Who Cares (Gilligan's Rhetorical Construction of "Woman")

Who Cares?
Women, Care, and Culture

Julia T. Wood
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Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com
Publication Information: Book Title: Who Cares?Women, Care and Culture. Contributors: Julia T. Wood -
author. Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press. Place of Publication: Carbondale, IL. Publication Year: 1994.
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CHAPTER 4
Gilligan's Rhetorical Construction of "Woman"
Woman is discursively constructed.
-- D.Riley, Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of "Women" in History
Woman's place in man's life cycle has been that of nurturer, caretaker, and helpmate.
-- Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development
As I've argued in previous chapters, whatever image of woman we have, it grows in

large measure out of discourse. In rhetorical acts -- both discursive and nondiscursive,
public and private -we encounter images of woman, which is to say we encounter
arguments for who she is, what she does, and how she is to be regarded. Recently, a
number of scholars have made a discursive turn, increasingly infusing their work with an
appreciation of the power of language in constructing definitions of woman. Smith
( 1985) offers a rationale for the focus on discourse when she writes, "I do not think we
can understand femininity as ideal or as practice unless we understand it as a
discourse..., unless we understand the complexity of themes, and intertextuality, and the
character of the relation between text and she who read it for whatever relevance it had
to her everyday world" (249).
In this chapter I pursue Smith's insight by examining in detail a particular argument for
women's nature and what their lives should be about. It is an argument that women are
and should be oriented toward caring for others, and it was most elaborately and
persuasively put forward by Carol Gilligan in 1982. Publication of In a Different Voice
catapulted Gilligan into the front ranks of feminist theorizing in general and the debate
over woman's nature in particular. In it, Gilligan argues that conventional
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moral theory neglects the perspective women employ in their reasoning. That viewpoint,
which she labels the care perspective, prioritizes caring and responsibility to
relationships, issues Gilligan reports predominate in women's thinking.
Gilligan's theory of care has inspired substantial research ( Belenky , Clinchy, Goldberger,
& Tarule, 1986; Eichenbaum & Orbach , 1987; Wood, 1986) and equally substantial
criticism ( Forum , 1986; Kittay & Meyers, 1987). Not restricted in impact to intellectual
circles, In a Different Voice proved so popular with laypersons that it was reissued in
paperback and again sold well -a notably rare feat for university press publications.
Reflecting this widespread interest was Ms. magazine's naming of Carol Gilligan as
"Woman of the Year" in 1984.
The argument Gilligan advanced reignited long-standing dissension over woman's nature.
The controversy sparked by this work can be previewed by considering Gilligan's
statement of purpose and some responses to it. Gilligan states early in her book that she
hopes to offer women "a representation of their thought that enables them to see better
its integrity and validity" (3). A number of scholars seem to agree with Gilligan that some
essential qualities de4fine women universally across time and space. Hartmann ( Winkler,
1986), for instance, insists that "some factors that shape women's identity are stable
and enduring" (A-6).
Many other scholars, however, argue not only that this purpose isn't achieved but that
Gilligan's definition of woman is both inaccurate and regressive. Scott ( 1986), for
instance, claims Gilligan's work is "ahistorical, defining woman/man as a universal, self-
reproducing binary opposition -- fixed always in the same way" ( 1065). Some theorists
reject even the concept of woman, arguing that it is monolithic and, thus, restricts all
women to only those possibilities that have been historically legitimated. Irigaray ( 1985)
defines women by diversity: "Woman...is not ...a unit(y)...single ideality" (229).
As these opening paragraphs indicate, a number of responses to the book and critiques
of certain aspects of it have appeared. Yet, oddly, there has been no sustained critical
analysis of the work's argument as it specifically contributes to current debates on
woman's nature. In this chapter I offer a critical reading of In a Different Voice. I intend
to explicate the definition of woman
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Gilligan advocates and to disclose the rhetorical means by which she constructs that
image. By returning to one of the key texts around which the contemporary controversy
over woman's nature centers we should be able to better understand the discursive roots
of the debate as well as the ongoing possibilities for using discourse to define both
women and caring.
In the analysis that follows, I disclose the tension sustained between two voices, or
authorial personnas, that emerge in the text: the voice of the "scholar" and the voice of
the "partisan." 1 I argue that, despite her explicitly stated intent to affirm and empower
women, Gilligan essentializes woman, and the particular essentialization of woman
Gilligan advances invites, ironically, a restrictive and dangerously regressive view of
women.
My argument proceeds first by disclosing the existence of two different and rhetorically
cooperative voices in Gilligan's work. Second, I identify three rhetorical techniques
Gilligan uses to construct her image of woman: First, Gilligan assumes the voice of the
scholar while engaging in a variety of discursive acts that are conventionally inconsistent
with that persona. Second, Gilligan relies on a rhetorical strategy of dichotomizing
women and men to create simplified and oppositional portraits of the genders. Finally,
Gilligan conflates historical and literary illustrations with demonstrative proofs for her
claims. As she engages in each of these techniques, Gilligan relies on her ethos as a
scholar to confer legitimacy on her arguments as a partisan that women are defined by
their capacities to care and nurture.
Following this reading of Gilligan's work, I probe implications of the essentialized image
of woman that she advances. In particular, I ask whether her advocacy of caring as a
focus in women's lives is sensitive to the historical fact and ongoing potential for caring
and focus on relationships to cement women's subordinate status in Western culture. If it
is not, then we must ask how caring can be preserved in contemporary human
communities without oppressing those who provide it.
Gilligan's Different Voices

