Casey Smith
PHIL 110
12/5/18
Dialectic: Gilligan
Carol Gilligan pointed out the obvious flaw in psychology that we were all overlooking.
Not only that we were basing most of our psychology off of men, but we were not looking at the
big difference between men and women. One of the big differences that caught my attention, was
the different way men and women view attachment and separation. "Thus, it appears that men
and women may experience attachment and separation in different ways and that each sex
perceives danger which the other does not to see - men in connection, women in separation"
(Gilligan, 42). This led me to a long mental list of questions. I think these questions have been
boggling around in the mind of most men and women, but the words were not being clearly
articulated out loud. There seems to be a million ways that men and women differ from each
other, but why is this? The two big questions being: Why do men experience anxiety from
connection? And why do women experience anxiety from separation? I think these questions
need to be further researched, and further researched beyond stories written by college students’
responses to the TAT, and beyond the responses of Jake and Amy. Although this research brings
up the difference in the imagery of violence between men and women, and gives us a decent start
to puzzle, it is simply not enough research or proof. We’re lacking evidence, and in some ways,
we’re lacking an active curiosity. There is an abundant amount of intricateness between men and
women, but we need to ask more questions. Why does intimacy appear so mysterious and
dangerous to men, yet coherent and safe to women? Do men see a loss of themselves or their
masculinity? Do women see losing others as losing themselves? Where do these different
dependencies come from? Are these differences simply due to most children being raised by
women, is it biology, is it culture, what are the reasons? It is a very sad, confusing dilemma for
men and women.
References
Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Harvard
University Press, 2016.
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