Women of Vision
Their Psychology, Circumstances, and Success
Eileen Gavin, PhD
Aphrodite Clamar, PhD
Mary Anne Siderits, PhD
Women of Vision blends biographical narrative with psychological perspectives on human development, resulting in a moving and passionate book that is suitable for both academic and nonacademic readers. It is a useful tool for teaching purposes or for simple, enjoyable, and informative reading."
--Psychology of Women Quarterly
...a fascinating look of preservation and perceptiveness that is differentiated from its predecessors in its range of disciplines and emphasis...This new 'life course' approach to understanding female leaders gives valuable insight into the lives of these imminent women, furnishing insights into how the social-economic-political milieu and the attitudes and values of the time played a significant role in the lives of these women but also in all our lives. Women of Vision will serve as a springboard for exploration of how the psychologies of individual human lives affect their life-course and as a galvanizing step for many more future women of vision and leadership....The accounts in the book should be of substantial significance for readers interested in gender issues. However, the book will appeal to an even wider audience. Persons hoping to move in new directions in their own lives (e.g., women looking wistfully at new academic and occupational paths after years in stereotypic niches) can surely also find inspiration in the various accounts." --SirReadaLot.org
We all know of women of great vision; women whose efforts and accomplishments have had a major impact on the arts, politics, women's rights, sports, or science. But often we may not understand how they became such powerful agents of change and what sorts of questions we should ask of their pasts to understand how the trajectories of their lives were formed.
In this extraordinary textbook, leading experts cast new light on the role of circumstance, accomplishments, and personality in the development of various twentieth-century women of vision. This is a brand new life-course approach to understanding female leaders and gives valuable insight into the lives of such eminent women as Rachel Carson, Evelyn Gentry Hooker, Georgia O'Keeffe, Eleanor Roosevelt, "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, Ella Fitzgerald, Alice Paul, Lucille Ball, and many others. Study questions and exercises at the end of each chapter further enhance the text.
Women of Vision will serve as the springboard for exploration of how the psychologies of individual human lives affect their life-course and a galvanizing step for many more future women of vision and leadership.
- Contributors
- Dancing Women's Freedom: The Story of Isadora Duncan, Miriam Roskin Berger, Ilene Serlin, and Mary Anne Siderits
- Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen Adams Keller: Expressing "Vision" with Fluttering Fingers, Hendrika Vande Kemp
- Lillian Evelyn Moller Gilbreth: The Woman Who "Had It All", Melba J.T. Vasquez
- Alice Paul: Constitutional Amendment Mover and ERA Author, Carole A. Rayburn
- Georgia O'Keefe: American Modernist, Lillian Cartwright
- Mary McLeod Bethune: Voice of Change, Life of Service, Karen Fraser Wyche and Lisa Abern
- Anna Eleanor Roosevelt: The Evolution of an Extraordinary Leader, Agnes N. O'Connell
- Rachel Carson: The Strength of Wonder, Ravenna Helson
- "Be-Going": The Story of Dorothy Day, Mary Anne Siderits
- Sister Annette Walters's Unfinished Dream: "To Make the Universe a Home," Eileen A. Gavin
- Evelyn Gentry Hooker: The "Hopelessly Heterosexual" Psychologist Who Normalized Homosexuality, Joanne Quarfoth Floyd and Lynda Anne Szymanski,
- Athlete of the Century: "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, Lee Joyce Richmond
- Lucille Ball: Visions of Trauma, Crisis, and Comedy, Calvin Saxton
- Grace Brewster Murray Hopper: A Woman Who Dared and Did, Debra Sue Pate
- Ella Fitzgerald: The Singer's Singer, Beverly Greene
- Shirley Chisholm: A Catalyst for Change, Barbara L. Biales
- The Case of the Purloined Picture: Rosalind Franklin and the Keystone of the Double Helix, Michael Wertheimer
- A Second Look at Our Women of Vision
Foreword, Agnes N. O'Connell, PhD
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Women Whose Lives Spanned Two Centuries
Part II: Women Who Matured During the "Roaring Twenties"
Part III: Women Who Became Adults in the Nineteen Forties
Part IV: A Second Look at Our Women of Vision
Appendix: Study Questions for Chapters 1 to 17
Index

- Release Date: March 20, 2007
- Hardback
- 336 Pages
- Trim Size: 6in x 9in
- ISBN: 9780826102539
- eBook ISBN: 9780826101105