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Gilligan (1982:24) believed that Freud, in all his studies, had failed to trace in women the development of relationship, morality, and a clear sense of self. As a result of the fact that Freud was unable to do so, he set women, their relationships, and their sexual lives, apart as “a dark continent” for psychology (Gilligan 1982:24). “To Freud … women’s relationships seemed increasingly

39 mysterious, difficult to discern, and hard to describe” (Gilligan 1982:24). For Gilligan (1982:25), the inclusion of women in relationship studies was of utmost importance, for the imagery of relationships shape the narrative of human development and women’s contribution have the ability to change that imagery. She explained this importance by suggesting a new line of interpretation based on the imagery of a girl’s thought as an alternative in order to consider differences in the understanding of relationships without scaling these differences from better to worse (Gilligan 1982:25).

Gilligan (1982:25) studied the responses of two eleven-year-old (female and male) participants of the rights and responsibility study in order to gain a better understanding of moral judgment and the interpretation of women’s development. The moral dilemma that they were asked to resolve was one used by Kohlberg to measure moral development in adolescence (Gilligan 1982:25). In this dilemma, a man named Heinz has to make a decision on whether he should steal medication, which is overpriced to the extent that he cannot afford to buy it, in order to save the life of his critically ill wife.

The boy, Jake, was very clear from the beginning that Heinz should steal the drug, for a life is more valuable than property. Tong (1993:83) explained that he prioritised life above that of property in a logical manner in order to justify his

40 choice, thereby presenting a perfectly Kohlbergian22 _{answer. He also took the law} into account and recognised its place within the social order of life, but also acknowledged the fact that the law is man-made and fallible by times (Gilligan 1982:26). He set up this dilemma like he would a math problem by equating the problem and working toward a solution (Gilligan 1982:26). By doing this, he reckoned that other people, like a judge, would also have considered stealing the medication as the right thing to do (Gilligan 1982:27).

In contrast to the boy, the girl, Amy, responded in a different way. By doing so, she failed to answer in a Kohlbergian way (Tong 1993:83). At first, her approach may have seemed to be evasive and unsure. She, at no point, tried to equate the value of life to the value of money, like Jake did (Tong 1993:83). She said that she doesn’t think that Heinz should steal the medication, as there may be other ways to get the medication than stealing it (Gilligan 1982:28). Tong (1993:83) elaborated that in the process of thinking of this dilemma, she did not consider property of law, but rather the effect that it would have on the relationship between Heinz and his wife if he was to be caught (Tong 1993:83). She insisted that if they talked to the chemist, he would give them the medication, because the most important thing would be to save a life (Gilligan 1982:28). Gilligan (1982:28) saw this interpretation of the value of life in the context of relationships. She saw a world comprised of human relationships rather than individualism. It is a world

22_{Tronto (1993:65-66), whose work will be discussed in more detail at a later stage, gave examples of what} typical Kohlbergian answers would look like during the a conventional, post-conventional, and a stage six response. During the conventional stages, an answer would be something like: “Friendship is based on trust. If you can’t trust a person, there’s little grounds to deal with him. You should try to be as reliable as possible, because people remember you by this. You’re more respected if you can be depended upon” (Tronto 1993:65). A typical answer of the post-conventional account would be something like: “I think human relationships in general are based on trust, on believing in other individuals. If you have no way of believing in someone else, you can’t deal with anyone else and it becomes every man for himself. Everything you do in a day’s time is related to somebody else and if you can’t deal on a fair basis, you have chaos” (Tronto 1993:65-66). A response to the Heinz dilemma of someone in stage six looked like this: “It is wrong legally, but right morally. Systems of law are valid only insofar as they reflect the sort of moral law all rational people can accept. One must consider the personal justice involves, which is the root of the social contract. The ground of creating a society is individual justice, the right of every person to an equal consideration of his claims in every situation, not just those which can be codifies in law. Personal justice means, ‘Treat each person as an end, not a means’” (Tronto 1993:66).

41 where human connectedness is more important than a set of rules. For the girl, it is not a question of “should Heinz steal the drug?”, but rather “should Heinz steal the drug?” (Gilligan 1982:31).

