Reading/viewing (webpage with video):
Laura D’Olimpio, The Ethics of Care (2019)
https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-ethics-of-care/
In this article, D’Olimpio discusses traditional male centric moral theories and its relation to the feminist approach to ethics. She cites Kant and Bentham as theorists discussing the role of morality in decision making, requiring the decision maker to be detached from their emotional state. D’Olimpio then explains that feminist ethics does not see opposition between reason and emotions, and that moral decision making is influenced by relationships with the people they know, or to those who are powerless. Thus, the moral decision making is done by one who is ‘caring’.
The video on the website discusses feminist ethics from their origin, investigating Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (1982) publication, which looked at how men and women’s ways of analysing and resolving dilemmas. The video compared Gilligan’s work to Lawrence Kohlberg, who studied men’s moral development, describing the moral journey as separate from others. Gilligan argued that moral development was indicated by morals connected to responsibility and care, and the goals of moral development is to maintain connected to others. The video continues on, commenting on Nel Nodding’s similar view of ethical theories. She argued that these theories were too male-centric by focusing on law, justice and reason (thought to be inherently male values) and not focused enough on feminine values such as empathy and responsiveness. Justice, Nodding stated, was an extension of caring.
Feminist/Care ethics see the difference in male and female ethical and moral decision making, and sees how females can engage with decision-making due to the benefit of empathy. However, care ethics have been criticised for being too female-biased, highlighting differences between men and women rather than basing ethics on a universal human being.
The video summarises feminist ethics. It’s about listening attentively, and free from bias and stereotyping. Feminist ethics are about understanding problems faced by women, such as power inequalities and oppression, and wanting to solve them.
Back in the article, D’Olimpio considers the ‘Heinz’ dilemma: should someone, a ‘moral agent’, steal medicine for their sick wife if they can’t afford to buy it, or abide by the ‘do not steal’ rule? She then continues by considering the reasoning from a caring perspective – ethical caring. Noddings sees children as naturally caring and states this is necessary for ethical caring. Noddings sees relations between specific sets of people as a basis for ethical behaviour, rather than following an arbitrary set of moral codes.
D’Olimpio summarises the piece by discussing stereotyping in caring roles and considers the feminist criticisms that link women to caring roles (education, nursing), perpetuating the stereotype.
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Viewing (online lecture):
Lindsay Jordan, Love and Belonging in the Educational Realm (2020)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwsS6XEnqds&feature=youtu.be
Introduction
- Recognition of those on the margins of society
- Considering the purpose of education in an uncertain world
- Duty to respond to our students that are in our shared space
- Duty of care for maintaining connections
Anna Julia Cooper - Anna Julia Cooper, 1858-1964. Sociologist. Victorian Feminist
- ‘Belonging’ is a major theme in her work. She celebrates that she belongs in her chosen field of work. However, she doesn’t strive for it.
- Wrote A Voice From the South (1892) – She theorises a sense of belonging: White men can’t speak to black men’s experiences, and similarly, black men can’t speak to black women’s experiences. Belonging is intersectional. It may be individual. It is not possible to speak for a group you don’t belong to.
- Cooper’s educational philosophy was because women were essential to the continuation of the population, they should be included in deciding the aim of education and philosophy of education
- Cooper believed that vocational education was also important, but also those who had the aptitude should be able to study ‘liberal arts’ (arts and humanities). African-American scholars at the time were seeking progression, but were in disagreement as to whether the vocational route was the way out of emancipation.
- Cooper had views on the education of teachers, as seen in the published article The Humour of Teaching (Crisis Magazine, 1930): The teachers are reacting to standards that are set by academic boards, and judged on the quality of their work, without having the time for the specific needs of their pupils. There is little time to digest any teachings or theories in the pursuit of learning to be teachers. The joy and inquisitiveness is in danger of disappearing due to the pressures they face.
- A lot of Cooper’s work exists as published magazine articles and letters, not books. She remained working in the margins of academia.
Structures and systems - We look towards the dismantling of structures and systems – “what we want after the break will be different from what we think we want before the break”.
- What are these structures protecting? Who are they shutting out?
- What threats come into play in the concept of ‘belonging’ in education?
