Gilligan responded to her critics in a 1986 issue of the feminist journal Signs. "The title of my book was deliberate," she wrote. "It reads 'in a different voice,' not 'in a woman's voice."'

In response to the accusation that her samples were not scientifically representative, she wrote, "To say that social class and education contribute to moral development while experiences typically associated with gender are essentially irrelevant may say more about the way development is being measured than it does about morality or gender."

Mentor and Friend

Those who work with Gilligan look to her as a mentor and friend and see her work as an essential and personal mission.

"What Carol's work is about is my life," says Debold. "She is someone I care deeply about and who has affected my life profoundly."

Dana Jack, a School of Education graduate who studied with Gilligan, is now a professor at Fairhaven College in Washington. "Carol has been wonderful about working with me and pulling me into colleagueship," Jack says.

Her students are, however, at pains to deny any kind of "cultish" atmosphere. "I think a lot of people think the approach is Carol," says Debold. "It is not synonymous with her."

The Project on the Psychology of Women and Girls is currently involved in several research projects intended to broaden and strengthen Gilligan's earlier findings.

There is a Boston-area Writing, Theater and Outing Club designed to help girls learn to "resist" society's pressures and retain their own voices. Other ongoing studies include one dealing with "girls at risk" in an urban public school and an effort to "explore the connection between women and girls" through a series of workshops and seminars.

Gilligan's message to college-aged women is to "listen" for the voices of the girls within them and make an effort to "change the existing order" which may have repressed that voice.

"It you want to sustain women's voices, you get involved in social change," she says. "We need to reaffirm one another's reality."