ERIC ED372406: Gilligan’s “Different Voice” Theory: A pdf

ERIC ED372406: Gilligan’s “Different Voice” Theory: A

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Description of the Book:

Composition instructors and their women students stand to lose a great deal should they not continue to explore the “different voice” that women have despite influences of the dominant culture. Carol Gilligan has recently been taken to task by any number of feminist scholars for what they understand to be her tendency to essentialize the differences between the genders at the expense of the role that culture plays in defining gender. But these scholars misunderstand Gilligan’s purpose and furthermore fail to see her seminal work, “In a Different Voice,” in the context of her later studies which reinforce yet modify her initial views. Significantly, Gilligan has never pretended that the “different” voice speaks for all women or that it was her goal to prove that it does. Her point was simply that research hitherto has not taken into account the difference between a man’s and a woman’s voice, particularly in issues of moral judgment.

In “Meeting at the Crossroads,” Gilligan’s most recent book (written with Lynn Brown), she explicitly illustrates the role that race, ethnicity, class and family play in the psychological development of girls. At the same time, however, she shows that girls from a variety of cultures and backgrounds lose their authentic voice as they enter adolescence. Silenced by the dominant culture, they develop fraudulent selves. (Contains 53 references.) (TB

• Creator/s: ERIC
• Date: 1994-03
• Year: 1994
• Book Topics/Themes: ERIC Archive, Cultural Context, Ethics, Ethnicity, Females, Feminism, Higher Education, Moral Development, Sex Differences, Sex Role, Writing (Composition), Writing Instruction

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