Naomi Weisstein

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Naomi Weisstein (1939-) is the daughter of Mary Wenk and Samuel Weisstein. She is a Professor of Psychology, neuroscientist, and author. She graduated from Wellesley College, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1961 and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1964. In 1964 she took a post-doctoral fellowship at the Committee on Mathematical Biology at the University of Chicago. She taught at University of Chicago, Loyola University in Chicago, and at the State University of New York at Buffalo until the early 1980s, when she was stricken with chronic fatigue syndrome, which has left her bedridden.

Naomi Weisstein is Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Society. She has written over sixty articles for such publications as Science, Vision Research, Psychological Review and Journal of Experimental Psychology and served on the boards of Cognitive Psychology and Spatial Vision. Along with Phyllis Chesler, Joanne Evans Gardner, and others, in August 1970 Naomi founded American Women in Psychology, now Division 35 of the American Psychological Association.

She is probably best known for her pioneering essay, "Kinder, Kirche, Kuche as Scientific Law: Psychology Constructs the Female." She has written extensively on science, feminism, culture and politics. "Kinder, Kirche, Kuche" is characterized as having started the discipline of the psychology of women, and has been reprinted over 42 times in six different languages.

Weisstein is an outspoken feminist, who has written that she encountered sexism at every turn when she applied for teaching positions. She has a sense of humor, and was one of the early feminist stand-up comedians. She also organized the Chicago Woman’s Liberation Rock Band.

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  • "Except for their genitals, I don't know what immutable differences exist between men and women. Perhaps there are some other unchangeable differences; probably there are a number of irrelevant differences. But it is clear that until social expectations for men and women are equal, until we provide equal respect for both sexes, answers to this question will simply reflect our prejudices."
  • "Psychology has nothing to say about what women are really like, what they need and what they want, essentially, because psychology does not know."
  • "Evidence and reason: my heroes and my guides."

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