Women in Psychiatry

Picture of young Elizabeth Blackwell


Many people chose to answer the question regarding women in psychology in its early history. Here is an excerpt from the National Library of Medicine at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/diseases/debates.html about

Women in 19th-Century American Psychiatry

Women were not welcomed into the medical profession during the first half of the 19th century: medical schools did not admit them. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first American woman to gain admission to a medical school and graduated from Geneva (N.Y.) Medical College in 1847. She spearheaded the push for women to enter medicine. With the support of women and some men, 17 medical schools for women were established but after some 50 years all but The Women's Medical College in Philadelphia closed, as all-male medical schools in Michigan, Iowa, Indiana, and elsewhere began opening their doors to a small number of women towards the end of the century.

Many arguments against women becoming physicians were physiological and neurological: would the education and training required make a woman unfit for her "primary duty," childbirth? And was rest (physical and mental) necessary during menstruation? In 1876, noted physician Mary Putnam Jacobi undertook a study of women's physiology, and specifically blood pressure, during menstruation, proving that menstruation posed no physical constraints on women. She entered her paper on the subject for the Boylston Prize at Harvard University anonymously and won it, much to the chagrin of many opponents to women's medical education. (See: M. P. Jacobi, The Question of Rest for Women During Menstruation, New York, 1877).

Psychiatry in the 19th century was based in the mental hospitals. The asylum superintendents voiced divided opinions about employing women doctors. Dr. John Gray of Utica, Dr. Thomas Kirkbride in Philadelphia, and Dr. John Chapin of Willard (N.Y.) wrote letters to their governors opposing the employment of women physicians, but legislatures especially in New York and Pennsylvania mandated they do so. Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, in his 1894 address at The Association meeting, had urged that women take care of women patients. But discrimination prevailed. Women doctors in many institutions received less pay than their male counterparts performing the same work. They were denied promotions and received little recognition, and as a result many did not remain long at the hospitals.

The earliest record of employment of a woman physician in an asylum was in 1869, when Worcester (Mass.) State Hospital hired Dr. Mary Stinson. Iowa followed in 1873, as did Michigan and hospitals elsewhere. Dr. Alice Bennett, M.D., (also the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania), remained at Norristown, Pennsylvania for 12 years in charge of the women's division, from 1880 to 1892. Gradually, as more women entered medicine, they were employed at state hospitals. Not until after WWII did the numbers of women physicians increase significantly, however. Eventually, psychiatry became a specialty of choice for many women, and a large number of them entered private practice.