Gilligan (1982:32) came to the conclusion that both children recognised the need for agreement, but got to that point in different ways – the boy with logic and law, and the girl with relationship and communication. Tong (1993:83) explained that she contrasted the differing ways in which the children came to their conclusion in a way which affirms Amy’s way of doing, instead of opposing it with the way Jake reached his conclusion. When she used the information about the boy and the girl to measure it on Kohlberg’s scale for moral development, it becomes clear that there were no stages present to measure the girl’s maturity, which led her to appear a full stage lower in maturity than the boy (1982:31).

Kohlberg’s scale was, thus, according to Gilligan (1982:31), faulty as a result of the fact that it does not have what is necessary to measure the approach chosen by Amy. Gilligan (1982:35) highlighted that the Amy’s world was a world of relationships and truths where she was aware of the needs and wants apart from her own and that she felt a sense of responsibility toward other people. She believed that if the girl’s perspective were to be seen in this light, that it would become clear that it is a method that is far from being naïve or cognitively immature (Gilligan 1982:35). It was at this point that the discourse of the ethics of care was set up as an alternative to the boy’s logic of justice, known as the discourse of the ethics of justice23_{. The boy displayed the logic of justification,} while the girl made use of an equally refined understanding in the nature of choice (Gilligan 1982:32).

23 _{It is important to note that at no point throughout this dissertation is the ethics of justice considered to} be a lesser theory than the ethics of care. The development of the ethics of care as an additional theory to the ethics of justice is not based on the fact that the ethics of justice is not a valid theory, but rather because there was a silenced, relational voice that was not included in the ethics of justice. The additional theory is, therefore, meant to work in unison with the ethics of justice in order to create inclusive societies that are just and caring. The last-mentioned is partly what this dissertation will set out to do.

42 Gilligan (1982) went into some detail about the interviews with the two children. By doing this, she repeatedly pointed out the difference in approach. Every time she did this, it was clear that the boy used the approach where justice, logic and rights were prominent. In contrast, the girl’s responses tended to show her concern for relationships, the feeling of all the parties involved, and her own relation to the world. While she placed herself in relation to the world, the boy placed the world in relation to himself “as it defines his character, his position, and the quality of his life” (Gilligan, 1982:35). It became apparent that the children respond differently when it comes to the responsibility to others and responsibility toward the self.

Where the boy felt that the self was the most important thing when it came to decision-making, the girl felt the need to look at everybody involved in a particular situation in order to decide what the best outcome will be. The boy, from a premise of separation, wanted to limit his interaction with other people and he was able to do so by sticking to rules that made the larger society a better place. The ethic of justice thus clings to rules in all situations, while the ethics of care is affected by contextual variations in character and circumstances. For the girl, responsibility toward others is important and signifies response, rather than a limitation of action (Gilligan 1982:38). For Gilligan (1982:38), the greatest difference between the children’s responses was the imagery they used. The boy’s imagery, she said, came across as more violent and aggressive, as he saw the world as a dangerous place (Gilligan 1982:38). The girl saw the world as a place of love and care, and a place where you “may even love people much more than you love yourself” (Gilligan 1982:38).

Gilligan (1982:39) explained that the themes of separation and connection were central to a study she conducted on the images of violence. Violent imagery seemed to be present in men’s stories about intimacy, while women’s stories about competitive success seemed to contain violent imagery (Gilligan 1982:40). It appeared as though men and women may experience attachment and separation in different ways and that men and women may perceive danger that

43 the other sex is unable to see - “men in connection, women in separation” (Gilligan 1982:42). This may even be connected to Freud’s theory of the different experiences of boys and girls when it comes to separation. Once again, the male perspective was accepted as the norm when it came to aggression, leaving the absence of aggression in women as problematic (Gilligan 1982:43).

When it comes to relationships, women tended to change the rules in order to include and preserve relationships, whereas men would rather abide by the rules at the cost of relationships which may be easily replaceable (Gilligan 1982:44). Gilligan (1982:45) elaborated on Freud’s theories on why men prefer separation, tracing it back to infants and the study of the ego and the id. It is because of separation anxiety, the “infantile helplessness” (Gilligan 1982:46) and “limitless narcissism” (Gilligan 1982:46), that men tend to cling to rules (Gilligan 1982:46). The disappointment of the separation, fuelled by the anger, forced the male self to protect himself by the rules. Thus, it looked like men needed rules because of separation anxiety. Women, on the other hand, demonstrated love from a feeling of connection, or the bond between the other and the self (Gilligan 1982:47). From these studies, it appeared that the ethics of care may have something to do with connectedness, whereas the ethics of justice is more influenced by separation. Gilligan (1982:48) noted that women more often than not did not fit into the picture of Freud’s idea of a relationship, because women did not base their relationships on separation or aggression, but rather on connection and the other as a foundation.

