On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Is there really a difference in moral development between the sexes?
>
OK, it's two in a row for me but our system is shutting down later
today for the week-end, so I'm allowed to get my say in now.
Dear mysterious JHe:
I think it was Freud who first made the claim. Finding that his
ridiculous theory of moral development didn't make sense for women
(because it requires that the child fear that his penis will be cut
off, leading to development of the superego, and girls might have a
little difficulty in fearing _ that_), one might have expected him to
abandon his theory. He didn't. Instead, he claimed that women have an
inferior superego and therefore inferior moral sense [have a great
quote from him on that, but unfortunately at school] and his
outrageous theory was just fine, thank you.
I believe the idea was revived by Carol Gilligan, who gave it a
feminist slant. She argued that women and men have a different kind of
morality. For women, it was something she called a morality of caring,
for men, it was a morality of justice. As tests of moral standards
were biased towards a morality of justice, it was no wonder that women
scored lower on them. The only trouble was--they didn't.
I believe that Gilligan's theory has consequently been fully
discredited [references at school, on request].
BTW, welcome to the list or at least to non-lurker status. It's
customary for posters on this list to identify themselves in some way
through a signature file (see mine below) or at least through a line
added after their name. It's also friendlier if we have a name to
respond to.
As one of my concerns is the difficulty people have in finding out
about TIPS, I'd be curious to know how you discovered it.
-Stephen
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Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lennoxville, QC
J1M 1Z7
Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
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