More than ever, our work as Non-Government Organizations at the United Nations is valuable. We have been consulted on UN policies and practices, encouraged to network with UN agencies, and included in some programme matters. in this session, we would like to highlight some of those activities.

This structured discussion will explore how we as mental health professionals can utilize feminist and multicultural psychology to engage clients in awareness of gender role socialization in ways that increase clients’ empowerment and promote restorative justice, particularly in the face of violence. Drawing on clinical experience and relevant literature, facilitators will consider ideas for effective therapeutic intervention and potential avenues for enhancing clinical training. Gender roles are the behaviors that individuals perform based on socially constructed expectations about what constitutes masculinity and femininity (Mahalik, Cournoyer, DeFranc, Cherry, & Napolitano, 1998). Recent literature on the topic emphasizes the effects of socialization that lead to adoption of gender roles and addresses the need to redefine power-based constructions of gender (Enns, 2004; Jones, 2003). Research has also begun to acknowledge the differences in gender roles across race and ethnicity (Crawford & Unger, 2004; Miville, 2013). In some cultures, unquestioned adaptation of prescribed gender roles, especially when they have power-based sociopolitical implications, can affect a person’s physical and mental wellbeing (Miville, Bratini, Corpus, Diaz, 2013). Using therapy to address such dynamics, clients may be better able to develop a fuller sense of themselves as gendered beings, which in turn may foster greater psychological health (Miville, Bratini, Corpus, & Diaz, 2013). In working with clients from a feminist perspective, special attention should be placed on the impact of gender role identity on physical and emotional violence, which requires therapists to explore clients’ beliefs related to masculinity and femininity (Sokoloff & Dupont, 2005). Special attention should be placed on how a female client’s gender role identity may impact her experience and understanding of physical and emotional violence (Crenshaw, 1991). In addition, when working through experiences of violence in therapy, an examination of gender role expectations may provide female clients with a deeper understanding of such experiences. It may also facilitate an opening to explore novel ways of developing restorative empowerment as clients heal from violence-related experiences. Per recent feminist literature, as instances of violence around the world increase, it becomes ever more imperative that the racial, ethnic, and gendered differences of such experiences are addressed (Crawford & Unger, 2004). It is therefore vital for therapists to gain an awareness of the influence of gender socialization on their clients’ lives and frame the context of therapy from this lens (Steigerwald & Forrest, 2004). Therapists should also evaluate how their own gender-based beliefs may contribute to their conceptualizations of the issues presented by their clients (Steigerwald & Forrest, 2004).

What is wrong with the current response to gender violence? How should that response be different? To answer these questions, the Re-Imagining multimediaproject will be launched as part of Media for Change’s (MfC, mediaforchange.org) series, Changing the Conversation. MfC is a new non-profit and open-access online resource founded by documentary filmmaker Sanjeev Chatterjee to recognize and support the work of activists in using media for social change. Toward this end, Re-Imagining emerged from interviews on and around the 2014 conference CONVERGE: Re-imagining the Movement to End Gender Violence (http://www.law.miami.edu/academics/converge/index.php?op=0), where Arrested Justice author Beth Richie raised the same questions in her keynote address. Re-Imagining introduces the public to the ways in which the dominant response to domestic violence and sexual assault are criminal law centered, the dominant responses have failed to address structural inequalities, and the system intersectionality of the criminal justice system, welfare system, and child welfare system has had a negative impact (Dorothy Roberts, 2012) on women of color. In the multimedia content, leading scholars and activists Dorothy Roberts, Mimi Kim, Leigh Goodmark, Beth Richie, Joan Pennell, Donna Coker, and others speak to these problems and suggest alternative community responses, including Transformative Justice and Restorative Justice. The next iteration of Re-Imagining will likely include on-site videos with organizations involved in alternative responses to gender violence, including Transformative and Restorative Justice. The site will ultimately link to many other websites recognizing interlocking oppressions and working to diminish the carceral state. At the AWP Conference, we hope to dialogue with feminist psychologists about our evolving tool for sparking critical conversations and actions. Our goal is a general shift from dominant, crime-centered, gender violence responses, towards strengthening community-based strategies and alternatives.

The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN, 2009) reports that a sexual assault occurs every 2 minutes in the United States. Many of these assaults occur on college campuses. One study found that between 20-25% of women will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault by the time she graduates; 90% of the time she will know the offender (Fisher, Cullen & Turner, 2000). Additionally, in a study of nearly 1600 colleges with a population greater than 1000 students, 55% of students had at least one reported sexual assault, and the total number of 3900 reports in 2012 reflects a 50 percent increase from 2009 (Anderson, 2014). Because a large number of sexual assaults are unreported, this jump in reports may not necessarily indicate an increase in sexual assault, but rather a willingness on the part of survivors to trust the universities’ administration to support them after reporting. By Title IX standards, universities are legally required to respond to sexual assault reports. Unfortunately, in many instances, the university’s handling of these cases is problematic. For example, some schools expel students found guilty of cheating, but dispense far less severe punishments for students found guilty of sexual assault. Survivors of sexual assault who seek justice through appropriate university channels are disappointed and angry when their institutions fail to effectively address the issue. When this occurs, some survivors find other ways to restore justice, such as participation in Take Back The Night protests or becoming a survivor’s advocate. Finding ways to empower themselves after an assault may not help survivors find the retribution they seek, but it can promote positive healing. In this structured discussion, participants are encouraged to discuss universities’ institutional barriers in reporting sexual assault and brainstorm ways we can help survivors seek a personal sense of restorative justice. References Anderson, N. (2014, July 1). Sex offense statistics show U.S. college reports are rising. The Washington Post. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/sex-offense-statistics-show-us-college-reports-are-rising/2014/07/01/982ecf32-0137-11e4-b8ff-89afd3fad6bd_story.html Fisher, B.S., Cullen, F.T., & Turner, M.G. (2000). The Sexual Victimization of College Women. National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (2009). Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.rainn.org/statistics

