Mary Friedman’s article, "Beyond Caring: The De-Moralization of Gender," evaluates the applicability and reasoning of Gilligan’s arguments on the differences of gender morality (Friedman, 1987). Gilligan in her book, “In a Different Voice,” argued that women moral reasoning is different from the male moral reasoning (Friedman, 1987). Thus, women and men have a varying moral voice whereby she asserts that women reasoning is based on care and responsibility whereas that of their male counterparts is based on rule and justice. Friedman’s article does not seem to refute or support Gilligan’s assumptions but uses her ideas, those of her proponents and critics to evaluate whether the assumptions made are justifiable or refutable (Friedman, 1987). It is difficult to understand Friedman’s position on the discussion with claims made supporting the existence or inadequate statistical or scientific evidence to support gender variation in morality.
Friedman states that she used Gilligan, her proponents, and critics as the foundation to create a new dimension of the themes. Therefore, Friedman divides the task under three categories based on the arguments made mainly by Gilligan. The three categories included evaluating the existence or lack of existing differences in gender reasoning, the reasons women and men show or fail to show divergence care-justice reasoning, and the illustration that even in the absence of distinct moral perceptions in gender, the concepts proposed by Gilligan create valuable moral orientation (Friedman, 1987).
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Friedman argues that the different moral voice based on gender is a controversial topic with critics of Gilligan such as Haan. Haan claimed that following his empirical evidence of moral voices in her studies, there was no supporting evidence to Gilligan’s distinct variation for either male or female (Friedman, 1987). Haan’s criticism led to Gilligan dismissing the research-based study by asserting that her moral voice differences were not statistical gender variations on morality but based on cultural and social norms. The social expectations of women to be caring and men to be patriotic or to be courageous means that morality is gendered. By asserting the cultural platform and symbolism that is articulated to either men or women shows the Gilligan has a valid point in her argument.
However, the lack of empirical support diminishes the application of the morality without limiting one’s argument to stereotype or claim that moral values, virtues, or ideals are limited to either a man or a woman. Such arguments are contradictory to the modern society and traditionalist with the assertion that women moral qualities are limited to communal norms whereas men have agentic norms to show their care and justice moral orientation respectively (Friedman, 1987). However, Friedman asserts that for all the cultural influences and dichotomy culture asserts on care and justice to ascribe to women and men respectively, there are situations that both men and women go against the asserted norms. The article argues that justice can result in care whereby a person is only willing to respect the rights of others if he or she cares for the others.
Therefore, men similarly to women will care for others but that does not diminish their moral ideals. She continues by stating that the social aspects of humans mean that both men and women have personal ties which result in caring for others and diminishing the dichotomy that asserts care and justice to the female and male gender respectively (Friedman, 1987). The main argument in gendered morality is that it is limited to the stereotyped gender norms and responsibilities that diminish the justification of defying social norms or expectation.
In conclusion, Friedman is confident that accepting the existence of stereotyping and limitation of gendered morals would enable to de-moralize gender. De-moralization of genders would provide an opportunity to enhance the collective moral lives because it would end the dissociation of justice from care.
Reference
Friedman, M. (1987). Beyond Caring: The De-Moralization of Gender. Canadian Journal Of Philosophy , 17 , 61-78. Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://georgiasouthern.desire2learn.com/d2l/le/content/485296/viewContent/7015448/View
