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I have been teaching the Psychology of Women course for about 40 years. When I started in 1970, I was among a very few psychologists developing this new course. Now Psychology of Women or Psychology of Gender is taught in many psychology departments. One aspect of this course that was important to me was being able to teach about experiences that were common to women but invisible to psychology, which, back then, was largely taught from a male perspective. At that time, most psychologists were men, and most research was conceptualized from their vantage, rendering topics like pregnancy, birth, and the transition to motherhood invisible. In the decades that have followed, many women entered the field and research on women and gender increased enormously. Scholarly resources for teaching the Psychology of Women are now vast, and it is impossible to cover all the topics as thoroughly as I would like.Still, research about pregnancy, birth, and the transition to motherhood remains relatively scarce. In part, this shortcoming has to do with our heavy reliance on undergraduates as research participants. Researchers ask them about their expectations about motherhood or future roles (for examples, see Erchull, Liss, Axelson, Staebell, & Askari, 2010; Hoffnung, 2004), but they cannot be asked about the pregnancies or birth experiences that many have not yet encountered. When more diverse nonstudent populations have been studied, it has typically been to assess strategies for avoiding pregnancy, such as contraceptive use or abortion, rather than pregnancy or childbirth.In my own work studying motherhood, I found it difficult to recruit research participants who were pregnant or new mothers. I resorted to the snowball method to find participants (Hoffnung, 1992). I got a few names from a few sources and then asked each mother to suggest others who fit my criteria. That worked, but it was labor intensive and had limitations in generalizability.Besides these practical reasons for not studying pregnancy and birth, I think there are theoretical reasons as well. Most professors who teach courses in the Psychology of Women are ''similarities'' feminists. They believe that women and men are more similar than different. Therefore, they work to open the minds of students to the ideas that men and women are not opposite and that many so-called gender differences are in the eye of the beholder rather than in the behavior of the women and men. This similarities perspective pushes us to focus on areas of research that compare genders under different social conditions; that measure the attitudes and beliefs of those judging women and men; and that focus on how similar the genders are when roles and expectations are similar. Pregnancy and childbirth do not easily lend themselves to the similarities perspective.Feminist philosopher Patrice DiQuinzio (1999) discussed the problem of rationalizing feminism, individualism, and mothering. Individualism considers each individual as a separate unit, which is basic to the argument for equal treatme...

This study compares educational, career, and family outcomes by gender composition of college and race/ethnicity of women who graduated in 1993 from three selective U.S. colleges (two single-sex; one coed). It also compares these graduates' assessments of their college experience. The 60 White women and 60 Women of Color were interviewed as traditional-age seniors and surveyed annually for 16 years. In 2009, 76.7% responded. All groups were happy with their alma maters, although they assessed the advantages and disadvantages somewhat differently. Single-sex graduates more frequently indicated that their college had provided a supportive environment and complained that it provided a limited social life. Coed graduates more frequently indicated that their college provided cultural broadening and positive social relationships. Coed White graduates were in touch with more college friends than single-sex White graduates; there was no significant difference by type of college for Women of Color graduates. Results indicate no significant differences in advanced degrees or career status or STEM field involvement by gender composition of college or race/ ethnicity. Nor were any differences in marriage or motherhood variables found. The similarity in outcomes supports the primacy of status of college and is interpreted as positive indication that U.S. colleges have become more hospitable to women.