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Taking on the giants of psychological developmental theory (the likes of Erikson, Kohlberg, Freud, Piaget, Vaillant, Levinson) smacks of grandiosity. Doing so with grace, perspective, and intelligence transforms the shades of grandiosity into a demonstration that sensible and intelligent research still is being done in the real world. Maybe it is “Harvard” or her association with David McClelland or just the confluence of these factors with native ingenuity, but Carol Gilligan's In A Different Voice ought to inspire a retrofit of graduate psychology curriculum for the next decade.
Her hypothesis is simple. The current theories of psychological development are biased by a single track comprehension of maturity—separation-individuation. This is a motif for all modern theories. There is nothing wrong here, except, the separation-individuation track has a distinctly male turn to it. In other words men develop in that way but, typically, women hardly identify with it.
Gilligan studies, among other things, the relation between identity and moral choice as they are integrated during the long transition from adolescence to adulthood. For the male “… individual achievement rivets the male imagination. Great ideas or distinctive activity defines the standard of self-assessment and success … Power and separation secure the man in an identity achieved through work but they leave him at a distance from