Like the society it describes, Gilligan's book contains two voices -one dominant, the other
muted. The voices are sufficiently dif-
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ferent that each invites a distinct understanding of the text. On the one hand, the work
can be read as a piece of conventional, psychological scholarship. Being authored by a
faculty member at Harvard and published by its university press bestow a presumption of
scholarship; and Gilligan, in one voice, reinforces this presumption by relying on
vocabulary consistent with that of scholarship.
This reading is invited by the voice of the scholar who speaks with reason, qualifies
inferences, supports claims made, recognizes complexities in human phenomena, and
integrates understanding in a holistic manner. A clear example of this voice occurs in
Gilligan's opening pages: "The different voice I describe is characterized not by gender
but theme. Its association with women is an empirical observation...but this association
is not absolute, and [does not] represent a generalization about either sex" ( 2 ). Later
this voice is again apparent when Gilligan notes that "these findings were gathered at a
particular moment in history, the sample was small, and the women were not selected to
represent a larger population. These constraints preclude the possibility of
generalization" ( 126 ). This is the voice of the scholar and, while it becomes muted in
the work, it nonetheless serves to legitimize the claims of the second authorial voice.
In a Different Voice may also be read as personal advocacy for a point of view not
satisfactorily supported by evidence or argument. The voice within the text that invites
this reading speaks in broad generalizations, neglects and/or collapses differences to
create clear categories, issues claims that exceed evidence, and relies on oppositional
forms to erect dichotomous views of gender. This voice of the partisan assumes
prominence in the text and, ironically, speaks in the style associated with domination and
patriarchy ( Penelope & Wolfe, 1983).
My analysis is predominantly grounded in Gilligan's own voice as it emerges in the 174-

page book published in 1982. To a lesser extent, my analysis is informed by other
scholars' commentaries on Gilligan's ideas and to specific sources with which Gilligan
explicitly aligns herself. As I explore each of three rhetorical strategies upon which
Gilligan relies, I simultaneously call attention to the different voices that assume
ascendancy at various junctures in the text.
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The Rhetorical Construction of
Woman
Assuming the Voice of the "Scholar"
On first reading, In a Different Voice appears to be a scholarly work. This appearance is
achieved not only by its association with Harvard University, but also by several passages
in which Gilligan herself very carefully states the limitations of her research and warns
against generalizing broadly from it. Thus, an initial presumption of scholarship is
established. Yet this presumption teeters when Gilligan shifts to another voice to
articulate the meaning of her research. She seems to employ the interpretive means of
criticism while exceeding its purview of "theorizing the particular case" ( Geertz, 1973;
Leff, 1980) and, simultaneously, to seek the goal of generalizing while transgressing the
methodological requirements pertinent to social science research. By thus mixing means
and ends, Gilligan endangers the integrity of the voice of scholar.
Recurrent in the text are serious overgeneralizations that comprise an error in social
science research and transgress the goals of criticism. This tendency is dramatically
illustrated in chapter 2, devoted to describing "women's images of relationship." Citing a
study she conducted with Pollak ( 1982), Gilligan reports that "22 percent of the women
in the study added nets in the stories they wrote" about a picture of two trapeze artists (
43 ). From this finding Gilligan concludes, "Thus, the women saw the scene on the
trapeze as safe because, by providing nets, they had made it safe" ( 43 ). Since 78
percent of the women -- a clear majority by any standard -- did not add a safety net to
the picture, there is no basis for claiming "the women added nets." While the conclusion
Gilligan draws is unfounded, it functions to support the text's overall argument about
woman's nature and inclinations. Thus, it serves the purpose of a partisan while violating
basic conventions followed by scholars.
Chapter 2 also includes Gilligan's study of responses to the Heinz dilemma, a

hypothetical problem used by Kohlberg ( 1958) in his classic study of moral
development. After presenting excerpts and interpretations of two boys' and two girls'
responses, Gilligan generalizes that "the structure of boys' thought contrasts with...the
structure manifest in the thought of girls" ( 33, empha-
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sis added). Gilligan's use of the strong word manifest implies that the structure she
discerned in four cases can be generalized to represent how girls and boys in general
think.
Later, Gilligan provides a single sentence in which the move from isolated examples to
generalization is evident: "The two eleven-year-old children...presage the themes of
male and female adolescent development" ( 49 ). Two children's responses, even if
representative (and we have no indication that these are), do not inform about males
and females in general. The problem here, as elsewhere, is not what Gilligan does per se,
that is, analyze specific cases; it is rather what she suggests her methods achieve, that
is, proof. Noting this in her review of Gilligan's work, Luria ( 1986) reasons "obviously no
psychologist would object to such a technique for deriving hypotheses, but Gilligan
seems, at least, to be proffering it as a basis for proof...the case studies through the
volume cannot substitute for objectively derived data" (318). Yet it is precisely as
objectively derived data that Gilligan represents her cases and as scholar that she
represents herself, strategies that function rhetorically to imbue her claims with the
authority of science.
Turning now to chapter 3, we find discussion of an abortion study, one of three

comprising the data for the book. Initially, Gilligan assumes the scholar's voice,
acknowledging that since "no effort was made to select a sample that would be
representative of women considering, seeking, or having abortions," the findings cannot
be interpreted as "the ways in which women in general think about the abortion choice" (
72 ). The very page following this caveat, however, contains this broad generalization
about how women in general think about abortion: "Women's constructions of the
abortion dilemma in particular reveal the existence of a distinct moral language...[that]
sets the women apart from the men whom Kohlberg studied and points toward a
different understanding of moral development" ( 73 ).
This generalization recurs in the summary of chapter 3: "The abortion study

demonstrates the centrality of the concepts of responsibility and care in women's
constructions of the moral domain...and ultimately the need for an expanded
developmental theory that includes...the feminine voice" ( 105 ). This conclusion is
wholly unfounded given a sample identified as unrepresentative. Yet, from such weak
evidence Gilligan argues
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she "demonstrates" what is central in women's moral thinking and "the need" for a major
revision in established theory. In advancing it, Gilligan abandons the voice of the scholar
for that of the partisan.
In addition, chapter 3 features a study of twenty-five female college students. After

