What Is Feminist Ethics?

What Is Feminist Ethics? This is both the title of the essay Hilde Lindemann contributes to Russ Shafer-Landau's The Ethical Life and the question she tries to answer within it. Lindemann starts out by defining feminism as both a social and political movement and as a body of theory from which feminist ethics stems from.

Steubenville and its Relation to Feminist Ethics

Link to the article: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/cnn-steubenville-rape-poppy-harlow-144458279.html

As we begin our discussions into feminist ethics, it is eerily fitting that the Steubenville rape case has become a highlight in the news. If you have not heard the story yet, two sixteen-year old football superstars from Steubenville, Ohio were charged with raping an unconscious, blacked out sixteen-year old girl. They were caught from their posting of pictures and videos of them taking advantage of the girl on social media sites. The article “CNN criticized for Steubenville verdict coverage” by Dylan Stableford of Yahoo News describes the public outcry over CNN’s coverage of the boys being sentenced with rape.

Gender Boundaries

In Hilde Lindeman’s opinion, gender is not factually based. Gender is a norm established by society. In her essay “What is Feminist Ethics?” she details the effects that a prescriptive gender identity can bear on the interactions and relationships between men and women. According to Lindeman, “it’s a power relation, so it tells men that they’re entitled to things that women aren’t supposed to have and it tells women that they are supposed to defer to men and serve them” (155). Society’s construction of gender spurs the sole delegation of power positions to men over women and the unequal distribution of resources, such as money.

The potential effects of defined gender are clearly identified by Lindeman in her essay. However, what she points out is not so clear, is how we as a society actually discern these definitions and draw a black-and-white line between male and female. She points to cases like those with Klinefelter’s syndrome, with three sex chromosomes, and the gray scale of gender that enters in cases of transgender or gender neutrality.