Ethel Puffer Howes: biography of this psychologist and activist

Ethel Puffer Howes (1872-1950) was an American-born psychologist who conducted various 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 zoomed in on the biography of Ethel Puffer Howes. A psychologist who, while developing in the experimental area, strongly questioned the difficulties of 19th and 20th century women in reconciling a life in marriage with a career academic.

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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, within a family that promoted higher education for women. Her mother was a teacher and she 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 math classes at the same college, and at the same time, she developed a special interest in psychology. In this field Puffer was recognized by different academics in even associations as a pioneering psychologist.

As did several of the psychologists of the time, and in recognition that she was winning the experimental work of Wundt; Puffer Howes moved to Berlin, Germany in 1895. To her surprise she 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 her professional interests. Specifically, the psychologist was interested in investigating beauty and aesthetics from a social perspective. This interest fitted in well with the consolidation process of scientific psychology, since the subject of aesthetics had been concentrated solely in the field of philosophy.

For this she herself obtained a scholarship from the Association of College Alumnate to do a doctorate with Münsterberg, who taught at Harvard, United States. She returned to Massachusetts and attended the annex college for women, Radcliffe College. As happened with other women of the same time, Puffer finished the doctorate after fulfilling the same tasks that the companions of her; she nonetheless she was awarded a qualification in equivalent work quality.

Years later, Ethel she undertook different actions to apply to Harvard for official recognition of her doctorate. In response, she and three other psychologists were offered a Ph.D. degree by Radcliffe, which Puffer accepted. Her experimental research on her aesthetics resulted in the publication of the book The psychology of Beauty from 1908.

Between marriage and a scientific career

Subsequently, Ethel Puffer worked as a teacher at different colleges for women and in the year In 1908 she married Benjamin Howes, a civil engineer she met after graduating from college. Smith. In this context, something that seemed innocuous, such as acquiring the last name of her husband, generated Ethel different difficulties both to continue the development of it in science and to meet the expectations of the marriage.

Drawing from her own experience, Ethel Puffer was one of the first scientists to publicly debate the conflicts faced by women to do science and a "successful" married life at the same time, is say, complying with the social and regulatory 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 poor 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 they saw themselves gradually renouncing 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 is corresponds with 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 science itself, in the form of investigations and various academic articles where she describes the tensions that women scientists went through and possible conciliation strategies, for example the development of day care centers and special services for working mothers.

Among her main works are "Accepting the universe" and "Continuity for women", both from 1922. Among other things, she 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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Gendered identity vs scientific identity

Women who opted for higher education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries lived an important tension between the public image of an obedient and submissive wife, and the silence of an "I" with desires and initiatives that corresponded to a sphere associated with opposite values. In the social imaginary, scientists were men, and women's activity was associated more with private space.

Scientific activity, being associated with values ​​opposite to those related to women, also implied their 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 within the limits of the domestic space.

Bibliographic references:

• Rodkey, E. (2010). Profile. Ethel Puffer Howes. Retrieved July 2, 2018. Available in http://www.feministvoices.com/ethel-puffer-howes/
• García Dauder, S. (2005). Psychology and Feminism. Forgotten history of pioneer women in Psychology. Madrid: Narcea.