Feminist Ethics Care Ethics Nursing Ethics

1
Feminist Ethics / Care Ethics / Nursing Ethics

• Rels 300 / Nurs 330
• 18 sep 2008

2
Feminist Ethics

• Feminist ethics values women and resists
  oppression or domination
• When men dominate women because of their gender,
  that is patriarchy rule of the fathers
• Feminist ethics affirms that women are as
  valuable and capable as men
• Both men and women should be treated as equals
• Neither should oppress or dominate the other
• Both are deserving of justice rather than
  discrimination or privilege

3
Social Justice

• The subordination of women is morally wrong and
  harms both women and men.
• Feminist ethics began with this gender focus for
  understanding oppression
• Who else is oppressed in our society?
• Minority status? Give examples.
• Economic status? Who, in particular?
• Which children are most at risk in their
  development and health?

4
Must nurses be feminists?

• Selections from Nursing World (online at
  www.nursingworld.org)
• Fundamental commitment to addressing oppression
• Social determinants of health social activism
  of nurses
• Are nurses feminists?

5
CARE ETHICS

• a form of virtue ethics with some aspects of
  feminist ethics
• emerged from Carol Gilligans study of moral
  development of women
• http//www.webster.edu/woolflm/gilligan.html
• This ethic . . . evolves around a central
  insight, that self and other are interdependent
• emphasis on personal relationships and
  responsibilities to care for others
• Adopted by many as primary moral theory in
  nursing practice

6
Care Ethics (contd)

• moral obligations arise out of our relationships
  with others and our mutual duties of caring
• caring being attentive to the needs of others
• respect sustained attention and response to
  needs of patients their families

7
Care Ethics (contd)

• critics say that care ethics colludes in the
  identification of nurturing and self-sacrifice
  with care by women
• women socially conditioned to nurture
  self-sacrifice in caring for children, partners,
  elderly parents, etc. in our society
• also can be co-opted into sustaining patterns of
  male domination and female subordination
• A care ethic based on female gender stereotypes
  can perpetuate injustice, even if the nurse is
  male HOW?

8
Helen Allan,  Verena Tschudin,  Khim
Horton. (2008). The Devaluation of Nursing a
Position Statement. Nursing Ethics, 15(4), 549-56.
 

• The indications from both studies drawn on in
  this article are that nurses feel themselves
  devalued socially, and that, globally, nursing is
  not given the same status as other, socially more
  prestigious professions, such as medicine.

9
NURSING ETHICS

• foundational commitment to an ethic of care and
  sustained attention to the needs of patients
• amplified by commitment to justice and principled
  moral judgements
• evident in nurturing, empathic care active
  participation in health care team
  decision-making and patient advocacy

10
Fundamental Moral Commitments

• of care ethics
• Avoid harm
• Respond to need respond to vulnerability
• Maintain caring relations
• Promote fairness and equity

11
Linus Vanlaere,  Chris Gastmans. (2007). Ethics
in Nursing Education Learning To Reflect On Care
Practices. Nursing Ethics, 14(6), 758-66

• The essence of nursing is the precise integration
  of expert activity (knowledge and skills) and
  caring (virtue) nursing can therefore be
  considered to be a moral practice.

12
S. Van Hooft the virtuous disposition of care

• Caring requires an attitude of empathy towards
  patients. Caring nurses are able to put
  themselves in the patients situation of pain and
  suffering to such an extent that they can
  perceive accurately the patients care needs . .
  . caring always entails an attitude of
  involvement, mediated by practices of care.
  Caring nurses are those who are involved with the
  needs of patients and commit themselves to meet
  those needs professionally.

13
Case Study