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University Professor
New York University School of Law |
An internationally acclaimed psychologist
and prolific writer, Carol Gilligan has been instrumental in research
on adolescence, moral development, women’s development, and conflict
resolution. As a feminist, scholar, professor, and author, she has
been a pioneer of gender studies and helped to form a new direction
for women.
She is most known for In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory
and Women’s Development (1982), a book in which she criticized
Lawrence Kohlberg’s research on the moral development of children.
Gilligan, who came to be known as the founder of “difference feminism,”
asserted that women have differing moral and psychological tendencies
than men. According to Gilligan, men think in terms of rules and justice,
while women are more inclined to think in terms of caring and relationships.
Her work formed the basis for what has become known as the ethics
of care, a theory that contrasts ethics of care to so-called ethics
of justice.
In 1997, Gilligan was appointed to Harvard University’s first position
in gender studies and was an integral part of the Harvard Project on
Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development. In addition, she worked
on the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology, Boy’s Development, and
the Culture of Manhood.
The recipient of numerous awards, Gilligan was given the prestigious
Grawemeyer Award in Education in 1992 and was named one of Time magazine’s
25 most influential people in 1996. In 1997, she received the Heinz
Award for knowledge of the Human Condition and for her challenges to
previously held assumptions in the field of human development and what
it means to be a human.
She has authored and coauthored numerous books and publications. Her
principal publications include Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy:
Reframing Resistance (1991); Meeting at the Crossroads (1992); Between
Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationship (1995);
and The Birth of Pleasure (2002).
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