Healing Women by Masculinizing Them: The Hidden Project of Modern Psychology?

This article evaluates Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (1982/1993) as a structural critique directed at the epistemological foundations of developmental psychology. The central argument advanced here is that Gilligan’s intervention is not merely an empirical contribution concerning gender differences; rather, it constitutes a theoretical rupture that exposes the normative model of the human subject underlying modern psychology’s claim to universality. In particular, within the framework of Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development, justice-centered rationality has been accepted as the universal norm of development, while relational, contextual, and care-based forms of reasoning have been developmentally subordinated. This article discusses Gilligan’s critique in dialogue with Freudian and Eriksonian developmental paradigms, feminist epistemology, care ethics, and contemporary moral psychology literature. Finally, it analyzes the theoretical and practical implications of suspending the normative conception of development.