Ethel Puffer Howes: biography of this psychologist and activist
Ethel Puffer Howes (1872-1950) was a psychologist of American origin who made different studies on the psychology of beauty and aesthetics, which represented one of the important steps to consolidate psychology in the experimental field and beyond philosophy.
In this article we approach the biography of Ethel Puffer Howes . A psychologist who, while developing in the experimental area, strongly questioned the difficulties of women of the nineteenth and twentieth century in reconciling a life in marriage with an academic career.
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Ethel Puffer Howes: biography of this pioneer in scientific psychology
Ethel Dench Puffer (later Ethel Puffer Howes), was born on October 10, 1872 in Massachusetts, United States, in a family that promoted higher education for women . His mother was a teacher and had received professional training at Smith College, which served as a guide for Ethel and her four younger sisters. As soon as she had graduated, Ethel Puffer began teaching mathematics at the same school, and at the same time, developed a special interest in psychology. In this field Puffer was recognized by different academics in associations including a pioneering psychologist.
As several of the psychologists of the time did, and in recognition of Wundt's experimental work; Puffer Howes moved to Berlin, Germany in the year of 1895. With surprise it was found that in Germany there was a greater exclusion of women in scientific psychology and laboratories.
In this context he met the psychologist Hugo Münsterberg, who was interested in working with Ethel and his professional interests. Specifically, the psychologist was interested in researching beauty and aesthetics from a social perspective. This interest fitted well with the process of consolidation of scientific psychology, since the subject of aesthetics had concentrated solely on the field of philosophy .
For this reason he obtained a scholarship from the Association of College Alumni to do a PhD with Münsterberg, who taught at Harvard, United States. He returned to Massachusetts and was trained at the women's college, Radcliffe College. As it happened with other women of the same time, Puffer finished the doctorate after fulfilling the same tasks that his companions; however, he was awarded a degree in equivalent work quality.
Years later, Ethel undertook various actions to apply to Harvard for official doctoral recognition . In response, she and three other psychologists obtained the offer of a Doctorate degree from Radcliffe, which Puffer accepted. His experimental research on aesthetics resulted in the publication of the book The psychology of Beauty of 1908.
Between marriage and the scientific career
Subsequently, Ethel Puffer worked as a teacher in different schools for women and in the year 1908 she married Benjamin Howes, a civil engineer who met after graduating from Smith School. In this context, something that seemed innocuous as acquiring the surname of the husband, generated Ethel different difficulties both to continue their development in science and to meet the expectations of marriage.
From her own experience, Ethel Puffer was one of the first scientists to put into public debate the conflicts that women faced to do both science and a "successful" marriage life, that is, complying with the social and normative expectations of the same .
As part of your marital commitment she had to move to a rural community because of her husband's work , and among other things, this led her to reflect on the little compatibility between the burden of domestic activities with the intellectual demands of scientific psychology. And likewise, this incompatibility represented an important stressor for women who were gradually giving up the ideals of professional training to which they had dedicated years.
In sum, Ethel Puffer questioned the demand to lead a "perfect personal life"; with the path of personal fulfillment, which generates different contradictions when the first corresponds to marriage and the second with a task already associated with masculine values: doing science.After spending several years of private reflection, Ethel took this discussion to the science itself, in the form of research and various academic articles where she describes the tensions that women went through and possible strategies of conciliation, for example the development of day-care centers and special services for working mothers .
Among his main works are "Accepting the universe" and "Continuity for women", both of 1922. Among other things proposed to reform the professional conditions of women, without addressing the possibility of redefining marriage and the sexual division of labor.
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Generated identity vs. scientific identity
Women who opted for a higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, lived an important tension between the public image of obedient and submissive wife, and the silence of a "I" with desires and initiatives that corresponded to a sphere associated with opposing values . In the social imaginary, scientists were men, and women's activity was associated more with the private space.
The scientific activity, being associated with values opposed to those that were related to women, also meant exposure to social sanctions related to skepticism about their abilities and the validity of their activities. The latter was distressing for women who considered themselves "atypical" for practicing in science and not staying in the limits of the domestic space.
Bibliographic references:
- Rodkey, E. (2010). Profile Ethel Puffer Howes. Retrieved July 2, 2018. Available at //www.feministvoices.com/ethel-puffer-howes/
- García Dauder, S. (2005). Psychology and Feminism. Forgotten history of women pioneers in Psychology. Madrid: Narcea.