interpreting excerpts from only eight respondents, Gilligan issues the broad conclusion
that "the essence of moral decision is the exercise of choice and the willingness to accept
responsibility for that choice. To the extent that women perceive themselves as having
no choice, they correspondingly excuse themselves from the responsibility that decision
entails. Childlike in the vulnerability of their dependence ..." ( 67 ). Even if we grant
Gilligan's conclusion might well be informed by all twenty-five interviewees rather than
the eight presented, her claims about both the essence of moral decision and the ways
that women in general respond to it appear inappropriately broad. Based on only these
eight responses, Gilligan later advances a stunningly broad claim: "The conflict between
self and other thus constitutes the central moral problem for women" ( 70 ).
Another example of overgeneralizing from very limited data occurs in chapter 4. Again,
Gilligan begins with the scholar's voice by identifying the limits of her work: "These
findings were gathered at a particular moment in history, the sample was small, and the
women were not selected to represent a larger population. These constraints preclude
the possibility of generalization" ( 126 ). This reasonable caution about a study involving
only twenty-one participants reinforces the voice of the scholar.
In the very next paragraph, however, the partisan voice emerges to offer a broad
interpretation of the developmental path her study demonstrates; in so doing, she
oversteps the limits she just articulated: "The changes described in women's thinking
about responsibility and relationships suggest that the capacity for responsibility and
care evolves through a coherent sequence of feelings and thought" ( 126 ). From here,
Gilligan then generalizes beyond even the population of women considering abortion to
women in general: "As the events of women's lives and history intersect with their
feelings and thought, a concern with individual survival comes to be branded as selfish" (
127 ).
In later interviews with women who contemplated abortion,
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Gilligan focuses on two respondents who arrived at a "nihilistic stance." After interpreting
these two accounts Gilligan states, "Moral nihilism is the conclusion...of women who
seek, in having an abortion, to cut off their feelings" ( 124 ). Relatively short excerpts
from two respondents are the sole support Gilligan offers for a major generalization
about not only the women she studied but women in general who consider abortion.
A final example of the tendency to represent interpretations as proof occurs in the

concluding chapter. Again, Gilligan initially qualifies her findings and, again, follows this
qualification with a precarious stretch: "While the judgments considered come from a
small and highly educated sample, they elucidate a contrast and make it possible to
recognize not only what is missing in women's development but also what is there" ( 156
). This statement implies her data show what is generally present in women's
development, a claim unsupported by a limited, unrepresentative sample.
Throughout the text, Gilligan represents interpretations of particular cases as findings

that support major generalizations. In so doing, she presents her work as "findings" of
social science while simultaneously stepping outside of the methodological constraints of
that genre of scholarship. She thus uses the voice of the scholar to derive legitimacy for
partisan claims.
Dichotomizing Women and Men

A second rhetorical strategy upon which Gilligan relies is describing women and men in
dichotomous terms. At the outset, Gilligan disavows dualistic views, telling readers that
"the different voice I describe is characterized not by gender, but theme [and does not]
represent a generalization about either sex" ( 2 ). This assertion, however, is quickly
overshadowed both by other prefatory comments and by the juxtapositions of women
and men that permeate the text.
Gilligan's dichotomous view of women and men is evident from the first page of the
work, which announces that "this book records different modes of thinking about
relationships and the association of these modes with male and female voices." Later, in
discussing moral development, Gilligan states that "boys and girls arrive at puberty with
a different interpersonal orientation and a different range of social experiences" ( 11 ).
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Throughout the chapters that follow, Gilligan repeatedly highlights differences between
males and females. This strategy allows her to emphasize gender differences and
overlook similarities ( Tronto, 1987) so that she treats each sex as a foil for defining the
other. For example, after interpreting a response from Jake, Gilligan launches her
interpretation of eleven-year-old Amy's account this way: "In contrast, Amy's response
to the dilemma conveys a very different impression" ( 27 - 28 ). Other passages offer
similar evidence of a dichotomized view of the sexes: "While Jeffrey sets up a
hierarchical ordering..., Karen describes a network of relationships. The contrasting
images of hierarchy and network...illuminate two views of morality" ( 33 ); "To Jake's
ideal of perfection... Amy counterposes an ideal of care. ...While she places herself in
relation to the world..., he places the world in relation to himself" ( 35 ); "In all of the
women's descriptions, identity is defined in a context of relationship.... For the men, the
tone of identity is different, clearer, more direct, more distinct and sharp-edged" ( 160 ).
Pervading Gilligan's interpretations is language that separates men and women,
contrasts them, argues they differ fundamentally in relation to one another. By relying
heavily on the language of difference, Gilligan constructs a binary opposition between the
women and men.
Dichotomous portraits of the sexes and their moralities are achieved not only through
Gilligan's commentaries on particular accounts, but also through the larger conclusions
she advances in her final chapter: that the relationship between self and other "differs in
the experience of men and women...is a finding of my research.... Male and female
voices typically speak the importance of different truths" ( 156 ). Underlining the
contrast, Gilligan avers "the vision of maturity can be seen to shift when adulthood is
portrayed by women rather than men" ( 167 ). Later, she claims, "My research suggests
that men and women may speak different languages...[and have] disparate experiences
of self and social relationships" ( 173 ). Finally, the last page of the work calls for "a
greater recognition of the differences in women's experience and understanding" ( 174 ).
In each of these passages Gilligan presents women as clearly distinct from men, defining
each sex in opposition to the other.
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Gilligan's oppositional portrayal of women and men has been recognized by other
scholars. Sher ( 1987), for instance, contends that " Gilligan elaborates her conception of
women's distinctive moral 'voice' through a series of oppositions" ( 179 ) to men's voice.
Similarly, Nails ( 1983) suggests "a danger of the Gilligantype...is that it has the power
to exaggerate existing differences" (662), while Broughton ( 1983) laments the "dualistic
psychology" inherent in Gilligan's work (635).
In addition to its tendencies to reify and oversimplify, dichotomizing is a tactic associated