The incarceration of women and girls has shifted in our society. According to the CDCR (2014), Female incarceration rates have increased dramatically in the last 10 years. Working in the county jail and juvenile hall systems within California for the past few months has exposed me to the different needs that men and women demonstrate while incarcerated. For many women, being locked up provides safety and protection from the sexual and physical violence they have experienced throughout their lives (Bradley & Davino, 2002). The safety that is felt by some women while incarcerated is very different than the expressed experience for men regarding safety. This is not to minimize the trauma and violence experienced by men in these settings, however through my early experience in incarceration, I have noticed different needs and ways of being protected and provided safety for women and girls compared to men and boys. The culture of a female correctional unit feels very different than that of a male correctional unit, which represents nothing novel or groundbreaking. Carol Gilligan’s (1982) characterization of male and female differences is very evident in the environment of incarceration. The male standard of treatment found within the walls of juvenile halls, jails and prisons, serve to disregard the gender-specific needs for women if the aim is for rehabilitation. Even the ways in which genders are tried in court is conflicted: “A distinction was drawn between male’s emphasis on autonomy and an ethics of right and justice in resolving a case and women’s subscribing to an ethics of care with an emphasis on the social impact of a decision.” (Von Wormer, 2010). Furthermore, restorative justice from the perspective of Barton (2001) recognizes multiple ways of enacting justice for the offender and the victim, however the victimization of women in the male-dominant correctional environments hinders that corrective process.

A significant portion of time during predoctoral internship is dedicated to clinical work and ensuring that we are providing adequate services to empower clients to facilitate and enable positive change in their lives. One aspect often not given sufficient attention is how counselors-in-training can cultivate their own personal empowerment to advocate for their own training needs. How can one apply a feminist approach to one’s training within a hierarchical structure? More specifically, how can one advocate for oneself in a way that respectfully adheres to one’s work policies? According to Page and Czuba (1999), empowerment is a multidimensional process that facilitates one to obtain a sense of control over their lives. It is obtained by having the autonomy to act on issues that are defined and perceived as important. Research has suggested work environments that facilitate employee empowerment tend to have a higher employee performance and satisfaction, as well as a decrease in dysfunctional collegial relationships (Vecchio, Justin, & Pearce, 2010). Given that predoctoral interns tend to be at the ‘bottom of the totem pole’ in terms of power within the work environment due to their trainee status, is it possible to navigate power differentials and cultivate a voice that fits the needs of the trainee as well as compliments the needs of the work environment? The analysis of this topic seeks to explore how feminist aspects of empowerment such as creativity, authenticity, and advocacy can be cultivated as a trainee. This discussion will explore obstacles to feeling empowered in a training program, as well as seek solutions toward advocating for oneself on both an individual level as well as within the changing system of University Counseling Centers. Social justice considerations will also be explored and examined. References Page, N., & Czuba, C. E. (1999). Empowerment: What is it. Journal of extension, 37(5), 1-5. Vecchio, R. P., Justin, J. E., & Pearce, C. L. (2010). Empowering leadership: An examination of mediating mechanisms within a hierarchical structure. The Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), 530-542.

As feminist psychologists, we value generativity, mentoring the next generation, and working together for social change. These values can lead us to take on a multitude of responsibilities, resulting in overwork, stress, and an unbalanced life. Feminists from marginalized groups (e.g., sexual minorities, underrepresented ethnic/racial minorities) can be especially vulnerable to overwork, as they receive many requests to serve and may feel a special sense of responsibility to ensure that multiple perspectives are represented. Overwork and imbalance are unsustainable, yet simply saying "no" to service requests is not necessarily the best option, especially if the underlying goals are ones we share. How can we navigate the tension between our feminist values and the inability to do it all? This session will provide a venue for participants to share experiences and strategies. The facilitators are mid-career academics and will briefly speak to these issues from their own positionality. However, we anticipate that the tension between feminist values and limited bandwidth is relevant to professors at all levels, to students and postdocs, and to therapists and others whose careers are outside of academia. The structure will depend on the number of attendees and may include: discussions in pairs or trios, brief individual sharing, large group discussion, or brainstorming about a particular specific dilemma. If the group is small, we will allow time for each individual to present a specific situation where they felt a tension between their feminist goals and values and their ability to have a balanced life. If the group is larger, we will first generate specific questions via large group discussion, and then break into smaller groups to discuss one or more of those questions. In all cases, we'll come back to the large group at the end, and provide a summary of insights and strategies.