Gilligan, Carol

Name

Carol Gilligan, Ph.D.

Introduction

Gilligan’s contribution to the field of couple and family therapy is impossible to overstate. As the founding mother of the field of gender differences in psychology, her work paved the way for researchers and clinicians to think critically about the impact of gender, sexism, and patriarchy on couple and family systems. Gilligan entered the field of psychology in an era when theories were riddled by an unacknowledged problem of gender. Theories built on data gathered exclusively from male participants were assumed to be applicable to the lived experiences of women. Her commitment to listening to women and girls and asking questions about their lives forever transformed the field by bringing into awareness the ways in which a patriarchal order amplifies some voices while marginalizing and silencing others. While second wave feminists were devoted to showing how the personal is political, Gilligan was also showing how the political is...