35 Quotes by Carol Gilligan

While an ethic of justice proceeds from the premise of equality – that everyone should be treated the same – an ethic of care rests on the premise of nonviolence – that no one should be hurt.

It all goes back, of course, to Adam and Eve – a story which shows among other things, that if you make a woman out of a man, you are bound to get into trouble.

Both love and democracy depend on voice – having a voice and also the resonance that makes it possible to speak and be heard.

I’ve found that if I say what I’m really thinking and feeling, people are more likely to say what they really think and feel. The conversation becomes a real conversation.

Caring requires paying attention, seeing, listening, responding with respect. Its logic is contextual, psychological. Care is a relational ethic, grounded in a premise of interdependence. But it is not selfless.

Women’s deference is rooted not only in their social subordination but also in the substance of their moral concern. Sensitivity to the needs of others and the assumption of responsibility for taking care lead women to attend to voices other than their own and to include in their judgement other points of view.

Living at once inside and outside the framework, Hester is able to see the frame.

This knotted dilemma lies at the center of women’s development. How can girls both enter and stay outside of, be educated in and then try to change, what for millennia has been a man’s world?