FEMINIST ETHICS

9th February, 2022 Mains

In the recent past Indian women Economists Isher Ahluwalia and Devaki Jain described how they made their way in a discipline and a world dominated by men.

Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics which regards that traditionally ethical theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-dominated.
Therefore, it chooses to re-imagine ethics through a holistic feminist approach to transform it.

Feminist philosophers critique traditional ethics as pre-eminently focusing on men's perspective with little regard for women's viewpoints. (example - From Aristotle to Plato to Kant)
Caring and the moral issues of private life and family responsibilities were traditionally regarded as trivial matters.
Generally, women are portrayed as ethically immature and shallow in comparison to men.
Traditional ethics prizes masculine cultural traits like "independence, autonomy, intellect, will, wariness, hierarchy, domination, culture, transcendence, product, asceticism, war, and death."
And it gives less weight to culturally feminine traits like "interdependence, community, connection, sharing, emotion, body, trust, absence of hierarchy, nature, immanence, process, joy, peace, and life."
Traditional ethics has a "male" orientated convention in which moral reasoning is viewed through a framework of rules, rights, universality, and impartiality and becomes the standard of a society.

Feminist ethics developed from Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Vindication of the Rights of Women' published in 1792.
With the new ideas from the Enlightenment, individual feminists being able to travel more than ever before, generating more opportunities for the exchange of ideas and advancement of women's rights.
With new social movements developed unprecedented optimistic outlook on human capacity and destiny.
This optimism was reflected in John Stuart Mill's essay The Subjection of Women (1869).
Feminist approaches to ethics, were further developed around this period by other notable people like Catherine Beecher, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton with an emphasis on the gendered nature of morality, specifically related to 'women's morality'.

Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings are exponents of a feminist care ethics which criticize traditional ethics as deficient to the degree they lack, disregard, trivialize or attack women's cultural values and virtues.

Feminism is often considered as synonymous to misandry, male bashing, sexism, and female superiority.
Men cannot be Feminists.
Giving women equal rights will be = Men giving up their own rights.
Special Privileges to women are against what Feminism preaches.
Feminism is against institutions like marriage.

Feminism is a range of social movements, political movements, and ideologies by both men and women that aim to define and establish the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.
Feminist movements campaign for women's rights, including the right to: vote, hold public office, work, earn equal pay, own property, receive education, enter contracts, have equal rights within marriage, protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.

Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism: It is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality within the framework of liberal democracy and through political and legal reform.
Socialist feminism: It rose in the 1960s and 1970s as an offshoot of the feminist movement that focuses upon the interconnectivity of the patriarchy and capitalism. Socialist feminists argue that liberation can only be achieved by working to end both the economic and cultural sources of women's oppression.
Radical Feminism: Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts.

India recorded an average of 87 rape cases daily in 2019.
According to the latest NCRB report, 2019 saw over 4 lakh reported cases of crimes committed against women.
Nearly 4.6 crore females are 'missing' in Indian demography in the year 2020, mainly due to pre and post-birth sex selection practices stemming from son preference and gender inequality- United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Report.
India accounts for almost one-third (32.1 per cent) of the total 142.6 million missing females in the world and is the second highest contributor after China.
India's female Labour Force Participation Rate (LFPR)— fell to a historic low of 23.3% in 2017-18.
40% of Indians who graduate in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines are women.
But women constitute merely 14% of scientists, engineers and technologists in research development institutions in India, according to the United Nations. Reasons: Giving up of higher studies due to marriage pressure, economic dependence, patriarchal society etc.
Misogynistic mind-set of even People’s Representatives:

Examples:

Boys will be boys: In 2014, Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav opposed capital punishment for rape, saying "ladke ladke hain, galti ho jati hai (boys will be boys, mistakes can be made)."
'Will ask my boys to go and rape CPM women’: Trinamool Congress MP Tapas Pal in live video.
Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina has zero tolerance toward terrorism," "despite being a woman": PM Modi.

For the development of an inclusive consensus view in the discipline of Ethics
to push towards gender equality with men together is the goal of feminist ethics.
for transformation of societies and situations where women are harmed through violence, subordination and exclusion.
To focus on gender relations in war torn societies which remain difficult to appear relevant in the mainstream discussions of ethics in international relations.
“to understand, criticize, and correct” how gender operates within our moral beliefs and practices (Lindemann 2005, 11) and our methodological approaches to ethical theories.

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime.
Resolving such questions of morality without the proper inclusion of women’s perspectives and theories in the discipline will never lead to the correct evolution of the Ethics or Moral values.

As Swami Vivekananda said,- “ It’s not possible for a bird to fly on one wing”

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