with androcentrism. The irony is that Gilligan develops her argument for the oppressed,
subordinate group in society using "tools from the master's shed" including the voice of
the dominant group. Noting this, Broughton ( 1983) commented that "Gilligan's
separation and sharp contrast of 'male' and 'female' normative ethics and metaethics
seems, in her own terms, extremely 'masculine' in its emphasis on difference and
boundary, its abstraction of the mind from life, and its tendency to essentialize gender,
removing it from the context of relationships, discourse, culture, societal structure, and
processes of historical formation. She subscribes to the very decontextualized binary
logic that elsewhere she eschews as the false consciousness of a mystifying male moiety"
(635-636).
In an incisive and far-reaching analysis of the concept of gender, Scott ( 1986) expresses
particular concern with the oppositional and, therefore, androcentric thinking of Gilligan
and those who have extended her work: "It is precisely that opposition, in all its tedium
and monotony, that... Carol Gilligan's work has promoted.... Gilligan's...notion is
ahistorical, defining woman/man as a universal, self-reproducing binary opposition -fixed
always in the same way. By insisting on fixed differences (in Gilligan's case, by
simplifying data with more mixed results about sex and moral reasoning to underscore
sexual difference), feminists contribute to the kind of thinking they want to oppose
...binary opposition itself" (1065).
Through dichotomizing essentialized images of women and men, Gilligan establishes the
base that she needs to argue the existence and value of the "different voice" of woman.
Thus, the language of difference functions rhetorically to ground the text's thesis that
woman has a different voice (than man).
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Representing Allusions as Proof
Punctuating In a Different Voice are a number of literary and historical allusions. As
illustrations, the allusions are interesting and could add richness and depth to more
conventional scientific data; as material for critical analysis, they are appropriate if
treated in ways consistent with the critical practice of understanding particular texts, not
generalizing about all texts. They are not, however, the kind of empirical data required to
support generalizations. Yet, it is as social science data that Gilligan (mis)represents
them.
The opening chapter begins with a summary of the second act in Chekhov The Cherry
Orchid, followed by Gilligan's claim that the "play suggests that when the observer is a
woman, the perspective may be of a different sort" ( 5 ). Later, she refers to the
Persephone myth as "charting the mysterious disappearance of the female self in
adolescence" ( 51 ). The problem here is not that literature cannot provide profound
insight into human life, for it indisputably can. Rather, the dilemma is that Gilligan asks
literary allusions to perform the work of science by presenting them as evidence of
general trends in the empirical world rather than as particular, fictional accounts.
Chapter 5 offers the clearest example of (mis)representing historical and literary

materials as scientific proof. Here Gilligan focuses on the relationship between women's
rights and women's judgment. She anchors her analysis in two novels, George Eliot The
Mill on the Floss and Margaret Drabble The Waterfall, without offering readers any
justification for these particular selections. Of her choice to examine these two books,
Gilligan says only this: "The century marked by the movement for women's rights is
spanned roughly by the publication of [these] two novels, both written by women and
posing the same moral dilemma" ( 130 ). With no effort to argue that these two novels
represent either thinking or literature of the era, Gilligan asserts further that they
"provide an historical frame in which to consider the effects of women's rights on
women's moral judgment" ( 130 ).
After summarizing the two stories, Gilligan concludes that "these novels thus
demonstrate the continuing power for women of the judgment of selfishness and the
morality of self abnegation that it implies" ( 131 - 132 ). This forceful claim is issued in
the
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voice of the scholar while being discordant with it in two ways. First, while two novels
might well illustrate or suggest something, they do not -- cannot -- "demonstrate" a
broad empirical reality as Gilligan explicitly claims they do. Further, after seeing the
conclusion Gilligan draws from these novels, a reader might reasonably question their
representativeness, asking why she did not select works by Virginia Woolf, Charlotte
Perkins Gilman, Marge Piercy, Flannery O'Connor, or Alice Walker, whose characters seem
less plagued by fears of being judged selfish.
Gilligan then introduces Wollstonecraft and Stanton as feminist activists concerned with
the power of judgments in women's rights. Most informed readers will grant the
appropriateness of Gilligan's selection of these women as activists in the first wave of
feminism, although a reasonable question could be raised about whether they represent
women of their time. Even if this question is not raised, two novels and two activists
from a hundred-year span offer a tenuous basis for the generalization that "the moral
conflicts described by contemporary women...demonstrate the continuation through time
of an ethic of responsibility as the center of women's moral concern" ( 132 ). On the
basis of four women, Gilligan claims to "demonstrate" (prove) what is "the" (not a) moral
concern of women (not two extraordinary women and two fictional characters in a single
century).
In closing the chapter on women's rights, Gilligan claims that "a comparison of dilemmas
described by three of the women shows, across a wide range of formulations, how the
opposition between selfishness and responsibility complicates for women the issue of
choice" ( 138 ). Finally, she ends the chapter by informing readers that "thus changes in
women's rights change women's moral judgments" ( 149 ). By representing isolated
literary and historical characters as support for empirical generalizations, Gilligan
suggests a scholarly basis for her claims that in fact, does not exist in her text.
Realizing the "potential influence of this [ Gilligan's] work in characterizing women's

