Carol Gilligan's care ethics and female moral maturity in the movie The second mother

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss the definition of care ethics from the perspective of Carol Gilligan’s moral theory, considering the character Val of the movie The second mother. Gilligan’s study of moral development revealed the existence of a permanent observational and evaluative prejudice in the construction of moral theories, turning invisible an alternative conception of maturity: care ethics, which expresses that the awareness of interpersonal connection gives rise to the acknowledgment of one’s responsibility with people around. The character Val, from the brazilian movie The second mother (2015), communicates this self of female moral experience: Val, a woman from Pernambuco, goes to São Paulo in search of a job, leaving behind her daughter, who stays in Pernambuco with the father. The permanent moral conflict behind the character is her self-condemnation because of the impossibility of caring for her daughter. Analyzes of the filmic discourse of The second mother often face the subjugation of the black woman in domestic jobs and the uneasiness caused by the later arrival of Val’s daughter in São Paulo, but the moral and psychological aspect of the situation is often overlooked, and that is the reason for the theme choosed here.