Hope Landrine
A summary by
Ashley Keenan
Brief
Overview
Hope
Landrine was born in 1954. She grew up in a poor neighborhood outside of the
Bronx. Her parents were not in good health. For these reasons, Landrine became
interested in poverty and its effects on health at a young age. Landrine “discovered”
feminism in her local library while on summer break from college through Betty
Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.
Work/Professional
Life
Landrine
began her higher education at Westminster College in 1975. There, she studied
psychology. However, she lost interest in psychology because she felt that the
field of psychology was too conservative. She also felt that the field of
psychology “found problems within people instead of outside of them (Granek)”.
After receiving her bachelor’s degree, Landrine moved to Boston to volunteer at
the Cambridge Women’s Center, where she regained an interest in psychology.
Here, she worked with abused and battered women, especially those coming from
impoverished homes. At around the same time, Landrine got a paid job at Women
Incorporated where she helped women who were drug addicts overcome their
addictions through a feminist perspective. Landrine decided to go back to get
her Master’s degree at the City University of New York. She graduated with a
Master’s in experimental social psychology. During this time, she worked on the
New York City women’s paper, which was called the “Majority Report” at the time
(now called “The Font”). After receiving her Master’s, Landrine moved to Rhode
Island to obtain her PhD in Clinical Psychology. Her dissertation was about how
inequalities could lead to psychiatric disorders. She titled it “The Politics
of Madness.” After receiving her PhD in 1983, Landrine joined Division 35 of
the American Psychological Association, which is the Society for the Psychology
of Women. Around 1990 she joined the editorial board for the Psychology of
Women Quarterly. Landrine participated in two postdoctoral programs, one at
Stanford University for social psychology and the other at the University of
Southern California Medical School in cancer prevention. Because of this training,
Landrine was chosen as the director of Multicultural Health Behavior Research
at the American Cancer Society. There, she focused on ethnic inequalities in
cancer. After completing her work at the American Cancer Society, Landrine
became the director of the East Carolina University Center for Health
Disparities Research. The name is exactly as it says: she researches health
inequalities amongst poor communities. In addition, she is a professor of
psychology at the University. She currently still holds these positions. Her
most renowned works include Schedule of
Sexist Events, Discrimination Against Women: Prevalence, Consequences,
Remedies, and Theories of Psychopathology.
How
work relates to our class materials
Landrine recognizes
that impoverished women are often overlooked, as we can see in her extensive
research works. She acknowledges the status of women in our society, especially
those in lower socio-economic classes. Much research has been done with middle class,
white women. Landrine knows the importance of including women of different
classes, ethnicities, and sexual orientations in to her research. In this way,
she is able to focus on transforming feminism into something that can change
society in a positive way.
References
