In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development by Carol Gilligan (review)

The enduring influence of Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice is best understood by stepping back in time and understanding the challenges she faced. At the time of publication, 1982, human development was viewed through men's development and she challenged this norm. Though Jane Loevinger (1976) included women in her ego development research, she did not critique previous research for privileging men. In this book, Gilligan used three studies to examine how people develop relationships and reflect on their lives and connections to consider how they see the world and develop their senses of self. Through the synthesis of these three studies, she created a critical analysis about existing developmental theories, with a major focus on Lawrence Kolberg's theory of moral development. She critiqued and responded to how women were seen through male-dominated ways of thinking. To review how this foundational book influences the field of student affairs and higher education, we begin with our perceptions of Gilligan's goals, the concepts and ideas that contributed to the advancement of student development theory, and how it influenced other theories, and we end with a view of how this enduring contribution holds up in contemporary settings. Before delving into the review, we want to acknowledge that though many authors use the term gender when considering the contributions of Carol Gilligan, she interchangeably used sex and gender; for this reason, we will attempt to use the more contemporary understanding of sex in this review unless gender is used in a quote.

Gilligan's goal in writing this book was to address the historical norms about human development: that defaulted to men and that framed women as having deficiencies. Her intent was to "highlight a distinction between modes of thought and to focus a problem of interpretation rather than to represent a generalization of either sex" (p. 2). Though she acknowledged the interplay of the voices present in both sexes, she repeatedly pointed to the privileging of men when describing development. This often occurred because developmental scholars (often men) did misunderstand the complexities of women's meaning making and consequently deferred to men to explain the normative development. The existing developmental literature, at that time, described the main deficiency in women was having conflicts with competition, while men rose to these occasions. "Women's place in a man's life cycle has been that of nurturer, caretaker, and helpmate, the weaver of those networks of relationship on which she in turn relies" (p. 17), this description did not include what was highly valued at that point in time: the development of autonomy. In developing the ideals of an ethic of care, she highlighted the roles of responsiveness and responsibility that are part of relationships.

Though enduring, Gilligan does not really create a new theory; rather she provides a critique of development and how levels and transitions could be considered differently to include women's voices and lived experiences. By delineating this critical element of development, she showed that theories had men developing intimacy, relationships, and care in mid-life, while women possessed these developmental traits from the beginning. At the time this book was first published, the fact that these traits were considered instinctual for women prompted other psychologists to assume they were not developmental in nature. In not recognizing these developmental tasks for women, Kohlberg considered his higher levels as objective or just, rather than including elements of connection with others. The book ends with the iconic phrases that are now associated with Gilligan's work as being on the ethic of care. She asserts that to understand the tension between responsibilities and rights is to acknowledge they are connected. "While an ethic of justice proceeds from the premise of equality—that everyone should be treated the same—an ethic of care rests on the premise of nonviolence—that no one should be hurt" (p. 174).

Since the publication of In a...