The First 16 Women Who Entered Psychology

Hey,

In 1901, when the British Psychological Society was founded, psychology was a new discipline — and not an especially welcoming one. Between 1901 and 1919, just sixteen women became members. Sixteen.

At the time, women made up about 15% of the Society. Today, they make up nearly 75%. Somewhere between those numbers is a story. Not of sudden progress. But of women who entered rooms before the rooms were ready. One of them was Nellie Carey — Star of our #Edition33.

Inside this edition:
🧠 Before Psychology Was “Female-Dominated”
📚 What she’s reading, watching, trying for valentine’s
📰 5 headlines worth her time
✨ Her Spotlight
🤍 Note to Her

Stay there. Keep your charm and keep going…

In 1901, the British Psychological Society was founded. Uptill 1919, only sixteen women became members. At the time, that was roughly 15% of the Society. Today, women make up nearly 75%. That shift didn’t begin recently. It began with women who walked into rooms not designed for them, and stayed long enough to alter the field.

One of Them Was Nellie Carey…
Born in 1886 in London to a carpenter and a silk-weaver, Carey entered University College London in 1905. Earned her BSc in psychology in 1908. Went on to conduct experimental research under Charles Spearman, psychologist known for introducing the theory of general intelligence. She:

Her findings were quietly disruptive too:

Then the Narrative Shifted…
One of her fellow researchers was Adolf Wohlgemuth. In 1918, after a domestic dispute, his wife shot him in the back and told the court it was “because of the other woman.” Records show a female colleague visited him regularly to discuss scientific subjects. Carey was 27 that year. 

It’s easier for history to remember scandal than scholarship. But here’s what gets flattened in retellings: She had already earned distinction. She had already shaped science.

Years later, after his first wife’s death, Carey and Wohlgemuth married. They attended Society meetings together. Debated theories of anxiety and phobias. Publicly challenged pseudoscience.

The Pattern Is Familiar…
When women enter male-dominated systems, their competence is recorded but their story becomes about something else. A relationship. A tone. A rumor. A personality. 

The language changes. The reflex doesn’t. In 1901, 16 women entered a professional society that did not expect them to dominate it. Today, women form the majority. That’s not coincidence. That’s accumulation.
Progress rarely arrives in headlines. Sometimes it arrives in lab notes. In statistical tables. In membership records that quietly shift from 15% to 75%. Years later, her son chose to adopt his mother’s maiden name. A quiet inheritance of identity. 

We are not new to power. The world just isn’t always comfortable when we hold it. ✨

💬 Ideas to tune into when the world’s too loud.

📚 Read: The Authority Gap — Mary Ann Sieghart
Why identical behavior is read as “competent” in men and “abrasive” in women. Data-heavy, precise, and unsettling in the best way → Read when you want language for the bias you’ve been navigating quietly.
🎬 Watch: Hidden Figures — Dir. Theodore Melfi
Women doing the math that moved history while being treated as background. Competence, containment, and what it takes to stay anyway → Watch for proof that brilliance doesn’t need permission.
🧠 Explore: Inflow — Science-Backed ADHD Support
If your focus has been misread as inconsistency or intensity. Inflow offers structured tools, live body-doubling sessions, and therapy-informed modules built for ADHD brains → Take the free assessment.

Finding the right way to manage ADHD can be exhausting. Inflow changes that by combining therapy-backed strategies with an easy-to-use platform.

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Take the free assessment to see how you can improve focus and create lasting habits in just 5 minutes a day.

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✨ Support that works with your wiring, not against it.

🌍 5 stories shaping the week for women everywhere.

🧠 Obama calls out racist AI video: After Trump’s account shared an AI clip depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, Obama called the behavior “deeply troubling.” The White House dismissed backlash. The video was later deleted.
⛷️ Shiffrin’s Olympic drought continues: Mikaela Shiffrin missed the podium again — her eighth straight Olympic event without a medal. She says she’s still rebuilding after injury and PTSD. One race left.
🧩 When the Olympics break even the best: From Simone Biles to Ilia Malinin, experts say Olympic “yips” mirror grief. The pressure of one moment every four years? Brutal — even for legends.
🚁 Flying doctors refuse to fold: After U.S. aid cuts nearly shut them down, Lesotho’s mountain medics rebuilt their system — and kept serving remote villages anyway.
🚀 ISS crew restored after emergency exit: Four astronauts — including NASA’s Jessica Meir — arrived safely, bringing the station back to full occupancy.

Found her. Loved her. Needed you to see her.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom (@jennifersiebelnewsom) : Before she was California’s First Partner, she made Miss Representation, a film that asked why powerful women disappear in media. When Hollywood boxed her in, she built her own camera. When she testified against Harvey Weinstein, her case couldn’t even be prosecuted. She showed up anyway.

Now, in one of the most polarized political moments in America, she isn’t playing supportive spouse. She’s shaping gender equity initiatives, pushing cultural change, and turning storytelling into policy. 

She refused the role she was handed, twice. First in Hollywood. Then in politics. If you didn’t know her name before, you do now.

Progress doesn’t always arrive as applause.
Her Weekly Download arrives Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays — for women who understand that staying is a strategy.

✨ P.S. If this feels like relief, send it her way. The best kind of care travels woman to woman 💚