Different Voices, Psychological Theories and Women's Development

Author: Carol Gilligan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1999-01-17
Features: In his reflections on this issue, Freud began to conceptualize its resolution not as a sense of clean, oceanic purity, but as a "desire for union with others" driven by "altruistic motivation." When describing this drive for union with others as an opponent of individuation, Freud hinted at a developmental path overlooked by his earlier explanations (141)—a path that leads to interdependence through difference rather than separation through aggression. In calling for this "altruistic" drive, Freud introduced a different moral concept, one rooted not in the limitation of aggression but in the maintenance of connection. Thus, according to Freud's play between happiness and culture, morality takes center stage, transforming the danger of love into dissatisfaction with civilization—a play that offers a negative interpretation of the role of love in the "origin of unavoidable, fatal guilt" (132)—and another plot begins to emerge.
From this altered perspective, connection does not appear as a delusion or an explosive tendency toward transcendence but as an initial feature of individual psychology and civilized life. Since "the human individual, while participating in the process of human development, is also pursuing the path of their own life" (141), separation, like connection before it, seems to emerge as a delusion. However, as Freud observed, combining this sense of connection with his psychological structures not only alters the nature of instincts but also changes the expression of the self and the explanation of relationships.
In gender difference research, R. May (Robert May, 1980) identified "pride" as the "masculine way of fantasy," which diminishes in projection imagination (projective imagination) and extends Freud's narrative of the rupture of initial connection—experiencing an irreparable loss through separation and a heroic achievement story accompanied by catastrophic decline. However, May envisioned "care" as the feminine fantasy, tracing an unexplored path—one that intensifies the description of loss, in which connection is ultimately preserved or restored despite being achieved through separation. When life is interpreted as a web rather than a succession of relationships, women describe autonomy rather than attachment as the pursuit of illusion and danger. Thus, women's development points to a different history of human attachment, emphasizing continuity and structural change rather than replacement and separation, offering a distinct response to failure and reshaping the metaphor of development.
I. B. Miller (1976), in explaining the problems of constructing intimacy through a master-slave model, emphasized that "women's developmental parameters differ from men's, so the same terms do not apply" (86). She found that psychology lacked a language to describe the structure of women's self-awareness—"a language capable of organizing the establishment and maintenance of intimacy and relationships" (83). Yet, she saw in this psychological structure the potential for a "more advanced, more intimate way of life—less bound to current dangerous modes"—because self-awareness is not tied to the efficacy of aggression but to the recognition of the need for connection (86). Therefore, in envisioning a more creative and cooperative way of life, Miller not only called for social equality but also for a new psychological language that would separate the description of care and connection from the lexicon of inequality and oppression, a language she believed emerged from women's experiences of relationships.
In the absence of such a language, the problem of explaining women's experiences also reflects the issue of psychologists' inability to understand women's experiences, as well as the distortion of their expressions. When the interconnectedness of networks is erased by the hierarchical order of relationships, when networks are described as dangerous traps that hinder rather than protect against danger, women increasingly doubt the existence of what they have seen and the authenticity of what they have recognized from their own experiences. These questions are not raised as abstract philosophical arguments about the nature of reality and truth but are posed as self-doubt within women's self-awareness, threatening their ability to act based on their perceptions and, consequently, their willingness to take responsibility for their actions. This issue becomes particularly critical during women's adolescent development, at which point reflection replaces thought, and the problem of interpretation enters the very process of development.
When asked to describe their moral conflicts and the experiences of their choices, two 11-year-old children recounted the same story from markedly different perspectives, revealing the themes of adolescent development for both genders. The two children described a school scenario where they faced a choice about whether to speak up. For Jack, his dilemma arose when he decided to oppose injustice and protect a friend being "unfairly beaten and hurt" by seeking protection under a principle. After running to tell the principal, he hesitated about whether to reveal to another friend that he had already reported the incident, because this friend had only fought back in response to provocation. Not telling him would lead to his unjust punishment. In describing his dilemma, Jack focused on whether it was right to break his principle of "practicing my vow" by staying silent, as no one would know he had reported the principal. His conflict centered on whether he could justify his act of speaking up as fair and whether his caring behavior toward the two friends aligned with his moral beliefs. If his actions matched the standard of justice, he would not feel "shame" and would "take pleasure in being responsible" for what he had done; otherwise, he believed he had to admit to himself and his friend that he had made a mistake.
Amy's dilemma was different: she saw a friend take someone else's book. She interpreted the situation as a conflict of honesty and a response to relationships, hesitating to speak up at the risk of hurting a friend. She faced the question of how to act given what she had seen and known, so in her construction, both speaking and staying silent constituted a response. Just as Jack considered breaking his standards and his promise out of loyalty to his friend, thereby compromising his principles, Amy also considered breaking her friendship to establish a standard she believed in—a common and caring standard that would protect people from harm. However, even with this standard in mind, she weighed the extent of each friend's harm and considered the various factors of the situation to evaluate what the consequences of her actions might be.
Like Jack, who hesitated whether his act of speaking up would violate his personal integrity, Amy worried whether she had affirmed her beliefs at the cost of harming a friend. In describing her thoughts on how to act, Amy reconstructed the dialogue with the inner voice she had engaged in—a conversation that included not only others but also her own voice: "No one will know I saw this, no one will use it against me, but when you start sitting there thinking about it, you realize that someone will find out—you've always been sure you didn't say anything, and it really bothers me because my friend is sitting right there. Did someone see my book? Where is it? Help me! I need it for the next class. Help me find it! It's not here, where is it?" She thought, "If you know about this, it's even more important to say something, you know you're not just gossiping, because you know it's better to say it."
Because she recognized that her silence made hiding the incident a failure of care in the context of the relationship, speaking up was not just gossip in this relational context. However, this relational framing of the analysis can easily lead to interpretive shifts, because changes in the relational context might turn her caring behavior into an act of betrayal.