o develop separate perspectives of themselves and how they deal with the world at large.
Although the findings of these two women are limited, there is perhaps some validity to their research. A strong measure of the "truth" of various theories and postulations must surely be found in comparing their results with the time honored traditions of often repeated stories and tales. One large problem to consider when making such an analytical comparison, however, is that many of the older tales, such as those told by the Brothers Grimm, were written by males. As such, when discussing a gender specific theory, there is the difficulty of whether or not these tales have a particularly male bias. Despite a possible patriarchal bias, stories such as Hansel and Gretel do lend themselves to sociological comparisons.
According to Lyons, Gilligan (1977, 1982) first hypothesized that modes of moral judgment are gender oriented, She further establishes that those modes fall into two distinct pattern, with men following a "justice" approach, and women following a "care" approach. Gilligan then goes on to ruminate that these modes of judgment might be closely tied to the pattern in which people define themselves. Lyons (1983) attempts to empirically prove that Gilligan's hypotheses have validity. She does this by interviewing a 36 subjects ranging in age from eight to 60 plus years. By asking her subjects to discuss how and why they made certain moral choices in their lives, she ascertains that: a) the subjects differ in their moral viewpoints along gender lines, and attempts to
b) strengthen the notion that conceptions of self and of morality do have a relationship.
The "justice" approach cited by both women as being the chief consideration of males when faced with a moral dilemma, is defined by saying that "relationships of response are experienced in terms of reciprocity between separate individuals" (Lyons, 1983, p. 134). This h...