Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

THE SELF-ESTEEM STUDY 153better" school of feminism for lack of convincing evidence that womenare more "planet-saving . . . pacifistic, empathie or earth-loving." 53Even other feminist research psychologists have taken to criticizingGilligan's findings. Faye Crosby, a psychologist at Smith College, questionsGilligan's methodological approach:Gilligan referred throughout her book to the information obtainedin her studies, but did not present any tabulations. Indeed she neverquantified anything. The reader never learns anything about 136 ofthe 144 people from [one of her three studies], as only 8 are quotedin the book. One probably does not have to be a trained researcherto worry about this tactic. 54Martha Mednick, a Howard University psychologist, refers to a "spateof articles" that have challenged the validity of Gilligan's data. But sheacknowledges, "The belief in a 'different voice' persists; it appears to be asymbol for a cluster of widely held social beliefs that argue for women'sdifference, for reasons that are quite independent of scientific merit." 55Gilligan herself seems untouched by the criticism and shows little signof tempering her theories or her methods of research and reporting. Herrecent work on the "silenced voice" continues to use the same anecdotalmethod that Crosby and others have criticized. As Gilligan sees them,young girls are spontaneous, forthright, and truthful, only to be betrayedin adolescence by an acculturation, an acquired "patina of niceness andpiety" that diminishes their spirit, inducing in them a kind of "selfsilencing."56Christopher Lasch, one of Gilligan's sharper critics, argues that Gilligan'sidealized view of female children as noble, spontaneous, and naturallyvirtuous beings who are progressively spoiled by a corruptingsocialization has its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of education.Rousseau, however, sentimentalized boys as well as girls. Lasch insists thatboth Rousseau and Gilligan are wrong. In particular, real girls do notchange from a Rousseauian ideal of natural virtue to something moremuted, pious, conformist, and "nice." On the contrary, when researcherslook at junior high school girls without preconceptions they are oftenstruck by a glaring absence of niceness and piety, including the privilegedprivate schools Gilligan studied. Of Gilligan and her associates, Lasch says:They would have done better to remind themselves, on the strengthof their own evidence, that women are just as likely as men to