Carol Gilligan for Kids

Have you ever been in a situation where the rules said one thing, but your heart said another?

In the 1970s, a psychologist named Carol Gilligan noticed something strange about how scientists studied right and wrong. She realized that for a long time, researchers only listened to one type of person, which meant they were missing a huge part of the human experience. By listening to different voices, she discovered the Ethics of Care, a way of thinking that prioritizes kindness and relationships over abstract rules.

The Room Where It Happened

Imagine walking through the hallways of Harvard University in the late 1970s. The floors are polished wood, and the shelves are heavy with books written by famous men.

At the time, psychology was trying to map out how children grow up to be good people. One of the most famous thinkers was a man named Lawrence Kohlberg.

Picture this

Imagine a classroom where everyone is trying to build the tallest tower of blocks. One group follows a handbook of instructions perfectly. Another group stops building every few minutes to make sure everyone in the group is having fun and feels included. Which group is more 'successful'?

Kohlberg believed that growing up meant climbing a ladder of moral development. At the bottom were people who only followed rules to avoid punishment. At the top were people who followed universal laws of justice, like a judge in a courtroom.

But there was a catch: Kohlberg had mostly studied boys and men to build his theory. When girls took his tests, they often scored lower than the boys.

Finn says:

"Wait, if the researchers only talked to boys, isn't that like trying to understand a whole forest by only looking at the pine trees?"

Carol Gilligan was working as a research assistant for Kohlberg. She looked at the data and asked a very simple, very brave question.

What if the girls aren't failing the test? What if the test itself is missing something important?

The Heinz Dilemma

To understand what Gilligan found, we have to look at a famous story called the Heinz Dilemma. In this story, a man named Heinz has a wife who is very sick with a rare disease.

Did you know?

The Heinz Dilemma isn't a real event. It's a 'thought experiment' used by psychologists to see how people's brains work when they face a tough choice with no easy answer.

A local druggist has the medicine, but he is charging ten times what it cost him to make. Heinz cannot afford it, and the druggist refuses to lower the price.

Should Heinz steal the medicine? When Kohlberg asked boys this question, they often treated it like a math problem.

"The right to life is higher than the right to property," they might say. They were focused on justice and the hierarchy of rules.

The way people talk about their lives is significant: the language they use and the connections they make reveal the world they see.

A Different Kind of Logic

When Gilligan listened to girls answer the same question, she heard something else. Instead of a math problem, they saw a broken relationship.

One girl, named Amy, didn't want to say if Heinz was "right" or "wrong" immediately. Instead, she worried about what would happen to the people in the story.

If Heinz goes to jail, who will take care of his wife? Why can't we just sit the druggist down and explain how important the wife's life is?

Mira says:

"I like how Amy thinks. It’s not just about the medicine; it's about the fact that the druggist and Heinz have to live in the same town together afterward."

Amy wasn't being "less logical" than the boys. She was using a different kind of logic: the Ethics of Care.

She saw the world as a web of connection rather than a ladder of rules. In a web, if you pull one string, everything else moves.

• Relationships matter more than abstract laws.
• Everyone has a responsibility to help those in need.
• Communication is the best way to solve problems.

The Ladder vs. The Web

Gilligan’s big idea was that there are two ways to look at morality. Neither is better than the other, but we need both to be whole.

One way is the Ethics of Justice. This is about being fair, following rules, and protecting individual rights.

The other way is the Ethics of Care. This is about being empathetic, maintaining connections, and responding to the specific needs of real people.

Think about a playground dispute. A "Justice" approach might say, "The rule is five minutes per person on the swing."

A "Care" approach might say, "I can see that my friend is having a really bad day, so I’ll let them stay on the swing longer to help them feel better."

The moral person is one who helps others; goodness is service, meeting one's obligations and responsibilities to others.

Listening to the Silence

Gilligan didn't just stop at the Heinz story. She began to notice that as kids grow up, they sometimes lose their "voice."

She observed that girls, in particular, were often told to be "nice" or "selfless." They were encouraged to listen to everyone else's needs but ignore their own.

Mira says:

"This makes me think of how sometimes I say 'I don't care' just to avoid an argument, even when I actually care a lot."

Gilligan argued that true care must include self-care. If you ignore your own voice to keep others happy, the web of connection is actually getting weaker, not stronger.

She wanted people to realize that being honest about how you feel is part of being a good person. It takes courage to speak your truth when it might upset the status quo.

• Listening to yourself is as important as listening to others.
• Being "good" doesn't mean being silent.
• True connection requires two real people, not two people pretending.

To have a voice is to be human. To have a human voice is to be in relationship.

Why It Matters Today

Before Carol Gilligan, many people thought that emotions and feelings were messy things that got in the way of "real" thinking.

She showed us that empathy is actually a highly sophisticated form of intelligence. It requires us to imagine the world through someone else's eyes.

Today, doctors, lawyers, and even world leaders use the Ethics of Care to make better decisions. They don't just ask, "Is this legal?"

They ask, "Who will this hurt? Who will this help? How can we keep our community together?"

Picture this

Think of a giant, glowing spiderweb in the morning dew. If one tiny strand breaks, the whole web shakes. This is how Carol Gilligan saw our world: we are all the strands, and our care for each other is what keeps the web strong.

The Web is Yours

The next time you are sitting in a circle with your friends or helping a sibling, remember that your 'voice' matters. Carol Gilligan taught us that psychology isn't just about what's in our heads, it's about what happens between us. By choosing to care, you are building a stronger web for everyone.