Carol GilliganEvery podcast appearance, updated as new ones drop

Carol Gilligan, professor at New York University, received the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, specifically in the field of Thought and Ethics, for pioneering a new horizon for the “ethic of care” while pointing out the distortions and limitations of conventional psychological theories pertaining to women’s thoughts and behaviors. By offering research-based insights into women’s moral reasoning, especially in contrast to men’s moral reasoning, Gilligan showed how women are more likely than men to prioritize human connections and seek solutions that preserve relationships. She called this relationship-oriented reasoning the “ethic of care” and contrasted it with the “ethic of justice,” which often entails imposing universal principles or rights, even forcefully, to resolve conflict. Gilligan does not merely contrast these differently positioned ethical frameworks; rather her life work has been deeply concerned with an enmeshment of the two for a more fully realized understanding of human maturity and development. Her work offers a new academic foundation for addressing global societal challenges like women’s empowerment and the welfare of the elderly and disabled. Series: "Kyoto Prize Symposium" [Humanities] [Show ID: 41118]

This week on the ReRooted Podcast, Francesca is joined by psychologist Carol Gilligan for a conversation around how our identity, development, and relationships are impacted by systematic inequality. Carol Gilligan is an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist best known for her work on ethical community and ethical relationships, and certain subject-object problems in ethics. She is a professor at New York University and a visiting professor at the University of Cambridge. She is teaching as a visiting professor at New York University, Abu Dhabi. Carol is best known for her 1982 work, In a Different Voice, and has been credited with inspiring the passage of the 1994 Gender Equity in Education Act. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

We live in an age of extremes. We talk about it every day with respect to the economic divide, the political divide, the racial divide, and the gender divide. Particularly with respect to gender, how can we explain the election of the most patriarchal President ever, in an era of me too? A President whose election was supported by the majority of white women who voted. Today, in our politics, we devote a great deal of attention to how we can address the economic divide. Think tanks and candidates pursue it endlessly. Pundits and political scientists opine daily, almost hourly, on this socio-political divide. But what is the nexus of all of this to the gender divide? How can we reconcile the seemly successful attacks on patriarchy on the one hand, and it’s powerful persistence on the other? It's a kind of cognitive dissonance that takes a great thinker about these subjects to try and understand and address. That's what Carol Gilligan does in her new book Why Does Patriarchy Persist? My conversation with Carol Gilligan:

In September I met up with Carol Gilligan at Polity‘s offices in Cambridge to record this two-part interview in which she talked about her childhood, writing her landmark study In a Different Voice (1982), her most recent book Joining the Resistance, and her thoughts on what has been achieved in the three decades since In a Different Voice appeared. She also talks about what remains to be done to achieve a post-patriarchal world in which individuals’ voices are both heard and respected. “I am a woman who listens,” Carol writes in her new book. That is certainly true. She is also a woman who speaks eloquently and passionately about the ideas that animate her, often linking them in to her own life experiences. To listen to part 1 of the interview, click here. And for part 2, click here.