Fifty Years of Fashion and Feminism: Early Career Recognition, Community Involvement and Sociopolitical Identities in a Sample of Nationally Recognized Women

Abstract

Seventy nine women from a sample of early high achieving women publicly honored for college contributions were examined between 1 and 50 years post award to determine their personality and social clock projects, examine the degree to which the women remained politically and civically involved over their later adulthood; and to understand the impact early achievement may have had on feminist attitudes. Utilizing a series of personality, political ideology, feminist attitude and generative concern and action scales along with life history data, women’s feminine social clock projects were compared with personality variables and descriptively compared with earlier published reports on mid century women’s social clock projects (Helson et al. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 46:1079–1096, 1984). With the exception of 1970 era winners, women’s social clock projects across multiple eras remain consistent with earlier findings. Regression analyses indicate political ideology predicts feminist attitudes and political behaviors, whereas identity achievement personality variables predict generative concern.