Describe and evaluate Gilligan's claim that Kohlberg's approach to moral development underestimates the moral maturity of females

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

According to Carol Gilligan, Kohlberg's theory—originally formulated on the basis of interviews with males—does not adequately represent the morality of girls and women. Gilligan believes that feminine morality emphasizes an "ethic of care" that Kohlberg's system devalues. Gilligan adds that a concern for others is a different but no less valid basis for moral judgment than a focus on impersonal rights.
Many studies have tested Gilligan's claim that Kohlberg's approach underestimates the moral maturity of females, and most do not support it. On hypothetical dilemmas, everyday moral problems, and the Sociomoral Reflection Measure–Short Form (SRM–SF), adolescent and adult females display reasoning at the same stage as their male counterparts and often at a higher stage. Themes of justice and caring appear in the responses of both sexes, and when girls do raise interpersonal concerns, they are not downgraded in Kohlberg's system. Rather, many studies report that girls shift from Stage 2 to Stage 3 reasoning earlier than boys. These findings suggest that although Kohlberg emphasized justice rather than caring as the highest of moral ideals, his theory taps both sets of values.
Nevertheless, some evidence indicates that although the morality of males and females includes both orientations, females do tend to stress care, or empathic perspective taking, whereas males either stress justice or focus equally on justice and care. This difference in emphasis, which appears more often in real-life than in hypothetical dilemmas, may reflect women's greater involvement in daily activities involving care and concern for others.