What is Feminist Ethics?
Feminist ethics is a branch of ethical theory that aims to understand, critique, and address issues of morality through a feminist lens. It emerged in the late 20th century, primarily in response to traditional ethical theories that were largely developed by men and often overlooked or marginalized women’s experiences, perspectives, and concerns.
EXPLORE
Understanding Feminist Ethics
Learn about the history of the feminist movement and how it lead to the conception of feminist ethics.
Delve into the core principles of feminist ethics and gain a deeper understanding of its significance.
Understand common criticisms of feminist ethics and the effects that the movement has on other moral disciplines.
Jump into an offshoot of feminist ethics that has a strong connection to environmental justice and philosophical thinking.
History and Conceptions
How Did Feminist Ethics Come to Be?
The history of the feminist movement is often broken down into four main waves, distinguished from each other by their differing goals, critiques and achievements. The need for an ethical framework within the movement began to be addressed at the end of the second wave.
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The First Wave of feminism emerged in the 18th century with writers like Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges, and lasted all the way through the early 20th century. This is the wave that most people are familiar with, as its primary focus was on securing political rights - particularly suffrage - for women in North America and Europe. This wave eventually led to the addition of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, granting women the right to vote in the United States.
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Although a huge step for women’s rights in America, first-wave feminism received a lot of valid critiques, mainly for the ways that it marginalized or outright fought against the political progress of people of color. Many early women’s rights leaders spoke out against the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, and women of color in the U.S. continued to face voting discrimination for decades after the Nineteenth Amendment was passed. Clearly, the feminist movement still had a lot of internal improvements to make.
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The Second Wave roughly lasted from the 1960s to the 1980s. At this time feminist politics became linked with broader political contexts, such as critiques of capitalism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity. It focused on a wide range of issues beyond suffrage, including reproductive rights, workplace equality, and ending gender-based discrimination. Key events during this wave included the publication of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique in 1963 - which critiqued traditional gender roles and sparked conversations about women's roles in society - and significant legislative achievements, such as the passage of Title IX in the U.S. which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, and the legalization of abortion in many countries.
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Just like the American suffrage movement of the 18th and 19th centuries, second-wave feminism is often critiqued for marginalizing the rights, experiences and accomplishments of women who were not upper class, white and heterosexual. Some such groups formed their own feminist organizations during this time as a result, such as The National Black Feminist Organization (which addressed the unique problems faced by black women having to live with both sexism and racism), The National Organization for Women (a labor and social-democratic group focused on organizing working-class women in the workplace), and Lavender Menace (a lesbian radical feminist group that protested the exclusion of lesbians from the wider feminist movement).
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It was at the tail end of the second wave, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, that the need for feminist ethics began to be addressed within academia. Feminist scholars argued that as of then, popular Western moral theories (such as consequentialism or deontology) focused on a white male perspective, while presenting this as the 'universal' position that all human beings experienced. They argued that this fails to consider the experiences and values of other identities. As a result, feminist ethics were formed in order to understand, critique, and address the issues of morality through a more relative lens.
Core
Ideals
Ethical Relativism
Feminist ethics emphasizes the importance of relationships and interconnections in ethical decision-making. This perspective critiques traditional ethical theories, which often focus on individual rights or abstract principles, for neglecting the relational aspects of human life.
According to feminist ethicists, ethical decisions should take into account the complex web of relationships that individuals inhabit, including relationships with family members, friends, communities, and society as a whole.
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This idea was largely developed by Carol Gilligan in her 1982 book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Gilligan calls this moral framework the Ethics of Care, which is based on her claim that there is a large difference in how men and women perceive moral dilemmas: Men tend to focus on justice and rights, whereas women are focused on preserving interpersonal relationships. Nel Noddings analyzed this idea further in her 1984 book Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education.
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The ethics of care challenges the idea that morality is primarily about abstract principles or rules. Instead, it argues that ethical decision-making should be guided by empathy, compassion, and concern for the well-being of others, especially those who are vulnerable or marginalized.