thinking," Luria ( 1986) finds it "imperative to scrutinize the bases of its arguments and
to ask whether the evidence is yet sufficient to warrant Gilligan's conclusions" (316).
Doing so leads Luria to the judgment that "the weaving of literary examples (presumably
as metaphors), theoretical proposal, and loosely defined empirical research can be a
winning
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but seductive design; occasionally Gilligan does not draw a clear line between theoretical
speculation and discussion of data slips from hunch, example, or metaphor to 'proven
fact' " (316). Scott ( 1986) reaches a similar conclusion, arguing that Gilligan's work
evidences a "slippage that often happens in the attribution of causality: the argument
moves from a statement such as 'women's experience leads them to make moral choices
contingent on contexts and relationships' to 'women think and choose this way because
they are women'" (1065). As partisan, Gilligan may believe that women are essentially
oriented toward caring; as a scholar, she does not prove the claim.
I am suggesting that the two voices are rhetorically cooperative in that the initial voice of
the scholar confers legitimacy on the voice of the partisan who dominates the text as a
whole. To establish this credibility, Gilligan assumes the role of the scholar early in the
book to note quite explicitly that her data do not allow generalization. Yet, as partisan
she does generalize, sometimes sweepingly, in violation of her own scholarly caveat. This
judgment is shared by others who have studied Gilligan's work. After reviewing original
transcripts comprising the data for In a Different Voice, Nails ( 1983) reported that
Gilligan tended to collapse respondents' thoughts in ways more consistent with the view
of women she endorses than the respondents' accounts. This and other methodological
problems in Gilligan's book led Nails to the harsh conclusion that In a Different Voice is
based on "underlying assumptions so shaky that no amount of intellectual scaffolding
could support them" (655). Similarly, Luria's assessment of Gilligan's work is that rather
than being the empirically supported theory its author represents it as, the book is "a
somewhat impressionistic grouping of the stories Gilligan's subjects told" (318). What
Nails and Luria did not point out is what the above reading reveals: the voice of the
scholar creates legitimacy for that of the partisan by wrapping loose claims of advocacy
within the guise of scholarly language.
Gilligan's Construction of Woman as

Caring and "Response-able"
Gilligan clearly intended her work to enhance appreciation of women and caring, a goal
explicated in the introduction: "For
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women, I hope this work will offer a representation of their thought that enables them to
see better its integrity and validity" ( 3 ). In her concluding chapter, Gilligan reaffirms
this purpose: "I want to restore in part the missing text of women's development" ( 156
). Yet, the nature of the "missing text" Gilligan wants to restore is an essentialist view of
woman that has dangerously regressive implications.
Gilligan identifies the missing text as a "conception of morality as concerned with the
activity of care [that] centers moral development around the understanding of
responsibility and relationships" ( 19 ). Explicitly linking this morality to women, Gilligan
claims it emerges "when one begins with the study of women and derives developmental
constructs from their lives" ( 19 ). She further asserts that "woman's place in man's life
cycle is to protect this recognition...of the continuing importance of attachment" ( 23 ).
In her concluding chapter, Gilligan reinforces the association between women and caring,
writing that women "define their identity through relationships of intimacy and care" (
164 ); and "women's development delineates...a maturity realized through
interdependence and taking care" ( 172 ). By presenting the care ethic as derived from
and definitive of women, Gilligan essentializes women in general as caring and
responsible to others. A reading of the text clarifies Gilligan's meanings for the two terms
central to her construction of woman: caring and responsiveness, or responsibility.
Caring as Constitutive of Woman

Early in the text Gilligan indicates her comfort with roles historically assigned to women:
"Women's place in man's life cycle has been that of nurturer, caretaker, and helpmate" (
17 ). She then identifies "care for and sensitivity to the needs of others" as "traits that
have traditionally defined the 'goodness' of women" ( 18 ). Embracing the cultural legacy
of women, Gilligan further defines caring by noting that "from a care perspective,
detachment is the moral problem" ( 31 ). Other passages illuminating what Gilligan
means by care as a quality of woman state that "women define their identity through
relationships of intimacy and care" ( 164 ); "the ideal of care is thus an activity of
relationship, of seeing and responding to need, taking care of the world" ( 62 ); "the
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expression of care is seen as the fulfillment of moral responsibility" ( 73 ); and "the
conventional feminine voice emerges with great clarity, defining the self and proclaiming
its worth on the basis of the ability to care for and protect others.... The strength of this
position lies in its capacity for caring" ( 79 ). In these statements Gilligan defines care as
constitutive of woman, her morality, and her worth.
Responsibility as Constitutive of
Woman
Responsibility is the other term concerning the image of women that Gilligan's advances.
Initially, Gilligan equates this with the "obligation to exercise care and avoid hurt" ( 73 ).
Later, she elaborates the "morality of responsibility" as one "that knits such claims [of
individuals] into a fabric of relationship, blurring the distinction between self and other
through the representation of their interdependence" ( 132 ). In the closing chapter,
Gilligan further clarifies: "The ethic of responsibility rests on an understanding that gives
rise to compassion and care" ( 165 ). These passages suggest that responsibility involves
experiencing others' needs as one's own, which, as we saw in the preceding chapter, is
one of the requirements of caring and has the potential to diminish a caregiver's
autonomy and sensitivity to her or his own motives, needs, and goals.
Inherent in Gilligan's definition of woman as responsible and caring is acceptance of a

traditional view of women as reactive rather than proactive. While at one point Gilligan
attempts to dissociate her view of caring from responsiveness, other parts of the text as
well as its overall weight support an interpretation of her image of woman as responsive.
Initially, Gilligan says caring should be adopted out of free choice: "When the distinction
between helping and pleasing frees the activity of taking care from the wish for approval
by others, the ethic of responsibility can become a self-chosen anchor of personal
integrity and strength" ( 171 ). In this passage Gilligan directly links the integrity of
caring to its being freely chosen. Yet one page later Gilligan undermines the possibility of
women's making a free choice to care in a culture that has socialized them to regard
others and relationships as primary in their lives: "The reality of connection
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is experienced by women as a given rather than as freely contracted" ( 172 ; emphasis
added).
Gilligan's endorsement of a view of women as responsive is further supported by

