Ethel Puffer Howes: Biography Of This Psychologist And Activist
Ethel Puffer Howes (1872-1950) was a psychologist of American origin who carried out 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 approach the biography of Ethel Puffer Howes A psychologist who, while developing in the experimental area, strongly questioned the difficulties of women of the 19th and 20th centuries in reconciling a married life with an academic career.
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 had received vocational 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 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 and even associations as a pioneering psychologist.
Just as several of the psychologists of the time did, and given the recognition that Wundt’s experimental work was gaining; Puffer Howes moved to Berlin, Germany in the year 1895. To her surprise she found that in Germany there was a greater exclusion of women in scientific psychology and laboratories.
In this context she 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 fit well with the process of consolidation of scientific psychology, since the topic of aesthetics had been concentrated solely in the field of philosophy
For this reason, he obtained a scholarship from the Association of College Alumnate to pursue a doctorate with Münsterberg, who taught at Harvard, United States. She returned to Massachusetts and studied at the attached women’s college, Radcliffe College. As happened with other women of the same era, Puffer finished her doctorate after completing the same tasks as her colleagues; She was nevertheless awarded a degree in equivalent working quality.
Years later, Ethel undertook different actions to request official recognition of a doctorate from Harvard In response, she and three other psychologists were offered a PhD degree from Radcliffe, which Puffer accepted. Her experimental research on aesthetics resulted in the publication of the book The psychology of Beauty of 1908.
Between marriage and a scientific career
Later, Ethel Puffer worked as a teacher at different women’s colleges and in 1908 she married Benjamin Howes, a civil engineer she met after graduating from Smith College. In this context, something that seemed innocuous, such as acquiring her husband’s last name, caused Ethel various difficulties both in continuing her development in science and in meeting the expectations of marriage.
Based on her own experience, Ethel Puffer was one of the first scientists to put into public debate the conflicts that women faced in pursuing science and a “successful” married life at the same time, that is, complying with social and regulatory expectations thereof
As part of your marital commitment She had to move to a rural community for her husband’s job , 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 factor for women who 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 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 science itself, in the form of research and various academic articles where she describes the tensions that women scientists went through and possible conciliation strategies, for example the development of daycare 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 reforming the professional conditions of women, without addressing the possibility of redefining marriage and the sexual division of labor.
Gendered identity vs scientific identity
Women who opted for higher education at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century experienced 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 imagination, scientists were men, and women’s activity was more associated with private space.
Scientific activity, being associated with values opposite to those associated with women, also meant 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 science and not staying within the limits of the domestic space.
