Carol Gilligan’s
Woman’s Place in Man’s life Cycle
What are the differences between men and women in terms of the way they regard relationships?
According to Gilligan, “ male gender identity is threatened by intimacy while female gender identity is threatened by separation. Thus males tend to have difficulty with relationships, while females tend to have problems with individualism”(Gilligan 804). Through this is can be understood that men from the beginning want to be separated from their mothers, while women like to hold on the their mothers and form a bond. This idea supports why men are threatened by a relationship with a woman because since they were young they used the idea of separation towards women. According to Erikson, identity is related to how someone deals with a relationship. Women hold their identity though the man they attract then through the man they marry, “while for men, identity precedes intimacy and generativity in the optimal cycle of human separation and attachment, for women these tasks seem infused” (Gilligan 807). Erikson’s idea is that women show their identity thought their relationship with others, while men show theirs through they individualism. “Chodorow argues that the existence of the sex differs in the early experiences of the individual and the relationship “does not mean that women have ‘weaker’ ego boundaries than men or are more prone to psychosis.” It means that instead “girls emerge from this period with a bias or ‘empathy’ built into their primary definition of self in a way that boys do not””(Gilligan 803). With this value of empathy women tend to become attached for people and items, where as men have an easier time breaking away and being an individual.

Works Cited
Gilligan, Carol. “Woman’s Place in Man’s life Cycle.” A World of Ideas: Essential Reading for College Writers. Ed. Lee A Jacobus.7th Ed. New York; Bedford St. Martins, 2006. Pp 801-817.