evidence extrinsic to the text but directly reflective of her position. In a 1987 clarification
of the book, Gilligan states that "care is grounded in the assumption that self and other
are interdependent, an assumption reflected in a view of action as responsive and,
therefore, as arising in relationships rather than the view of action as emanating from
within the self and, therefore, 'self governed.' Seen as responsive, the self is by
definition connected to others" ( 24 ; also Gilligan, 1986). In this later statement,
Gilligan contradicts her original claim that to have integrity care must be freely chosen,
and she endorses a responsive identity for caregivers.
To fully understand Gilligan' sposition on the responsiveness of caring, it is instructive to

recover one of the primary sources upon which she draws. Gilligan relies explicitly and
heavily on the work of Jean Baker Miller for the theoretical foundation of her construction
of woman. Gilligan quotes a passage from Miller to anchor her own initial discussion of
women's morality: "Women stay with, build on, and develop in a context of attachment
and affiliation with others,...women's sense of self becomes very much organized around
being able to make, and then to maintain, affiliations and relationships.... This psychic
starting point contains the possibilities for an entirely different (and more advanced)
approach to living and functioning... affiliation is valued as highly as, or more highly
than, self-enhancement" ( Miller, 1976, 83; quoted in Gilligan, 1982, 169170). In the
sentence immediately following this quote, Gilligan represents Miller's position as
supportive of her own: "Thus, Miller points to a psychology of adulthood which
recognizes that development does not displace the value of ongoing attachment and the
continuing importance of care in relationships" ( 169 170 ).
When we return to the source, however, we find Miller's meaning is not fully and fairly
rendered by Gilligan's. Clearly Miller does value women as well as affiliations and caring;
yet Miller's position is more qualified, more reserved, and more balanced than Gilligan's
representation of it implies. Three pages after the passage Gilligan quoted, Miller ( 1986)
suggests the centrality
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of affiliation in women's lives is, at best, a mixed blessing: "Women do face a problem,
one that troubles them greatly, the problem arises from the dominant role affiliations
have been made to play in women's lives" ( 86 ). Especially revealing in this comment is
Miller's choice of the passive voice ("have been made to play"), which suggests the role
of affiliations in women's lives is imposed, not self-chosen. Continuing further in the
chapter from which Gilligan quoted, Miller offers this tempered view: "Women's great
desire for affiliation is both a fundamental strength...and at the same time the inevitable
source of many of women's current problems.... When women act on the basis of this
underlying psychological motive [for affiliation], they are usually led into subservience" (
89 ). Here also Miller's language reveals that she believes women have a lack of choice in
the roles they are "led into."
Further reading of Miller's book illuminates the fact that she is not unambiguously
supportive of women's roles in caring. Fairly early in her discussion of women's
psychology, for example, Miller ( 1986) clearly states she does not encourage traditional
roles for women: "I do not imply that women should go back to some supportive role. It
is the reverse" ( 47 ; emphasis added). Other passages reinforce this stance: "Women
have been so encouraged to concentrate on the emotions and reactions of others that
they have been diverted from examining and expressing their own emotions" ( 39 );
"Women...have come to believe that they should want to respond at all times and in all
ways" ( 51 ); "The characteristics most highly developed in women and perhaps most
essential to human beings are the very characteristics that are specifically dysfunctional
for success in the world as it is" ( 124 ). Miller's valuing of women's tradition as
caregivers is seasoned by awareness of how those qualities and those who enact them
fare in society.
Finally, Miller's position is distinct from Gilligan's in dynamism. Gilligan seems to view
traditional womanly qualities as static, qualities women have always had and that have
always been undervalued but whose unchanging merit nonetheless ennobles them. This
is not what Miller assumes. While she does agree with Gilligan that caring and affiliation
have traditionally dominated women's lives and that both have been devalued in our
culture, she stops short of using women to celebrate or cultivate them.
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Rather, she argues, "These characteristics can be seen as valuable only as they are also
seen in a dynamic state, moving toward something more" ( 123 ).
This comparison of Miller's and Gilligan's texts discloses some incompatibilities between
the two. Unlike Gilligan, Miller situates traditionally womanly qualities within the context
of culture, leading her to recognize that, intrinsic merit not withstanding, they have been
and continue to be liabilities for women in "the world as constituted" ( Miller, 125). Miller
also does not view women as necessarily or desirably characterized primarily by caring
and attachment to others while Gilligan does. Thus, Miller's regard for women's
traditional roles and qualities is both contextualized and qualified; Gilligan's is neither.
In celebrating women's role as caregiver as what has always been "woman's place in
man's life cycle," Gilligan grants women only a place -- and one of service at that -- in a
life designed by men. Thus, Gilligan not only removes women's traditional roles from
historical and cultural contexts, but also totalizes limited aspects of some women to
construct a simplified image of all women. By representing advocacy as scholarship,
dichotomizing men and women, and conflating literary and historical allusions with proof,
Gilligan constructs an image of woman that holds open no space for diversity,
exceptions, or change.
The woman Gilligan constructs is a caregiver, defined by and responsible to relationships.

