This document provides an overview of feminist approaches to ethics that may be applicable to advanced practice nurses. It describes two main feminist perspectives: care-focused approaches that view relationship-focused reasoning as equally valid to justice-focused reasoning, and power-focused approaches concerned with women's relative lack of power. Various theorists are discussed who take care-focused or power-focused views, addressing issues like gender differences in moral reasoning, valuing care work, and addressing systems of oppression. The document concludes that feminist theory is important for nursing to better understand the profession's relationship to gender and caring.

1. Chapter 8
Feminist Ethics:
Some Applicable
Thoughts for Advanced
Practice Nurses

2. Introduction (1 of 2)
• Feminist approaches give nurses new ways to
examine moral issues and principles.
• There are two basic types of feminist moral
perspectives:
– Care-focused approaches argue that a feminine
(relationship-focused) style of moral reasoning works just
as well as a male (justice-focused) style
– Power-focused approaches are concerned with why
women usually have less power than men

3. Introduction (2 of 2)
• Both perspectives agree than any feminist
approach to ethics must:
– View men and women as having fundamentally
dissimilar life situations
– Provide ways to undermine the systematic
subordination of women
– Offer methods for dealing with issues that arise in
the private sphere, especially in domestic life
– Take the moral experience of all women seriously

4. Care-Focused Approaches
• Care-focused feminists are concerned with
explaining the differences between an ethics
of justice and an ethics of care.
• Most such feminists believe that women’s
caregiving skills are far more developed than
men’s.
• These individuals also worry about the fact
than many people view caregiving as
“women’s work.”

5. Carol Gilligan
• Psychologist Carol Gilligan is frequently
associated with the care-focused approach:
– Argued that traditional responsibilities led women to
develop a language of care and men to develop a
language of justice
– As women develop morally, they move from an
overemphasis on self, to an overemphasis on others,
and finally to proper emphasis on self in relation to
others
– Both justice and care are viewed as essential to morality

6. Nel Noddings (1 of 2)
• Nel Noddings is another prominent care-focused
theorist:
– Argued that women and men are both capable of
moral reasoning, although women tend to consider
feelings when making moral decisions
– As people grow into adults, their spontaneous,
emotion-driven natural caring should ideally be
supplemented by more deliberate, less spontaneous
ethical caring

7. Nel Noddings (2 of 2)
– Also posited that men see evil as a rule-breaking
event, whereas women see it as anything that
harms someone by inflicting pain, inducing
separation, and/or causing helplessness
– Most personal dilemmas are actually relational
dilemmas that require dialogue, not monologue

8. Other Care-Focused Theorists
• Sheila Mullett: Argued that genuine caring cannot
occur under systematic conditions of domination and
subordination.
• Sara Ruddick: Stated that both men and women are
capable of “maternal thinking.”
• Virginia Held: Emphasized that men should be taught
to engage in mothering-type behavior.
• Eva Kittay: Argued that dependency workers deserve
better treatment by society.

9. Power-Focused Approaches
• Power-focused feminists are interested in
systems and ideologies that contribute to
oppression of women and other groups.
• Can be divided into two groups:
– Liberal feminists: Emphasize the ways that political,
economic, and social forces systematically cause gender
oppression.
– Radical feminists: Stress the ways that ideology, identity
issues, and cultural forces account for women’s second-
class status.

10. Liberal Power-Focused Feminists
• These feminists trace their roots to the 19th
century
women’s suffrage movement.
• Proponents of this position argue that women
remain subordinate to men because of a lingering set
of social norms and formal laws that make it harder
for women to succeed.
• Although this point of view is sometimes called
passé, men do in fact continue to earn more and
wield greater power than women.

11. Radical Power-Focused Feminists
(1 of 2)
• Instead of pushing for equality, these feminists
claim that women’s fundamental strength lies in
their differences from men.
• Proponents of this position think women should
reject the system rather than try to become part
of it, because the very values of the system—
power, dominance, hierarchy, and competition—
ultimately breed injustice.

12. Radical Power-Focused Feminists
(2 of 2)
• Although all radical feminists focus on issues
related to gender and sex, they can be split into
two subclasses:
– Radical-libertarian feminists think both men and
women suffer when they are forced to exhibit only
gender-specific characteristics.
– Radical-cultural feminists argue that androgyny is not
the answer; rather, society should learn to value the
feminine side of existence as much as the masculine
side.

13. Multicultural and Global
Power-Focused Feminists
• These feminists believe that women need to
focus on the ways that various socioeconomic
factors contribute to some women being better
off than others.
• Global feminists are especially attuned to the
ways that women in First World countries take
advantage (often unknowingly) of women in
Third World countries.

14. Third-Wave Feminists (1 of 2)
• These feminists emphasize that all women
have different ideas and experiences of
feminism.
• They are open to women’s social, economic,
political, and cultural differences and
acknowledge the fact that the concept of a
“universal sisterhood” is elusive, if not
impossible.

15. Third-Wave Feminists (2 of 2)
• Such feminists are less prescriptive about what
counts as “women’s empowerment” and do not
judge whether an individual person’s wants are
authentic or inauthentic.
• Challenges to this point of view include:
– The impossibility of recognizing feminism without
believing that women constitute some sort of larger
social group
– The potential belief that women’s only possible enemy
is themselves

16. Conclusion
• Feminist theory is important to nursing—not only
because a majority of nurses are women, but also
because caring has traditionally been viewed as a
feminine role.
• A feminist view can help all nurses—men and
women alike—call attention to their caregiving
powers and better understand the profession’s
nearly inextricable link to gender.