I would suggest that a holding environment might be critical to the creation of a collaborative culture. To what extent, are women as leaders more likely than men to provide the container for organizational anxiety? Are women more likely to hold the anxiety of their organization until it can be transformed and shared with other members of the organizations? Do they hold the tensions of the organization until these tensions can be effectively addressed by others in the organization? At a personal level, we might even ask a question about Carol Gilligan’s relationship with Lawrence Kohlberg. To what extent has Carol Gilligan provided a container for Lawrence Kohlberg’s anxiety that may arose when the acceptance of his model was declining? Did Gilligan shift from being the student and mentee to being the empathetic colleague?
Riane Eisler (1987) identifies this same holding function when she writes about women providing the chalice of support rather than the challenge of a blade (a strategy more commonly found among men). Eisler sketches out a history of feminine leadership to be found in many cultures and points to the holding environment (chalice) established by these women. Her historical analysis is quite convincing. However, I do have some concerns regarding what Eisler has written. While the female leader plays a critical role in providing this chalice to contain the anxiety of her followers, I can’t help but wonder about the psychological costs associated with holding the anxiety for other people. Does this lead to psychological (or physical) burn-out among women (and men) who are the containers? Does Carol Gilligan carry a burden regarding her own promoting of a challenging perspective while retaining her relationship with Lawrence Kohlberg?
The Human Voice
Multiple insights offered by Carol Gilligan and others who have contributed to the feminist epistemological revolution. We have found that women tend to think and know as contextualists and have identified the role played by women as containers of anxiety. Then along comes Carol Gilligan once again to disrupt things. In this case, she is challenging her own model and analyses. She has recently written about a human voice that transcends all gender and cultural boundaries (Gilligan, 2023). It is no longer a matter of gender; rather it is a matter of the way power is distributed in a society. It seems that Carol Gilligan has not only confronted Lawrence Kohlberg—she has also confronted the earlier Carol Gilligan!
Perhaps the key to Carol Gilligan’s continuing relationship with and support of the work done by Lawrence Kohlberg is her sustained openness to new information and new ideas—even if they counter what she herself has proposed at an earlier time in her career. Does she insist on not remaining silent about lingering concerns regarding her own work? Is her sustained relationship with Kohlberg based on an underlying belief that she needs to remain always vigilant about the disconfirmation of any theory—including her own? Isn’t this ultimately the perspective to be held by any “true” scientist?
It is in Carol Gilligan’s recent book called In a Human Voice (Gilligan, 2023) that we find her display of openness and an accompanying candor regarding her own shifting perspectives on the nature of moral reasoning and epistemology as related to gender. This shift is based in part on a study she conducted with Jane Attanucci that focused on the moral orientation of medical students. Here is her account (Gilligan, 2023, p. 9):
