Dear Dr. Norlock,
Thanks for your outreaching query.
When I teach philosophy of gender I am teaching feminist ethics as that to me is the essence of the literature as it translates to the varied African concerns with which I'm familiar. Ethics is the ultimate focus or target for the theory, but I start from first principles which join at their foundation some of feminist discourse with wider concerns about social and economic justice, fairness, identity politics, the inconsistencies and barbarisms of social convention which grow out of social dysfunction as a feature of post colonial perversions more generally that shape 'modernity' for West Africans who take up formal education to the university level. I start off by desconstructing the masculine / feminine dichotomy as not well grounded using a conceptual analysis of dichotomies in general and empirical evidence that undermines the sexist one in particular. I also rely on a critique of classic liberal theory that I learned from Jaggar, and some of the
insights she culled from Marxist perspectives about the codependency that characterizes real life and the limitations of Marxist treatment of gender-specific injustice. But I don't harp on these as Marxist ideology, rather they are part of the shared assumptions that support many modern day theories in social and political ethics. In that broader context I introduce feminist ethical concerns; so I rely on Gilligan's classic to present feminist ethics as it is more broadly reasoned under the ethics of care, in contrast with other standard accounts of right and wrong. From there a host of ethical concerns with equality, labour and basic human rights as expounded by international covenants.
This leaves aside the discourse about the politics of intimacy but since I am working cross culturally to introduce the important philosophical foundation for gender sensitivity I figure you can't do everything. At least this gets us to the point where the phenomenon of FGM can be discussed in broader terms than as an anomaly specific to, and therefore appropriate as the cross borne by, or social duty appropriate for, women in particular. Labour equity makes a lot of sense here, and in any case in West Africa women's issues are equivalent to human basic rights: to adequate nutrition, inclusion and representation in democratic institutions, the right to life itself, freedom from rape inside marriage as being legally condoned, the right to education, the right to speech and freedom of religious belief. Real basic stuff. Here's a syllabus that pre-dates all the talk about headscarves, and focuses on labour rights for instance as an arena for
negotiating the idea of equality accorded to women.
Please share your findings as I would love to know about more recent publications that deal with feminist ethics as on a continuum with human and civil rights issues. My resources are compiled from first order data and my own analyses; I am out of touch with recent work of substance and wide i.e. cross cultural applicability.
Helen
On Friday, February 21, 2014 6:53 PM, Kathryn Norlock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I have taught Feminist Philosophy but not yet Ethics. I have had very good experiences with ending my survey-style courses on Susan Brison's _Aftermath_, which I recommend:
http://kathrynjnorlock.blogspot.ca/2014/02/colleagues-are-comparing-introductory.html
Kathryn Norlock ([log in to unmask])
> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 11:36:15 -0600
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Feminist Ethics syllabus
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> I, too, would be interested in sharing ideas for lower level Feminist Ethics courses. I think multiple perspectives on what constitutes Feminist Ethics at the lower lever are valuable.
>
> On Feb 21, 2014, at 11:10 AM, Elizabeth M Grosz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I am looking for ideas for a lower level Feminist Ethics survey course. Would anyone be willing to share a syllabus?
> >
> > Thank you,
> > Elizabeth McManaman Grosz
> >
> > --
> > Elizabeth M Grosz
> > PhD student and Graduate Teaching Fellow
> > Philosophy Department
> > University of Oregon
> >
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