If there is such a thing as a current classic, this text is one of them. Gilligan's book is a complaint against the male centered personality psychology of Freud and Erickson, and the male centered developmental psychology of Kohlberg. Her complaint is not that it is unjust to leave women out of psychology (though she says that). Her complaint is that it is not good psychology if it leaves out half of the human race.
Gilligan proposes a stage theory of moral development for women. If you know anything about developmental psychology, you know stage theories are important. But in fact there are alternatives to stage theories that we will not cover in this class. Much of the research in current developmental psychology is not focused on stages, and does not assume their primacy in explaining developmental progress. Instead, many developmental psychologists look carefully at how some particular skill (e.g. drawing, abstract thinking, thinking about other people, making excuses, helping others) develops over time. Much of this research suggests that the stage theories are too simplistic in their picture of changes in skills, attributes, and competencies over time.