Background
Weisstein, Naomi was born on October 16, 1939 in New York City. Daughter of Samuel and Mary (Menk) Weisstein.
Psychology educator writer neuroscientist
Weisstein, Naomi was born on October 16, 1939 in New York City. Daughter of Samuel and Mary (Menk) Weisstein.
Bachelor with special honors, Wellesley College, 1961; Doctor of Philosophy with department distinction, Harvard University, 1964; postgraduate in mathematics biology, University of Chicago, 1964-1965.
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 left her bedridden. Naomi Weisstein was Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychological Society.
She wrote 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.
In August 1970, along with Phyllis Chesler, Joanne Evans Gardner, and others, Naomi founded American Women in Psychology, now Division 35 of the American Psychological Association. Weisstein is probably best known for her pioneering essay, "Kinder, Küche, Kirche as Scientific Law:." The title is taken from the German slogan Kinder, Küche, Kirche meaning children, kitchen, church, describing what the Nazis believed was the proper domain of a woman.
"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. She applied growing research in social psychology of the importance of situational and interpersonal factors in affecting human behavior to women"s behavior specifically.
She argued that psychology could not explain women"s behavior without considering societal expectations for women and the environment women occupied.
She contributed the piece "Kinder, Küche, Kirche as Scientific Law: " to the 1970 anthology Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From The Women"s Liberation Movement, edited by Robin Morgan. Weisstein was an outspoken feminist, who wrote that she encountered sexism at every turn when she applied for teaching positions. She was one of the early feminist stand-up comedians, performing in Eve Merriam"s One Woman Show.
She organized the Chicago Women"s Liberation Rock Band "to shake up the sexist world of popular music" She also recorded with the New Haven Women"s Liberation Rock Band.
She wrote extensively on science, feminism, culture and politics.
Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science (emerita), American Psychological Association, Australian Psychological Society, National Academy of Sciences (national research council, committee on vision), Optical Society of America, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (program committee 1977-1980, program chair 1980), American Psychological Society, Eastern Psychological Association, Psychonomic Society, Lake Ontario Visionary Establishment (program committee 1976-1978, program chair 1978), Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Women Psychonomic Society (founding member 1974).
Married Jesse Lemisch, June 14, 1965.