The Political Is Personal

Abstract

Consistent with the dictum, “the personal is political,” feminist scholars have maintained that gender equity in security, access to education, economic opportunity, and property ownership are central to women’s well-being. Empirical research evaluating this thesis can include nation-level indicators of gender equity, such as the United Nation Development Program’s Gender Empowerment Measure. Yet, despite the growing popularity of such measures, there has been little discussion of the adequate measurement of gender equity or the appropriate application of such tools in theory-grounded empirical research within psychology. Moreover, the bulk of psychological research that has integrated such indicators has not employed a feminist or emancipatory framework. The authors summarize and evaluate nation-level gender equity indicators in order to familiarize researchers with the available tools, and the authors review the limited psychological literature that has used these indicators. The authors also discuss how psychological research can better use gender equity indicators in empirical models to examine political processes linked to women’s well-being.