- What safeties are kept in these structures (e.g. academic regulations, standards, rules) – who/what are they protecting or shutting out?
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Thoughts and responses
Who cares?
Why is there such a shortage of jobs in healthcare and eduction? Is this because these roles are traditionally female, yet the rising costs of nursery education makes working unaffordable? This is probably a generalisation. However, for a short period of time in my life, my child’s nursery costs were more than I was taking home and I seriously considered stopping work. [Stopping work would have made re-entering the profession harder, so I continued to operate at a loss]. A more benevolent government would consider the value in working mothers (like Scandanavia).
The weaker sex
Thoughts about female hysteria, and that problems were once considered to rise from the womb. The physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia considered the womb “an animal within an animal”, with the womb thought to have been able to push other organs around in the female body with the ability to cause ailments ranging from sluggishness and vertigo, all the way to sudden death. The female body was thought to have been attacking itself. The cure? Pleasant smells placed by the vagina to calm a wandering womb (and also to keep a woman pregnant so the womb wouldn’t get bored and start to wander off).
By the 1500s, wombs were no longer thought to wander, but, instead, the irrationality of women was blamed on the womb. Over several thousand years, the womb had become less of a way to explain physical ailments, and more of a way to explain mental dysfunction. Thought of the Victorian era ‘female hysteria’ come to mind, written into literature as some kind of curiosity, and with bizarre “cures” to calm down the heightened womb.
Although the myths have been, thankfully, disproved by modern science, some thoughts remain by some as to women continuing to be the weaker sex, weakened by ‘compassion’ and ‘caring’ emotions, perhaps considered by the same people who haven’t got the capacity for being unemotional or objectively focused.
Nature Vs Nurture
Anecdotal evidence from my own family states that the women always cooked and cleaned – and in several cases stayed as housewives – while men went out to earn a wage and enjoyed social freedoms. Despite this, my own family had extremely strong-willed women (know for their longevity and health), known by everyone as ‘The Matriarchs’, who not only had their familial circle of caring and influence, but a social circle of caring and influence. They were known to have made extremely important life decisions, with or without the blessings of their husbands, demonstrating rationality and attention to detail (as well as wielding power), as well as retaining the feminine characteristics of care and developing relationships. There was little room to question nature vs nurture in terms of equality as the women in my family appeared to nurture the qualities of retaining both caring qualities alongside power and rationality.
“I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too” said Queen Elizabeth I, reminding me of my own Great-Grandmother, wielding great power and influence everywhere she went.
This combined ethical state may be a rebellion against our Jewish religion, where the male and female divide and conservative values, as well as following a set of (outdated) moral codes are extremely pronounced in Jewish Orthodoxy. I’ve not considered this in any great detail before, but this is something I am keen to explore, especially as someone who has broken ties with religion and considers herself a feminist.
The importance of the caring and empathetic qualities, in all genders, is still so varied, and this can be considered something of nurture. if children are from a background of importance of equality in the family unit, they may themselves go onto embody those notions. If children are exposed to traditional conservative values their family holds, they may find it harder to find equality within the family (and may go on to hold the same values into adulthood), with toys being purchased for children to continue to perpetuate the gender stereotypes.
References
Fantastically Wrong: The Theory of the Wandering Wombs That Drove Women to Madness – Matt Simon, 2014
https://www.wired.com/2014/05/fantastically-wrong-wandering-womb/
(accessed 12/2/21)
Queen Elizabeth I’s speech to the troops at Tilbury – Royal Museums Greenwich, 2015
https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/queen-elizabeth-i-speech-troops-tilbury#:~:text=I%20know%20I%20have%20the,myself%20will%20take%20up%20arms%2C
(accessed 12/2/21)
McLeod, S. A. (2013, October 24). Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html (accessed 12/2/21)
Further reading (to do)
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Harvard University Press, 1982)
Glossary
Utilitarianism – The view that the morally right action is one that provides the most good.
Deontology – Views regarding which choices are morally required, forbidden, or permitted.
Intersectionality – understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Examples of these aspects are gender, caste, sex, race, class, sexuality, religion, disability, physical appearance, and height.