We had a cosy group last meeting, and had a good discussion about empathy and gender. We talked about a paper by Andrea Lobb, about the asymmetrical attribution of empathy to men and women. There was a good mix of agreement and disagreement with Lobb's arguments(s). The group generally liked her idea of the androgynisation of empathy, but some thought that this has in many respects been attained, or is at least much closer to being attained than she was presupposing. Although we acknowledged that Lobb took care to make clear that she didn't intend to argue 'against empathy', some thought she may have ended up doing so nonetheless, and may have been a little too keen to discard the idea of empathy as a feminine virtue to be celebrated.
We found the way in which the paper discussed empathy in relation to power quite interesting. In particular, we spoke about the idea that those who are marginalised may develop greater empathic ability, and some reasons for this.  We were also interested in power and gender as it may relate to different professions that work side-by-side, such as medical doctors and nurses, and psychiatrists and psychologists. We wondered what role gender may play in power dynamics between psychiatrists (a profession which is perhaps still somewhat male dominated) and psychologists.
We also spoke about empathy and gender on a more individual level, and our own experiences of choosing a profession both in which empathy is key, and which is female dominated. We discussed whether gender had influenced, or been a barrier, to our choices. We also talked about how some of the challenges men in psychology may face compare and contrast with the challenges faced by women in male dominated professions (for instance engineering).

 It was great having a chat about this topic, especially as a few people mentioned they'd not really encountered feminist perspectives on issues in psychology before.
See you all next time.