After reading Carol Gilligan’s A Woman’s Place In Man’s Life Cycle, I got the impression that she had a different viewpoint on feminism than the other writers in this section. She to wrote about the way women are mistreated in society, but she didn’t really suggest a solution to stop it from continuing. She talked about how even at an early age men are encouraged to be more independent and self-reliant, while women are urged to develop relationships with others that they can depend on. Then, later on in life, those same women tend to resort back to those same tendencies and become unable to take care of themselves. Honestly, I tend to agree with Gilligan in the sense that if a girl was raised from an early age to be self-reliant, then she would grow up to be a strong, independent woman.
Another issue Gilligan brought up that caught my attention was when she began talking about how women are usually close to their mothers throughout their lives, while men usually try to break away. She then foolishly tried to tie that in with the assumption that men aren’t usually good with relationships; however, I beg to differ. I think every situation is different when it comes to relationships, and by no means does a man’s relationship with his mother OUTRIGHT determine how he’ll fair in relationships with other women. That alone is a stereotype about men; while it may be true in some cases, it definitely isn’t in ALL. Although Gilligan’s writing was confusing at times, she definitely made some very good, valid points.
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4 comments:
I agree, not everyone will fit into one category. I think it was more of a generalized idea and that there are exceptions to it.
I liked your opinions about Gilligan's essay, but I do not neccessarily agree with them. When Gilligan stated that men are independent from their mothers and start to pull away at a young age, and then this affects their relationships latter on... she was just saying "overall." These were that statistics, the general, big, overall picture. This is USUALLY what she found...not in everycase though. So when you took offense to that, just know that she was not reffering to every man. YOU may be different, and probably are, and thats good. But I agree with Gilligan and all the research she did and found... because facts are hard to ignore.
The reading is certainly making some stereotypes and I'm glad you took the time to point them out in your blog. The reading certainly had some interesting ideas but nothing really to fix any of todays current issues.
I like what you said about a man's relationship with his mother and that of his spouse or soulmate, he will treat each differently a man can easily understand his mother because she does not want much from him but a woman not a mother wants a man to understand her and her needs.
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