Customer Reviews

In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development

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Originally published in 1982, this book was in its 33rd printing when it was reissued in 1993. It describes the developmental differences between men and women and what that means. Harvard professor Carol Gilligan explains that male development has typically focused on separation, individuation, logic, and hierarchy. Female development, on the other hand, has emphasized attachment, relationship, connection, and communication. I had several "ahas!" while reading this book for the first time in 2003. While I've always discounted some of Sigmund Freud's work, it had never occurred to me that much of traditional psychological theory, including the work of Jean Piaget, Erik Erickson, and Lawrence Kohlberg, has also been based on observations of men, then applied to women. As a result of comparisons to male norms that don't fit their own experience, women have often felt discounted and inferior, rather than simply different. It made sense to me that these comparisons and significant developmental differences often result in women feeling selfish and guilty when focusing on their own needs, rather than those of others. It also fit my experience that men and women tend to respond differently to attachment and separation issues. According to Gilligan, men see danger more often in intimacy than in achievement, while women sense more danger in impersonal and competitive situations. Gilligan's observations have generated quite a bit of controversy over the years (as indicated by some of the previous reviews on this list!), but ring true for many women (including me), and have been used as a stepping stone for the work of many later authors.

This book challenges the traditional male dominated paradigm of moral and personal development. The hypothesis is interesting and worthy of consideration-- that instead of seeing women as inferior to men on the scales that men develop, we should learn to listen to the voices of women after they have been liberated to speak for themselves. Instead of insisting on individuation and impersonal moral principles, we need to see that maturing women will weave a morality based on the continuing texture of relationships and the ethics of caring.

The only major flaw I see in her analysis is the insufficient empirical study base. The vast majority of her findings appear to come from interviews of 29 women, hardly a cross section of women facing the issues of moral dilemmas (in this case, the abortion decision). It may turn out that her findings resonate within the larger society, but based on the research presented in this book, it lacks the empirical strength that is required of the kinds of generalizations she is making. She admits such in the fourth chapter.

Additionally, at first she seems to want to replace the Kohlberg taxonomy, yet the one she offers is not so much a replacement as it is a revision by addition.

Nonetheless, the book is valuable for the questions it poses, and should be read.

Carol Gilligan's work has the great virtue of asking the basic question - is Revealed Wisdom about ethical decision making bias free? She demonstrates that it is not. Interestingly, Stephen Covey agrees with her, something which has been overlooked by other reviewers of this book. Her final summation is that placing relationships to the larger human community over deontological abstractions about justice constitutes a higher level of ethical decision making. The book has garnered much attention as a female challenge to male constructions of ethical decision making. This is simplistic. Gilligan does indeed point out that, as Kihlberg postulated, women may be more likely than men to make ethical decisions based on responsibilites to others rather than on abstractions. She questions the validity of Kohlberg's conclusion that this is a lower level of ethical reasoning, and she questions this not on the basis of gender but on the basis of logic and ethics. (Kohlberg, by the way, never explains why he believes that justice as abstraction represents a higher level of ethical decision making than justice in context of community.) There are many cultures which hold that the highest level of ethical decision making incorporates responsibility to others. Unfortunately, neither Kohlberg nor Gilligan is an anthropologist -- nor are they ethicists. They are both psychologists and thus limited in their framework. This is not a gender issue; this is a survival issue for the human race! Stephen Covey, in his various 7 Habits of Highly Effective People comes to much the same conclusion, without discussing gender.

Any work that cliams to make sweeping findings on gender and perspective that are based on samples using as few subjects as those reported in this book must be taken with a grain of salt. The writer uses tiny samples and makes broad generalizations on the basis of them. What is even more distturbing is that I have seen her work cited by other writers as a conclusive source. Furthur, the subjects presented in this work do not respond to the ethical problems presented to them, but rather seek to change the conditions of those problems. In given a situation where one's loved one is ill and he does not have the money to buy the medicine without which she will die he must chose if he will steal the medicine. The subjects in this study seek to change the conditions of the test; well, gee, if the person with the medicine REALLY understood how sick she was maybe he would give it or perhaps a fundraiser could be held. If these were viable options than there would be no ethicial problem. Eventually, one must face the black and white choice. I would assume that some men also thought of these possibilities but, given the conditions of the test, understood that they were not options ( perhaps already having been attempted). The responses that Gilligan relies on in her study seem to say nothing about how to respond to ethical challenges as much as how to avoid them or put them off as long as possible. Had she attacked the validity of the test as unrealistic, biased, whatever, perhaps her work would have had more impact. On the other hand, I belive that Gilligan is fairly accurate in her analysis of the way that men and woman differ in their approach to many things. It is unfortunate that she based her conclusions upon evidence so weak as to amount to none. I have great respect for woman and to not denigrate the way that they look at the world, however, I think that an analysis of them on such paltry evidence weakens her argument and that of all those who came after that use her as a source. overall, I think that she reaches a conclusion that is probably not far off the mark but built upon a weak foundation. I hope that those that derive their work from her's find another source before they are called into question.