2
Gilligan's essentialization of these features of woman is especially evident in her final
chapter where the voice of the partisan dominates: "Women depict ongoing attachment
as the path that leads to maturity...to see themselves as women is to see themselves in
a relationship of connection" ( 171 ); "Women's development delineates the path not
only to a less violent life but also to a maturity realized through interdependence and
taking care" ( 172 ). It is revealing that Gilligan consistently uses the definite article to
imply attachment is of singular importance in women's lives; it is the single path (not
one of many) that characterizes women's (not some women's) development.
In the closing pages of In a Different Voice, the two authorial voices cooperate to
represent the partisan's essentialist view as that of a scholar: "Given the evidence of
different perspectives in the representations of adulthood by women and men...in
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the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care, the tie between
relationship and responsibility" ( 173 ). In claiming that the voice of women offers the
truth of caring as the tie between relationship and responsibility, Gilligan promotes
monolithic views of both sexes and, further, represent these as "given" by "the
evidence." Broad claims that exceed data would not be issued in the voice of a scholar.
Thus, despite Gilligan's opening statement that her work does not "represent a
generalization about either sex" (2), throughout the text she advances generalizations.
In a Different Voice constructs an essentialist view of woman. The image of women that
Gilligan promotes is a problem not only because of its shaky empirical base, but also
because of its relation to larger questions about women and their roles in society.
Gilligan's Place Within the

Essentialist Debate
The significance of Gilligan's text is more fully disclosed when it is placed within two
horizons. First, her construction of a generalized woman should be understood within the
major current discourse on essentializing woman. Second, the particular essentialization
of woman that Gilligan advances must be considered within historical and cultural
horizons of meaning.
In their influential history of feminist thought, Eisenstein and Jardine ( 1980) note that in
the 1970s an essentialist view of woman emerged as a reaction to liberal feminists'
deemphasis of differences between women and men as a strategy for increasing
women's participation in professional and sociopolitical life. Challenging this view, the
essentialists sought to reclaim and valorize qualities and activities traditionally associated
with woman.
Essentialist views of woman reflect at least three influences. First, they bespeak interest
in imbuing with value a distinctively feminine-based space and identity within an
androcentric society. Of this position, Young ( 1985) notes it "argues for the superiority
of values embodied in traditionally female experience, and rejects the values embodied
in traditionally male dominated institutions" ( 173 ). Essentialist views also heighten
unity among women
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both for purposes of sisterhood/support and political organizing and action. Winkler
( 1988) observes that a focus on "differences among women, for example, makes it
difficult to forge a unified feminist politics" (A-7). 3 Finally, the inclination toward a
universal conception of woman partakes of the quest for unity inherent in conventional
science and is endorsed by those who "are uncomfortable with a theory that denies the
possibility of unity" ( Winkler , 1988, A-6).
Initial enthusiasm for a unified view of woman, however, waned as scholars increasingly
recognized its dangers. Bluntly stating reservations to an essentialist concept, deLaurelis
( 1984) distinguishs between "woman...a fictional construct, a distillate from diverse but
congruent discourses dominant in Western culture" and "women...the real historical
beings" ( 5 ). Kristeva ( 1982) goes further to call for the culture "to break free of its
belief in Woman, Her power, Her writing, so as to channel this demand for difference into
each and every element of the female whole, and, finally, to bring out the singularity of
each woman and, beyond this, her multiplicities" ( 51 ; also see Kristeva, 1974, 1981). 4
Kristeva's statement illustrates the increasing concern that essentialist views of woman
constrict what society and women themselves perceive as options for women.
Commenting on this, Ferguson ( 1988) notes that some theorists see "in the totalizing
impulse a duplication of the practices of power and fearing that such practices will force
us to hide from ourselves that which does not fit into our schemas" ( 76 - 77 ).
Perhaps the most serious challenge to essentialist views comes from women of color who
claim that female nature is both not universal and not appropriately considered in
isolation from other key aspects of identity, notably race and class. Henderson ( Winkler,
1988) observes that "an exclusively gendered analysis is the privilege of a homogeneous
society in which the individual and society are one. In a heterogeneous society it is
highly problematical, particularly for those people on the margins" (A-5). This failure of
inclusion has led others to charge essentialist views of women are both biased and elitist.
In a sharp indictment of existing theory, Stanback ( 1988) argues "'Liberal' or 'bourgeois
feminism'...is inappropriate to the study of black women because it is neither systemic
nor inclusive.... Liberal feminism represents white middle-class women's success in
universalizing
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their experience of womanhood.... It excludes important aspects of the black female
experience" ( 29 ). Not only suspect in terms of bias and elitism, then, Gilligan's theory,
based on a very limited and nonrepresentative sample of white women, is open to
questions of basic validity. The exclusion of nonwhite women from her sample is
particular ironic since Gilligan based her work on the complaint that conventional moral
theory was flawed by its exclusion of women.
Feminist theorists' concern with essentialist views of woman provides a horizon for
evaluating In a Different Voice. To the extent that Gilligan offers a generalized description
of woman that totalizes care and "response-ability," her work contributes to an
essentializing, and, therefore, restrictive view of women. Criticizing this, Nails ( 1983)
argues "The Gilligan-type description of female moral development...can erect a set of
boundaries for female moral development, a set of limits on behavior: a girl child who
sees a moral dilemma as 'sort of like a math problem with humans' (a response of one of
Gilligan's male sixth graders) is viewed as somehow less feminine than one who
emphasizes the relationships among the various characters" (663). To the extent that
women themselves accept Gilligan's image of them, they risk limiting their options,
actions, and identities.
A second horizon that enhances understanding and evaluation of Gilligan's argument is

