Shame, Gender and Radical Listening: Carol Gilligan in Conversation with Roman Gerodimos

Home Interdisciplinary Applications of Shame/Violence Theory Chapter Shame, Gender and Radical Listening: Carol Gilligan in Conversation with Roman Gerodimos Carol Gilligan & Roman Gerodimos Chapter First Online: 24 August 2022 217 Accesses Abstract In this conversation, Carol Gilligan reflects on the role of gender in the shame/violence cycle and explains the value of radical listening in helping to identify shame as embedded in language. We revisit Gilligan’s paradigm-shifting work, In a Different Voice, exploring the reasons it became so influential and considering whether a similar ground-breaking approach might be needed today in the context of continuing racial injustice and oppression. We then focus on the relationship between shame and gender. Gilligan reflects on the links between patriarchy and the culture of aggression, between shamed masculinity and violence; and how the gender binary, as well as framing female desire and sexuality as shameful, perpetuates these structures of oppression. We identify the challenge of taking on that culture of violence and aggression while avoiding perpetuating the cycle of shame/violence by further shaming masculinity. The third part of our conversation focuses on Gilligan’s work on radical listening and how that can be a valuable tool in helping us identify shame in language. This is done by listening for different layers of voices—things and subjects that are omitted or avoided, as much as those that are articulated—and how even those voices may be gendered. We conclude by reflecting on the radical potential of interdisciplinary research, the associative logic of art and creativity, and how questions of method are ultimately political.