Gilligan notes that women overlap with men on which dimension?

• A. On the instrument used to measure moral development.
• B. All domains of morality.
• C. No overlap.
• D. Sexual morality.

Answer: (A)

Gilligan argues that how we measure moral development shapes what we observe about gender differences. The standard instrument used to assess moral development emphasizes justice-oriented reasoning. Because this tool is framed around that male-typical perspective, women’s care-based reasoning isn’t fully captured, so men and women tend to score similarly on the instrument. In other words, the overlap is in the measurement dimension—the instrument used to measure moral development. The other options don’t fit because the issue is not that there’s no overlap, nor that it applies to all domains of morality or to sexual morality; it’s that the assessment tool itself creates the observed overlap.