Perspectivas feministas contemporâneas em uma leitura da obra “Uma voz diferente” de Carol Gilligan (1936-)

Abstract

In this article, we seek dialogues and problematizations from feminist perspectives and contemporary critics, the work of the American psychologist Carol Gilligan on moral development, a work launched in her 1982 book “In a different voice”. contemporary feminist studies, closer to post-structuralist and intersectional perspectives. Gilligan made strong criticisms of Lawrence Kohlberg's theory and other major psychological theories of development of his time, not only on an empirical but an epistemological level as well. Globally, her work has been equally hailed as criticized by feminist authors(s), psychologists, and moral philosophers. Some of the problems pointed out in Gilligan's work, and those specifically pointed out by the field of Feminist Studies, are those of identity essentialism, of colluding with binarisms and of searching for a generalizable development model. We recognize the importance of this author and the vanguardism of her criticisms and proposals, but we seek to emphasize the need to revise some of her propositions, which are questioned by post-structuralist feminist theorizing, as well as to deepen and expand in her criticisms of the production of the knowledge. In the end, we argue that, although Gilligan is not a post-structuralist author, in her current thinking, she seems to be closer to post-structuralism today than she was in 1982, asserting her break with the modern paradigm of Science.