2008 Woodie Awards
Author addresses issues of freedom and silent voices in semester's final Chautauqua lecture
Ben Kleppinger
Issue date: 11/13/08 Section: Online Exclusive
Students filled O'Donnell auditorium Thursday night to hear from one of the pioneers of women and gender studies. Any student who has taken a women's studies class at Eastern has probably read about her work. In the last Chautauqua lecture of the semester, Dr. Carol Gilligan spoke to students about her groundbreaking book, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development.
Gilligan is a recipient of the 1992 Grawemeyer Award in Education. She was also named on of Time magazine's 25 most influential people in 1996. In 1997, Gilligan won the Heinz award for her work in human development and for challenging the previous assumptions about what it means to be human.
"Freedom is the beacon of American society," Gilligan said. "To understand the constraints on freedom, you have to understand the larger social and cultural framework we live in and the inner constraints we impose on ourselves."
Her book focuses on the process of freeing a voice that is constrained because it sounds different for what we think is normal and what we are used to.
The voice Gilligan refers to is the voice people have when they are younger. It's the honest voice that has not been altered or inhibited by what society has taught us to say and think.
"What I discovered was that it was an original voice," Gilligan said. "In the sense of bringing something new into the human conversation."
When learning about the women's voices Gilligan asked four important questions: who is speaking, in what body, telling what story, and in what cultural framework is the story presented.
Her research shifted from focusing on how to get the voice back to how that voice was lost and why was it constrained.
Gilligan is currently teaching a listening seminar at New York University. In this class students learn to ask a real question to help discover their voice.
"A real question is a question that you really have. Something that you want to know and you don't know." Gilligan said. "This question leads students to do battle often with their education which has often taught them to ask good questions, or important questions, or the right question."
Gilligan said her research found that people often hide their original voice behind a different, less authentic one that they believe sounds smarter, more important or has more authority.
Her research on the topic found girls around age 11 started answering "I don't know" to questions they had answered a year earlier. The girls in the study thought their answers from before were stupid. Gilligan called this the process of initiation where the honest and original voice is lost.
"Boys that are 4 and 5 years old read the world remarkably well," Gilligan said. "They read emotions, including emotions that are being withheld." In a study of boys this age, Gilligan said boys begin to label their original voice as vulnerable and compromises their sense of masculinity.
"We know a lot by now about how to silence a voice," Gilligan said. "But I have a sense of great optimism at the present moment because I think we have come to know how to free a voice and how it comes to be constrained."
"I thought it was brilliant," said Savannah Marlow, an English literature major from Richmond. "I thought she made some really powerful points. I think it's interesting that the women's voice is suppressed later. It makes a lot of sense that you have the two voices of what you think and what you really think."
Gilligan's new book, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future, will be available in early 2009.
Gilligan is a recipient of the 1992 Grawemeyer Award in Education. She was also named on of Time magazine's 25 most influential people in 1996. In 1997, Gilligan won the Heinz award for her work in human development and for challenging the previous assumptions about what it means to be human.
"Freedom is the beacon of American society," Gilligan said. "To understand the constraints on freedom, you have to understand the larger social and cultural framework we live in and the inner constraints we impose on ourselves."
Her book focuses on the process of freeing a voice that is constrained because it sounds different for what we think is normal and what we are used to.
The voice Gilligan refers to is the voice people have when they are younger. It's the honest voice that has not been altered or inhibited by what society has taught us to say and think.
"What I discovered was that it was an original voice," Gilligan said. "In the sense of bringing something new into the human conversation."
When learning about the women's voices Gilligan asked four important questions: who is speaking, in what body, telling what story, and in what cultural framework is the story presented.
Her research shifted from focusing on how to get the voice back to how that voice was lost and why was it constrained.
Gilligan is currently teaching a listening seminar at New York University. In this class students learn to ask a real question to help discover their voice.
"A real question is a question that you really have. Something that you want to know and you don't know." Gilligan said. "This question leads students to do battle often with their education which has often taught them to ask good questions, or important questions, or the right question."
Gilligan said her research found that people often hide their original voice behind a different, less authentic one that they believe sounds smarter, more important or has more authority.
Her research on the topic found girls around age 11 started answering "I don't know" to questions they had answered a year earlier. The girls in the study thought their answers from before were stupid. Gilligan called this the process of initiation where the honest and original voice is lost.
"Boys that are 4 and 5 years old read the world remarkably well," Gilligan said. "They read emotions, including emotions that are being withheld." In a study of boys this age, Gilligan said boys begin to label their original voice as vulnerable and compromises their sense of masculinity.
"We know a lot by now about how to silence a voice," Gilligan said. "But I have a sense of great optimism at the present moment because I think we have come to know how to free a voice and how it comes to be constrained."
"I thought it was brilliant," said Savannah Marlow, an English literature major from Richmond. "I thought she made some really powerful points. I think it's interesting that the women's voice is suppressed later. It makes a lot of sense that you have the two voices of what you think and what you really think."
Gilligan's new book, The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future, will be available in early 2009.
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