its sociohistorical context. As with any activity, caring and the responsibility ethic
underlying it are defined not by absolute criteria, but by cultural values, historical
meanings, and social role assignments. Within the context of Western society, giving care
is a historically devalued activity, one relegated to subordinates. Those not in positions of
power are expected (sometimes required) to understand, minister to, and be concerned
about others. Recognizing this, Miller ( 1986) bluntly states that "in our culture 'serving
others' is for losers, it is low-level stuff" ( 61 ). Thus, to encourage women to define
themselves by their capacities to care and respond to others is to reinforce their
traditionally subordinate, tentative positions in society; it also undercuts critical reflection
on these roles ( Sommers & Shields, 1987).
Gilligan recognizes the dangers that caring can pose for women when she concedes that
"the notion that virtue for women lies
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in self sacrifice has complicated women's development" ( 132 ). She nevertheless argues
caring should be valued and enacted because of its intrinsic merit, regardless of social
interpretations and consequences. She maintains, for instance, "that women's
embeddedness in lives of relationship, their orientation to interdependence, their
subordination of achievement to care, and their conflicts over competitive success leave
them more personally at risk in mid-life seems more a commentary on the society than a
problem in women's development" ( 171 ). Gilligan's dismissal of historical and cultural
contexts seems facile and, in Dubois ( 1980) judgment, fails to "address the limitation of
the values of women's culture including the ways in which they constrain women" ( 31 ).
Historically, Western society has not bestowed value on the roles traditionally assigned to
women through any of the rewards and privileges that sustain social hierarchies. So long
as what is associated with and encouraged in women is not accorded widespread respect
and so long as it serves the comfort and convenience of those who enjoy positions of
power, then the roles and activities will continue to allow oppression and exploitation
( Campbell 1973, 1983; Welter, 1966). In an incisive analysis of affirmations of woman's
traditional sphere, Alcoff ( 1988) concludes,
To the extent that cultural feminism merely valorizes genuinely positive attributes
developed under oppression, it cannot map our long-range course. To the extent that it
reinforces essentialist explanations of these true attributes, it is in danger of solidifying
an important bulwark of sexist oppression: the belief in an innate "womanhood" to which
we must all adhere lest we be deemed either inferior or not "true women." (414)
In a Different Voice cannot be understood apart from this social history of Western
society. Once placed within this horizon of meaning, Gilligan's essentialized view of
woman can be understood as reiterating and revalorizing the definition of woman that
has been resoundingly oppressive historically. The work, then, contributes to
maintenance of oppression rather than challenging or reforming the symbolic and social
structures and practices that sustain it. 5 The qualities and roles traditionally assigned
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to women can be enacted without harm to women only if strategies for gaining broad
cultural legitimation and value are developed and successfully deployed. This
underscores the wisdom of Miller's equivocal view of traditional womanly qualities as
dynamic and valuable only as they lead to further development of women and the society
in which they participate.
In this chapter I have argued that while Gilligan represents her book as scholarship, it is
better understood as a work of advocacy. Within the text there is sustained tension
between two rhetorically cooperative voices in which the author speaks. Disclosing the
presence of these two voices and the ways in which they interact to create the overall
meaning of the text challenges both the text's scholarly nature and its value to women.
It is in the voice of the scholar that Gilligan introduces In a Different Voice as a "report of
research in progress" ( 3 ). Yet a second voice, that of the partisan, becomes audible
early and assumes increasing prominence as the text unfolds. As partisan, Gilligan
advances an essentialist view of woman as defined by caring and "response-ability,"
qualities that Gilligan encourages in women despite their historical devaluation. What
makes this argument persuasive is its appearance as scholarship, rather than advocacy.
Gilligan uses the voice of the scholar to establish the legitimacy of the claims of the
partisan. By disclosing the strategies Gilligan employs to construct an essentialized
image of woman, I have tried to provide insight into how the book works and, at the
same time, to suggest scholarly and pragmatic limitations in Gilligan's argument for
woman's invariant nature as a caregiver.
This is not to say what Gilligan describes as womanly qualities are not intrinsically
valuable and, perhaps, essential to human survival. Yet, it is the case that these qualities
can be inculcated and enacted without harm to the actors if and only if strategies for
gaining broad cultural legitimation and valuing of caring accompany affirmations like
Gilligan's.
In this chapter I have focused on one work out of the many on caring, because Gilligan's
book is particularly significant to my overall inquiry. It is so because, more than any
other single publication, In A Different Voice reinvigorated traditional conceptions of
women as caregivers. Thus, Gilligan and her work may be regarded as representing one
important position in the con-
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temporary debate over women's roles and women's ways. Both what Gilligan argues --
that women have been and should be the primary caregivers and relationship builders in
our society -- and how she argues this position -- through essentializing women and
viewing them out of historical, political, social, and economic contexts of meaning --
must be understood in order to inquire further into the relationships among women,
care, and culture.
In the next chapter I consider further Gilligan's largely implied view of the source of
women's caregiving inclinations. In addition, I explore other views of the genesis of
tendencies to care. Through examining different arguments for the basis of caring we
may gain insight into the necessity, or nonnecessity, of the entrenched association
between women and caregiving.
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Who Cares (Gilligan's Rhetorical Construction of "Woman")

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Who Cares?

Women, Care, and Culture

-- D.Riley, Am I That Name? Feminism and the Category of "Women" in History

-- Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development

As I've argued in previous chapters, whatever image of woman we have, it grows in

Gilligan's Different Voices

My analysis is predominantly grounded in Gilligan's own voice as it emerges in the 174-

Chapter 2 also includes Gilligan's study of responses to the Heinz dilemma, a

Turning now to chapter 3, we find discussion of an abortion study, one of three

This generalization recurs in the summary of chapter 3: "The abortion study

In addition, chapter 3 features a study of twenty-five female college students. After

In later interviews with women who contemplated abortion,

A final example of the tendency to represent interpretations as proof occurs in the

Throughout the text, Gilligan represents interpretations of particular cases as findings

Dichotomizing Women and Men

In addition to its tendencies to reify and oversimplify, dichotomizing is a tactic associated

Chapter 5 offers the clearest example of (mis)representing historical and literary

Realizing the "potential influence of this [ Gilligan's] work in characterizing women's

Gilligan's Construction of Woman as

Caring as Constitutive of Woman

Inherent in Gilligan's definition of woman as responsible and caring is acceptance of a

Gilligan's endorsement of a view of women as responsive is further supported by

To fully understand Gilligan' sposition on the responsiveness of caring, it is instructive to

The woman Gilligan constructs is a caregiver, defined by and responsible to relationships.

Gilligan's Place Within the

A second horizon that enhances understanding and evaluation of Gilligan's argument is

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