A 4 page essay that, first of all, briefly discusses the main points to Carol Gilligan's position in "Woman's place in Man's life cycle." Then, the writer relates how Euripides' Medea and the movie Mean Girls both substantiates Gilligan's points and refutes them. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
Name of Research Paper File: D0_khfmdgil.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the human life cycle, are "human constructions," showing how psychologists have adopted the "male life as the norm," which caused them to fashion their understanding of women "out of masculine
cloth" (Gilligan 6). After describing how the early childhood experiences of males and females differ in regards to gender identification, Gilligan, agreeing with Chodorow, argues that the fact that girls
do not have to separate emotionally or psychologically from their primary caregiver, their mothers, in order to achieve gender identity does not mean that women have "weaker" ego boundaries than
men (as postulated by Freud) or that they are "more prone to psychosis" (Gilligan 8). Rather, it means that girls emerge from childhood with a foundation for "empathy built into
their primary definition of self in a way that boys do not" (Gilligan 8). This estimation of female psychological development differs markedly from the way in which girls and women
have frequently been portrayed. The following examination of the film Mean Girls and Medea by Euripedes both substantiates and repudiates Gilligans findings concerning female psychological orientation. Mean Girls is
a film that addresses the modern social world of high school and its protagonist, Cady, is a sixteen-year-old who was home-schooled while her parents were living in Africa. Innocent
and sweet, she becomes increasingly corrupted by her exposure to "the Plastics," which refers to the clique of the three most popular girls in school due to their similarity
to Barbie dolls in appearance. The film substantiates Gilligans premise in the way that Cady is eventually able to relate back to her roots and her upbringing in Africa and
realize that she liked being the old, caring Cady, rather than the new popular, hard-hearted "mean girl" that she has become. It refutes Gilligans thesis in the way that Cady