Gilligan (1982:48) turned to the work of Jean Baker Miller24 _{about dominance and} subordination, and stated that Miller called for a new language within a psychological framework where the description of care and connectedness was not the language of inequality and oppression, but rather a new language seen as originating in women’s experience of relationships (Gilligan 1982:49). For so

24 _{Miller, J.B., 1976, Toward a Psychology of Women. Boston: Beacon Press. Jean Baker Miller was a} psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, feminist, and social activist. She was a Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine and a Faculty Member of Harvard Medical School.

44 many years, psychological studies have been focused on male dominance. In doing so, it somehow neglected to find the right language to use when it comes to the experiences of women. This problem was further complicated by the fact that women, when asked about their experiences, would never really share their own true experiences, but would rather say what they thought would be the right way in which to talk about their experience according to what society deemed right. Gilligan (1982:49) explained that this issue becomes central during the youthful years of women’s development. It is during these years, when women’s thoughts are developing, that they start to doubt their own voice and sense of self, and rather cling to what is expected of them to think and do (Gilligan 1982:49). This causes problems when it comes to women’s perceptions of themselves and their willingness to take up responsibility in order to stand up and share their own true experiences, and not those which are expected of them.

Gilligan (1982:51) further found that female students participating in the college

student study had a difficult time to describe themselves to themselves. They

were inclined to define themselves in terms of who they should be according to general society, or in the perception of other people, rather than defining themselves according to their own wants, needs, and desires. Their identities are thus not primarily based on their own perceptions of themselves, but on those of others. As they continue to answer questions being posed to them, it became clear that the way they were looking at themselves became more direct as opposed to how other people had perceived them to be (Gilligan 1982:52). Gilligan (1982:52) picked up that the moral question similarly shifted from “what is right” (Gilligan 1982:52) to “what is right for me” (Gilligan 1982:52). It happened, however, that as soon as these women heard their own voices, they tended to draw back to their previous opinions (Gilligan 1982:52). These women found it extremely difficult to define themselves and their relationships, because the world around them had enforced other definitions of who they were upon them, and had decided what their relationships ought to look like. Gilligan (1982:53) noted that it was hard for these girls to explain their sense of self, because they encountered

45 a problem with vocabulary when they were trying to convey a new understanding of themselves and their relationships. Claire, one of the students in the college

student study, confirmed this when she said:

I’m trying to tell you two things. I’m trying to be myself alone, apart from other, apart from their definitions of me, and yet at the same time I’m doing just the opposite, trying to be with or relate to – whatever the terminology is – I don’t think they are mutually exclusive (Gilligan 1983:53).

During Gilligan’s research with female students, it became obvious that the ideal of care is an activity of relationship in that it sees a need and responds to it (Gilligan 1982:62). By doing this, she believed that a network of relationship is started to take care of the world so that everybody will be able to be taken care of (Gilligan 1982:62). It is this relational approach that has caused some difficulty for psychologists, because the experiences of women have for so long been neglected, that it is like stepping into unknown territory (Gilligan 1982:62). All the theories about women’s experiences have been written from the interpretation and understanding of what women should experiences, thereby not considering what women are truly experiencing. In most psychological theories about relationships, a hierarchy has been formed, a hierarchy where being at the top means being alone, or separated from others (Gilligan 1982:62). It requires others to be kept at arm’s length and not allowing people to come too close, but also to not be so disconnected that isolation eventually sets in (Gilligan 1982:62). It is a hierarchy that is by all means one filled with fear; fear of being too close and being too far at the same time (Gilligan 1982:62). By taking women’s true experiences in terms of relationships into consideration, it becomes easier to understand women’s experiences, and also breaks down the hierarchical view of relationships which was previously present (Gilligan 1982:62). By taking women’s experiences into consideration the other’s experiences of what women should be is rejected, and women are allowed to have their own experiences.

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