Gilligan’s Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic

After reading all of the required chapters from Violence, read your assigned chapter two more times
to be sure that you really understand it. As you reread the material, you may want to write notes in
the margin of your book or on notecards to help you focus on the key points of your summary.
Read the chapters from They Say, I Say—Part One to review the basic techniques of starting with
what others are saying, summarizing their views, and quoting (or paraphrasing) from them.
When you write the summary part of your essay, you should be sure that it is complete (it covers all
of the important points in the chapter), accurate (it reports Gilligan’s ideas clearly and correctly), and
unbiased (it does not distort Gilligan’s ideas).
To help you focus on your chapter, you might want to consider the following broad topics as you
work on your summary. These lists are not meant to be all-inclusive but to give you some guideposts
as you read and write about your chapter. They will also provide the entire class with a useful index
of topics in Violence; you will find this index helpful as you work on your later assignments.
Prologue (violence and justice, violence and tragedy, causes and prevention of violence, violence and
men, similarity between crime and punishment, violence and family history)
Chapter 1 (the living dead in relation to murder, mutilation, suicide, and the death penalty)
Chapter 2 (violence and love, violence and shame, the death of the self, psychological violence, relief
from pain by seeking change, inability to feel and the desire to hurt self/others, murder and love)
Chapter 3 (the logic of shame, Nazism and shame, shame and eyes/tongues, murder and paranoia,
language and violence, murder and self-esteem)
Chapter 4 (moral theory of violence, rational self-interest theory of violence, violence and
shame/honor, violence as public health problem, violence and criminology, violence and psychiatry)
Chapter 5 (public health approach to violence, shame as cause of violence, preconditions for
violence, violence and the return of a repressed need for love, shame and desire to return to prison,
violence and desire to be cared for, violence and its seemingly trivial causes)
Chapter 8 (structural vs. behavioral violence, violence of poverty, poverty and shame, racial
discrimination and shame, class and shame, deprivation and shame)
Chapter 9 (violence in relation to instinct, heredity, brain lesions, drugs and alcohol, age and sex)
Chapter 10 (rate of violence in welfare states, Christian communism, gendered shame and violence,
guilt ethics vs. shame ethics, shame-guilt and love, Gilligan’s solution for reducing violence in society)
Assessment (at least 500 words)
Read the chapters from They Say, I Say—Part Two to review the basic techniques of responding,
clarifying perspectives, and using a naysayer.
When you write your assessment of your assigned chapter, you should apply these techniques to
your reading of Gilligan’s work. Be sure that you go beyond saying that you agree or disagree with
Gilligan by explaining why you have taken a particular position. What are your reasons for your
response? What additional information or experience might you offer to support your position?