Critique of Patriarchy
Feminist ethics critically examines the ways in which patriarchal power structures shape moral norms, values, and practices. It highlights the ways in which traditional ethical theories have historically reinforced and perpetuated gender-based oppression and inequality. By exposing and challenging patriarchal biases in ethics, feminist ethicists seek to create more inclusive and equitable ethical frameworks.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality emphasizes the interconnected nature of social identities and experiences, such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability. Feminist ethicists remind us to consider how these intersecting identities impact individuals' lives and moral concerns, rather than assuming that all people experience the world in the same way.
Agency and Autonomy
Feminist ethics recognizes the importance of agency and autonomy for ethical decision-making, particularly for marginalized individuals who may face constraints on their freedom and self-determination. It seeks to empower individuals to make informed choices about their lives and to challenge social structures that limit their autonomy.
Critiques
While feminist ethics have made significant contributions to making ethical theory more universally applicable, it has also faced critiques and challenges from various perspectives, just like any other moral framework.
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One such critique is that feminist ethics relies on essentialist assumptions about women's nature, which can reinforce stereotypes and limit the diversity of women's experiences. Some critics argue that care ethics specifically, with its emphasis on empathy, nurturance, and interpersonal relationships, risks reinforcing traditional gender roles and expectations. Critics caution against reducing women to caregiver roles and suggest that care ethics should be paired with other ethical frameworks that emphasize justice, autonomy, and equality; and emphasize the importance of intersectionality in feminist analysis.
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Furthermore, some critics suggest that feminist ethics should interact more extensively with theories such as utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, and existentialism to enrich its conceptual framework and broaden its ethical insights. Critics also emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary discussion between feminist ethics and fields such as philosophy, sociology, psychology, and political theory.
Queer Ethics
Queer ethics is a field of ethical framework that examines moral questions and values through the lens of queer theory, which challenges typical views of gender, sexuality, and identity. It emerged in response to the limitations of traditional ethical frameworks in addressing the experiences and concerns of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. Queer ethics aims to deconstruct and critique heteronormativity and cisnormativity while exploring alternative ways of conceptualizing morality and ethical principles.
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Judith Butler's work, especially Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of 'Sex' (1993), has been highly influential in deconstructing heteronormative assumptions about gender and sexuality. Butler challenges the binary understanding of gender and argues that gender is performative, constructed through repeated social acts.
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Queer ethics also emphasizes the value of radical empathy and solidarity, which draw on the importance of understanding and empathizing with the experiences of marginalized and oppressed individuals and communities, as well as the need for collective action to challenge systems of oppression.
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Queer activists and scholars often draw inspiration from feminist and critical race theories in developing these principles of solidarity across differences.
Ecofeminism
Ecofeminism is a theoretical and practical framework that explores the intersections between feminism and environmentalism. It emerged in the late 20th century as a response to the perceived connections between the exploitation of women and the exploitation of nature within patriarchal societies. Ecofeminists argue that both women and nature have been marginalized and oppressed under systems of domination, and they advocate for a holistic approach to addressing social, environmental, and gender justice issues. These ideas are argued for in books such as Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (1988) by Vandana Shiva, and Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour (1986) by Maria Mies.
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This moral framework is similar to broader feminist ethics in the way that it critiques interconnected systems of oppression, including patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and ecological destruction. By adopting an intersectional perspective, ecofeminism seeks to understand and address the complex ways in which power operates in society. Ecofeminism also heavily draws on care ethics, as both work to challenge the dominance of abstract principles and hierarchical forms of morality while advocating for ethics that value relationships and interconnectedness.
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Ecofeminism differs, however, in its strong critiques of dualistic thinking. Whereas the ethics of care has been critiqued for implying too strong of a ‘natural’ difference between men and women (whether due to biological or socialized reasons), ecofeminism argues against dualistic thinking that separates humans from nature, mind from body, and culture from environment. Instead, ecofeminism promotes an understanding of humans as interconnected with and dependent on the natural world, advocating for a more holistic and relational approach to ethics and politics. Val Plumwood explores this idea in her 1993 book Feminism and the Mastery of Nature.