Most of this book struck me as profound, even wise. Gilligan's thesis that men develop their independence before women and that women are more attune to their relationships (and hence develop a sense of self much later than men) makes a lot of sense to me. It rings true for many of the women and men I know. One very big critique though. Many have hailed this as a modern masterpiece, which in most respects it is. But I was struck by the tiny samples on which Gilligan builds her theories. In most cases she only sampled a couple dozen people, a paltry number by any standard for a book that professes to inform readers about the differences between men and women. Other than that though, I loved this book and I highly recommend it. I also recommend Howard Gardner's Extraordinary Minds.

I was given every Freud text printed by WW Norton in college to read throughout my studies. Sitting in class I was alternately amazed by Freud's insights and thoroughly irritated by the defects of his analysis of female development. His theories seemed inconsistent, even containing contradictions, especially regarding the growth of girls into womanhood. It was extremely difficult to refute parts of his theory without denying the truth of how he spoke to boy's development, since his system of theory is all-encompassing and hermetic, and "It's rational precisely because its based on irrational subconscious thought" etc etc etc.

Suprisingly, Carol Gilligan, adds to the main body of psychological theory, counterposing slightly but mainly filling in grey areas, rather than directly opposing it. I was suprised by this because I had avoided Gilligan due to Hoff Sommers criticism, among others, which had led me to believe Gilligan's work was more ideological than scientific. Gilligan has suprising insights into the the critical age of adolesence for girls, and the postulation of a parallel understanding of morality is still as relevant now as it was when first written.
The form of morality she outlines fleshes out women's development as a fully realized system that understands the human condition full of falliabilities, rather than shrill repressive/mothering feminism I feared. As a bonus to readers wary of ranting, Gilligan is fairly focused on female development as opposed to social critique. Be aware, though, that her style does emulate Freud in that the writing is focused on specific examples to show broad conclusions, as opposed to vast statistical analysis.

Highly recommended.

Gilligan's "In a Different Voice" attempts to dispute the often misogynistic psychological assertions made by her male predecessors. Gilligan is primarily concerned with differentiating between male and female moral and identity development. Her thesis is ultimately to prove that male psychologists tended to sample from a group of males,while later outrageously drawing conclusions based upon the data derived from the entirely male experimental group and applying the information to males and females alike. Gilligan is essentially groundbreaking, in her sense of finding fault with the psychological research which does not include a variety of sampling and interviewing. She also asserts that not only have psychologists derived false and misleading conclusions regarding female adolescent development, but psychologists have also unfairly generalized female and male moral and identity development. Gilligan has conducted research to come to the conclusion that adolescent females develop in a fashion very dissimilar from that of males, which she shares in this eloquent and engaging book!

I thought that I was going to be overwhelmed with feminist views when I first checked this book out of the library; I was rather turned off. But when I started to read, I was intrigued. It was interesting to see the contrast between the different genders.

Seeing the developmental process really helped me to grasp why our genders seem so different, although not so different. I enjoyed reading this book and I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to understand the developmental process between women and men, even if they were not going into a specific educational field of development.

I think that is important for people to understand how the opposite sex thinks, and works. There are so many interesting details concerning development that Gilligan presents. What stands out most in the book is how females tend to lean more towards relationships, and males tend to lean more towards rules and discipline. These points are expressed throughout her book and I was amazed at how much I learned

Any woman who wonders why her childhood dreams and ambitions changed so radically at puberty should read this book. Ms. Gilligan has found a disturbing thread of truth running through all the lives of the girls included in her study. For those of us heartily tired of other people telling us who and what we are, it is refreshing and insightful to find someone who is willing, instead, to listen.

Loved my copy and time it was recieved. It was in great condition, did not have any issues with my order.