Joining the Resistance (PDF)

Since the publication of her landmark book In a Different Voice,
Carol Gilligan has transformed the way we think about women and men
and the relations between them. It was 'the little book that
started a revolution', and with more than 800,000 copies in
print it has become one of the most widely read and influential
books ever written on gender and human development.

In her new book Joining the Resistance Carol Gilligan
reflects on the evolution of her thinking and shows how her key
ideas were interwoven with her own life experiences. Her work began
with the question of voice: who is speaking to whom, in what body,
telling what stories about which relationships? By listening
carefully she heard a voice that had been held in silence, and in
the process realized the extent to which we - both women and
men - had been telling false stories about ourselves.

In her subsequent work Gilligan found that adolescent girls
resisted pressures to disengage themselves from their honest
voices, and by joining their resistance she opened the way for the
development of a more humane way of thinking about personal and
political relationships. For the central conviction of her work
today - and the central thesis of this book - is that
the requisites for love and the requisites for citizenship in a
democratic society are one and the same. Both voice and the desire
to live in relationships inherent in our human nature, together
with the capacity to resist false authority.

Combining autobiographical reflection with an analysis of key
questions about gender and human development, this timely and
highly readable book by one of America's greatest
contemporary thinkers will appeal to a wide readership.