A prolific writer and researcher, the publications and theories proposed by Kay Deaux have impacted the field of sociology since the 1970s. While Deaux has not published a biography, she did give a fairly extensive interview to Anne Rutherford discussing her life in relation to her body of work (Deaux, 2010). By coordinating her biographical background with her research, it is possible to draw broad conclusions concerning the evolution of her interests and the influences of her life experiences.
Kay Beaux was born in Warren, Ohio in 1941 and grew up in a Cleveland neighborhood that she describes as “homogenous”; in other words, it was largely Caucasian, one religion, and one opinion in politics (FoundationsPSP.org, 2016). She credits her father’s side of the family with instilling her with a sense of adventure that helped her when breaking ground in her theories. It was not until she started college in 1959 that she began to be exposed to the concepts of racism and issues of inequality. College friends began to become involved in the topic of feminism and Deaux became acquainted with the concept of gender inequality. She states in the Rutherford interview that there was a study by Aronson called To Err is Humanizing concerning perceptions of society, and she noted the subjects and judges were all male. She replicated the study for her dissertation, basing it on the current issue of women being involved in the military draft for the Vietnam War. This became her first venture into gender differences in society.
In the period from the 1970s and 1980s, her research included theory, laboratory, and field studies in stereotyping based on the sexual roles, and society’s judgment and acknowledgement regarding women and their identity (FoundationPSP.org, 2016). This work served as a trailblazer for social inquiry by feminists. In the years following, her focus transitioned into social identity for women and that of immigrants, another population facing discrimination. Since the 1990s, Deaux worked to connect the social psychology inquiries toward social issues on a larger scale with ethnic groups, culminating in the publication of her book, To be an Immigrant (Deaux, 2006).
Her scholastic achievements and leadership roles include a doctorate from the University of Texas, a faculty post in the Department of Psychology at Purdue for 17 years, and the development of the department and placement as Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York. Only a few of her awards include the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize, the Carolyn Wood Sherif Award, the heritage Research Award, and the Kurt Lewin Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (FoundationPSP.org, 2016). She has served on a number of boards, was a Visiting Scholar for the Russell Sage Foundation, and has been a Stanford Fellow for the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences two times. Deaux currently works with researchers around the world in collaborations and lives in New York with her husband, Sam Glucksberg.
There appear to be major lines of research Deaux conducted after she completed her initial studies in social psychology. As her career progressed, she found her gender blocked her from most positions, from admission to graduate programs to placement in academic positions, and she was paid significantly less than her male peers when she did secure a teaching post (Deaux, 2010). Deaux states that her “feminist hackles” raised when she attempted to enter graduate school after being in the honors seminar and
". . . the professor who directed the honors program said he wouldn't admit women to graduate school and they shouldn't be there, because you know, the standard story
'They are going to spend this time and invest this energy and then they are going to
go off and have a baby and get married,' you know, that kind of thing" (Deaux, 2010, p.5).
Deaux’s dissertation influenced another leader in gender studies, Janet Spence, and Spence’s ability to break through some of the barriers to female teachers reciprocally supported Deaux’s ventures into feminism.
Kay Deaux made important breakthroughs in the legal perception of gender when she became involved in research concerning corporate and government policies (Gul, 2016). She began investigating the role of female workers in the steel industry and started using a methodology employing a combination of experiments, interviews, and observations. She composed a brief concerning gender stereotyping on a case before the United States Supreme Court, Price Waterhouse vs. Hopkins and the ruling was in favor of the female employee on the basis of discrimination. This was the first time the Supreme Court employed gender research to reach a decision.
Today, Deaux concludes that gender differences within a culture are based more on context that other influences (Gul, 2016). She believes that male and female dispositions psychologically and biologically influence behavior, but the expectations of society in the situation and the expectations of those around the individual are the dominant influences. For that reason, if all variables were equal, there would be no differences between the sexes. Deaux believes that research should continue to incorporate feminist values and although society has come a long way in accepting women as equals, there is still work to be accomplished.
