Feminist Ethics

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Feminist Ethics

• The Handmaids Duty

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Feminist Ethics

• First, what is Feminism?
• According to Brannigan, p.179, its original
  meaning and impetus is
• the long-standing history of control and
  dominance by men throughout the world, men who
  have not viewed women as their equals.
• This suggests that Feminism is a reaction to a
  proposed injustice against women by men.

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4 Kinds of Feminism

• Nina Rosenstand classifies four basic types of
  feminism
• Classical Feminism
• Difference Feminism
• Equity Feminism
• Radical Feminism

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Classical Feminism

• Classical feminism is characterized by focusing
  on the personhood of women, and their status as
  morally equal to men in that regard.
• There is a strong focus on distinguishing between
  biologically based differences between men and
  women, and socially constructed differences.

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Classical Feminism (continued)

• The usual or historical view of women as the
  weaker sex, attributed to anatomical and
  psychological differences, is rejected by
  arguments.
• Inability to excel in math and science
• Inability to compete in sports
• Inability to withstand physical hardship
• Inability to withstand psychological hardship
• Etc.
• These are all beliefs that classical feminists
  historically have argued against and rejected to
  one degree or another.

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Classical Feminism (continued)

• Brannigan, p. 184, classifies Simone de Beauvior
  as a classical feminist.
• De Beauvior was Jean-Paul Sartres close friend
  and developed her approach to feminism in light
  of his philosophical work in Being and
  Nothingness.
• In The Second Sex, she applies Sartres view that
  there is no such thing as human nature to her
  status as a woman, resulting in the view that
  womanliness is equally a construct of
  consciousness without being a necessary part of
  her identity.
• After considering women from a historical,
  psychoanalytical, biological, literary, mythical,
  and personal lens she concludes that women are
  treated as Other, as Alien, in a world defined,
  determined, and controlled by men.

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Difference Feminism

• In contrast to Classical Feminism, Difference
  Feminism asserts that despite the equal moral
  status of men and women as persons, there are
  genuine differences between the sexes and those
  differences need not all be considered equal.
• Carol Gilligan (1936 -), a Harvard psychologist,
  is the most prominent proponent of the view.

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Difference Feminism (continued)

• Gilligans book, In a Different Voice, argues
  that there are differences between how men and
  women, boys and girls, reason morally.
• Her work is a reaction to the work of her
  colleague, child psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg
  (1927-1987).
• Kohlberg conducted experiments by which he
  concluded that boys mature morally ahead of girls.

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Difference Feminism (continued)

• Kohlberg had identified six stages of moral
  development
• Stage of punishment and obedience
• Stage of individual instrumental purpose and
  exchange
• Stage of mutual interpersonal expectations,
  relationships, and conformity
• Stage of social system and consciousness
  maintenance
• Stage of prior rights and social contract
• Stage of universal ethical principles
• In responding to a scenario about whether to
  steal in order to secure a life-saving drug, boys
  typically appealed to principles (4 through 6),
  while girls asked why, instead of stealing, the
  person couldnt just explain his circumstances
  better and avoid having to steal (reasoning at
  stage 3).

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Difference Feminism (continued)

• Gilligan agrees that the experiment shows that
  boys and girls reason differently, but disagrees
  that boys reasoning is more morally mature.
• Brannigan represents Gilligans critique of
  Kohlbergs test as reflecting a 2 fold bias
• His position represents the enduring Western
  philosophical bias against the role of feelings
  and emotions since it assumes logical analysis
  and reasoning to be the most important faculty of
  the human psyche.
• His position clearly and unfairly affronts women
  on the premise that they are less apt to think in
  terms of reasoned rules or principles.

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Difference Feminism (continued)

• Gilligans emphasis and defense of feelings and
  emotions in moral decision making, an ethic of
  care in her terminology, is tempered by these
  concessions
• She does not assert that an ethic of care is
  superior to one grounded on appeal to rules and
  principles.
• She does not claim that womens approach is
  better than mens.
• She suggests they are both necessary and must be
  integrated for good moral reasoning.

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Equity Feminism

• Equity feminism is contrasted with gender
  feminists that pose men and women as enemies.
• In Who Stole Feminism? Christina Hoff Sommers
  suggests that now that women have achieved a
  significant level of social equality with men,
  they should get on with pursuing their talents
  and using the freedoms won by earlier feminists.
• Her article is a response to gender feminists who
  censured her for her comments regarding the scene
  in Gone With the Wind when Rhett Butler carries
  Scarlett OHara up the stairs. Gender feminists
  consider the scene a de facto endorsement of
  rape, while Sommers did not.

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Equity Feminism

• Sommers
• The presumption that men collectively are engaged
  in keeping women down invites feminist bonding in
  a resentful community, . . . American feminists
  are guided by women who believe what they call
  the male hegemony or the sex gender system, a
  misogynous culture that socializes women to be
  docile and submissive to the controlling gender.
• Sommers defends the original spirit of behind
  feminism, that of classical feminism.

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Radical Feminism

• Rather than meaning extreme feminism or gender
  feminism, radical feminism is simply an
  endorsement of equity feminism, with the caveat
  that while legal and some social equality has
  been achieved, there remains less obvious
  inequalities that need to be addressed.

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Radical Feminism (continued)

• Examples from Brannigan include
• Free sexual activity among men is condoned while
  it is not among women
• Mens careers are still assigned more importance
  than those of women
• Men are still paid better than women
• Womens sports are considered second-class
• Kids are showing interest in Ken and Barbie dolls
  again!

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Radical Feminism (continued)

• To further illustrate, Brannigan turns to the
  claim that standards of beauty are determined by
  men.
• Women still view themselves as persons needing
  to be attractive to men.
• Where in particular are these values expressed?
• The fashion industry
• The cosmetics industry
• Cosmetic surgeries such as breast augmentation
  are considered established by male values.

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Criticisms of Feminist Ethics

• Going back to the original impetus for a feminist
  ethics
• the long-standing history of control and
  dominance by men throughout the world, men who
  have not viewed women as their equals.
• Why blame men?
• Why not blame the necessary structure of social
  evolution(from hunter-gatherer to nomadic
  herders, to simple farming, to complex or
  intensive agricultural societies, etc.) and its
  necessary divisions of labor that perhaps
  required a certain childbearing, childrearing,
  and homemaking roles for women?
• Arent men placed in their roles by economic and
  social structure requirements as well?

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Criticisms of Feminist Ethics

• Brannigan renders Gilligans division of moral
  reasoning by gender as
• Women tend to consider the human dynamics within
  particular situations, whereas men tend to think
  more in terms of specific rules and principles.
• He points out that once we get specific in
  looking at a particular case, the differences
  seem to disappear.
• Focusing on the details in a human relationship
  is part of what any good Aristotelian would do,
  using the intellectual virtue of prudence to
  determine just what would constitute kindness or
  generosity in a particular case

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Criticisms of Feminist Ethics

• Similarly, even a Kantian realizes that the
  Categorical Imperatives first material
  formulation focuses on treating other persons as
  ends with intrinsic value, and never merely as a
  means or a tool.
• Does such reasoning really seem paradigmatically
  male?

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Further reading

• Nathan Nobis, Feminist Ethics Without Feminist
  Ethical Theory
• http//homepage.uab.edu/nnobis/papers/feminist-eth
  ics.pdf
• Stanfords Encyclopedia Article on Feminist
  Ethics
• http//plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/