Carol Gilligan on the Gender Bias in Moral and Personal Development Theories Persuasive Essay by scribbler

The paper explains the basic premise of Carol Gilligan, that the accepted theories and benchmarks that surround moral and personal development are gender biased towards men, and women have a different path towards maturation and follow a different moral criterion on their journey. The paper looks at how Gilligan criticizes Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development and discusses the idea that the way we organize the environment changes the way boys and girls approach moral decisions. The paper describes how boys play with tangible object that result in less grey area "relationship "thinking"; they play with moral dilemmas that usually have a rather concrete set of expectations, while girls are encouraged to play with relationship based items such as dolls and tea party fantasies that result in a more empathetic viewpoint. The paper also addresses the process by which individuals form their roles, or the concept of socialization and discusses the four main agents of socialization: family, school, peers, and mass media.