During her career, Kay Deaux belonged to both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociologists Association, reflecting her dual interests in the belief that sociologists look at “real life” (Gul, 2016). In the late 1980s, Deaux became less interested in gender for women as much as gender identity in society at large (Deaux, 2010). She recognized that gender is not the only identity people have and many times is not the most important to them. Subsequently, she began to focus on categories of social identity as an issue in a more generic form. When she moved to the Center for Advanced Studies in New York in 1987, half of her working group were psychologists and half were sociologists with Deaux “wearing both shoes”. One entire year was spent in discussion on issues of identity and their effect on culture. Living in New York prompted Deaux to incorporate ethnicity into the conversation; living in the Midwest left her naïve to the impact the wide variety of cultures has on American society. These discussions suddenly made her realize that she was not contemplating ethnicity as much as she was immigration into a host society.
Deaux states that psychology was primarily a silent influence on the topic of immigration (Deaux, 2010). She began to incorporate psychology into the discussions and promoted the idea that social psychologists have the opportunity to contribute to understanding ethnicity and immigration in order to fill the gap missing data on the subject. Deaux believes that there are interrelationships in the issues of immigration that address cultural identity, gender identity within both cultures, motivation, and attitudes that require the attention of social psychologists (Gul, 2016).
In her book To Be an Immigrant, Deaux discusses how the culture of a host country shapes and presents challenges for people leaving their home environment. She presents the argument that large-scale factors such as the interactions with the new society and the laws of the new culture impact the personal choices of each immigrant. She focuses on the process of relocation of West Indians because they are placed into the category of being black rather than Jamaican or Guyanese in American society; therefore, they face the stereotyping not only of being recent immigrants, but of a long-standing American prejudice against African Americans. The result is that West Indian immigrants living in the United States for some time identify with the African American race and are more negatively impacted that West Indians who have recently moved to America. Deaux’s conclusion is that immigration is a process that impacts the individual for his or her entire life.
There are still challenges in the world of gender identity; it has become a component in understanding how the judgments of both sexes are impacted by categorization and stereotyping. Attorneys in cases on sexual harassment and discrimination use the information discovered to date, but the complexity of the topic requires further clarification. Business, society, and economics are significantly affected by policies based on maternity disputes, working relationships, and other influences. In addition, the relationships between men and women at home and in the workplace are in a constant state of flux, changing with the dynamics of interaction. Therefore, researchers should approach the field of inquiry as a whole rather than individual concepts.
In a reflection on the life and works of Kay Deux, there is no doubt that she has been a major influence on the voice of feminism in social psychology and has contributed significantly in the area of ethnic and immigrant identity research. However, by watching the video of her interview with Anne Rutherford (Deaux, 2010), one cannot help but be captivated by the genuine humility of this innovative woman. Her lack of desire to talk about herself and her accomplishments is reflected in her consistently bringing the conversation back to her work and how she and other researchers such as Irene Diamond laid the groundwork for women’s studies programs. She mentions her personal accomplishments only in passing as references to what was happening for women in academia at that time. After a lifetime of contributions in the field of social psychology, Deaux remains passionate about ongoing advances in her studies. Kay Deaux personifies the ideal female psychologist as her quest for more answers continues while at the same time being able to maintain her feminism beliefs.
References
Deaux, K. (2010).Interview by A. Rutherford [Video Recording], Psychology’s Feminist Voices
Oral History and Online Archive Project. New Orleans, LA. Retrieved 16 April 2016
Deauxfinal.pdf
Deaux, K. (2006). To Be an Immigrant. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
FoundationPSP.org. (2016). Kay Deaux. Foundationpsp.org. Retrieved 16 April 2016,
FoundationsPSP.org,. (2016). Kay Deaux. Foundationpsp.org. Retrieved 24 April 2016, from
http://www.foundationpsp.org/deaux.php
Gul, P. (2016). Kay Deaux - Psychology's Feminist Voices. Feministvoices.com.
Retrieved 16 April 2016, from http://www.feministvoices.com/kay-deaux/
