On Jean Grimshaw and the Role Gender Plays in Ethics
Jean Grimshaw explores in The Idea of a Female Ethic whether or not ethics is, in fact,
gendered – if males and females are ‘rigged’ to handle making ethical decisions differently. She
begins by establishing this issue as a decades-old debate and introduces readers to several
schools of thought on the matter, including those that support a difference in the way each
gender reasons, as well as those that believe each gender simply has different ethical priorities.
She introduces various reasons for the possibility of different priorities including the female
experiences of motherhood and caregiving and the value society places on these experiences.
She provides a discussion on the separation of the public and private spheres, and addresses
how the way society treats each sphere (to include who occupies it) contributes to the
difference in ethics. Ultimately Grimshaw determines that, based on gendered inequalities in
society, there understandable is a difference in the way each gender approaches ethics. She
cautions, though, that this revelation should not be used to assert that genders reason
differently, that there is a superior way to reason (that if we put women in charge things would
be better) or that any assumption can be applied across the board since things like race and
social class have an impact on ethical differences. She does advocate for a changed society that
finds more gender equality, especially in areas like childrearing, but explains that the only way
to determine how ethical priorities will be changed in this new society is to just watch and see,
and even then, she doesn’t expect it to be clear.
In this writing Grimshaw hits all the major points of the ‘big ethics debate’ of absolutism versus
utilitarianism. She brings in Kant - first to illustrate a common belief that men are more likely to
subscribe to Kantian thought (rules based ethics) than are women, and second to exemplify the
way the public sphere is thought to function. She also brings in utilitarianism to typify the
private sphere, suggesting that the personal nature of the relationships in the private sphere
makes utilitarianism more practical. She’s able to wed these theories into much work done
specifically on ethics and feminism. My favorite work she brings in is that of Caroline Witbeck
who uses the expression “mutual realization of people” to explain the way women approach
ethics (Grimshaw uses it in her argument on how different gender experiences leads to
different ethical priorities). For me “mutual realization of people” is a golden rule of sorts. It
says that if you realize people, you are going to consider how you treat them (and since you’re
considering it, the treatment is likely to be more ethical). I think the idea could easily find its
way out of feminist study and into any mainstream discussion on ethics.
That taking from feminist study and applying to the general study of ethics supports my
thoughts on the use of this writing in our studies. I do believe, as Grimshaw suggest, there are
many factors at play in how people go about making ethical decisions. Gender is one of them,
as is race and social class. I think it is very hard to nail a person’s ethics down to one aspect of
their lives. Grimshaw seems to feel the same. However, I do not want to deny the need to look
at gender specifically in the overall debate because there are unquestionably issues with
gender equality, and these issues unquestionably impact things like our decision making
processes. I want to be careful to not place too high a priority on one variable of a person’s life
because I feel quite sure there are others that have an equal if not stronger impact
(socioeconomic status comes to mind, as does education level), but, overall, ‘my thinking about
ethics’ toolbox wouldn’t be complete without this perspective.