Males typically argues that the husband should because

the right to life override the right to property. However

women reasons and argues that instead of stealing, the
husband should plead with or negotiate with the
druggist. This way everyone is cared for, allowed to
realize the goodness, the relationships are preserve.
The Question of
women and
their
emancipation

Introduction
A woman in almost any part of the world is faced with challenges that make it difficult
for her to realize her potential as a person. For example if one were a young girl in
Southern India, she is snatched away from her family to be forced to marry a much
older man. In Many parts of Africa, a daughter's own mother and other women from
her family will cut off her clitoris without anesthesia, and then sew up her vagina so
that she does not feel any sexual pleasure and remain faithful to the man who
marries her. Different cultures have different ways of treating women and many
forms of modern slavery are reserved women. This is the reason why feminism as a
framework for thinking about justice is necessarry. Because of the forms of violence
and injustice that are particular to women, a specific form of ethical theory has to be
developed.
Feminist Ethical
Theory
The feminist ethical theory is a
theory born from the realization
that women have different set of
issues that male-dominated
ethical theories cannot fully
address. Examples for these are
the forms of discrimination and
violence particular to women like
the belittling of their work as
homemakers and child bearers.
Another reason for necessity for
womens' perspective in ethics is
the different way women reason
morally.
Women have different way of
deciding on the best action to take
given a moral dilemma. Studies
have shown that women have a
different way of assessing the
good and understanding how best
to realize the good. Finally it is
necesarry to formulate ethical
theories from womens' perspective
because this perspective allows for
the critique of existing system that
victimize them.
 Feminist ethics is a branch of ethical thinking framed by women
to confront the challenges women face. It is a theory of the
good and justice that puts into the abuses and injustices that
women have to suffer and theorizes why these injustices exist
Feminist and how to address them. Feminist theory presents a way of
theorizing the good from the perspective of women. It is
Ethics important because academic ethics is defined by a very male
oriented perspective.

" To a large extent, feminist ethical theory can be understood

as both a response to, and a movement against, a historical
tradition of more abstract, universalist, ethical theories such
as utalitarianismm, deontology, and in certain respects,
contractarianism and virtue theory, which tend to view the
moral agent either as autonomous, rational actor,
deliberating out of a calculus of utility or duty, or else as an
often disembodied and decontextualized ideal decision-maker
unburdened by the non-ideal constraints of luck (moral and
otherwise), circumstance, or capability."
 Reflection
Many theories presuppose that the ethical person must be trained to act as an individual whose
ethical mind is autonomous and not dependent on anyone but his own rationality. The basis of
acting on the good is a set of criteria which guides us in calculating the good from an abstract
perspective. Women ethical theorists recognize the value of abstract ethical thinking as a guide to
the good despite it having many male-defined frameworks. However, women ethical theorist would
like to demonstrate how women have another voice or another ethical rationality that is not
confined to the traditional theories which are male-defined. Rather than deciding from purely
abstract rationality, they wish to show that womens' conception of good is relational and situated or
concrete.
 Carol
Gilligan
an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist, best known for her work on
ethical community and ethical relationships.

In her book titled In Another Voice, she demonstrated that women decide the
good based on their concern for preserving relationships and for their concern
for the welfare or feelings of others. Rather than focus on abstract,
universalizable rules. Women articulates the good as another way of moral
deliberation.

Feminist ethic's main concern when thinking about the good is on who will be
harmed by ones actions and decisions.

A famous example used by Carol Gilligan is the male and female response to the
heinz dilemma.
 Heinz Dilemma

If one's wife was sick and could only be saved if one

steals the medicine from the druggist due to lack of
money, should he steal the medicines?
Ethics of
care
The discovery and articulation of the
ethics of care is a breakthrough in
ethical because it balances the way
ethics of care, also called care
ethics, feminist philosophical people think about the good.
perspective that uses a Philosophy has come to realize that
relational and context-bound ethical deliberation must learn to take
approach toward morality into consideration the well-being of all
and decision making. The term
concerned from a more holistic and
ethics of care refers to ideas
concerning both the nature of particular perspective
morality and normative
ethical theory.
 Equality and
Discrimination

to the 2017 National Demographic and
According
Health Survey conducted by the Philippine Statistics
Authority, one in four Filipino women age 15-49 has
experienced physical, emotional or sexual violence
by their husband or partner.
The primary concern of feminist ethics is the question of equality. For
a long time, women have been treated as the lesser sex and they
suffer because of that. It has many forms in which sexual exploitation
is the most pervasive. Other forms of violence also exist which are
domestic abuse, rape, and fatal neglect. One of the reason why such
abuse occurs is that women are seen as less valuable than men,

therefore, can be used, neglected, and abused without remorse.

Women have been so conditioned to this degradation that they often
cooperate with it. The reason

why some people accepts this kind of
women marginalization is because people have taken this lower
status to the will of the goods or just the natural order.
Why is the inequality of women accepted and
propagated by society?

Feminist thinkers says that the acceptance of women's

inequality is inscribed in culture and social structures.
For instance, circumcision in women is accepted because
certain societies value the fidelity of women to their
husbands.

In a patriarchal society where the ownership of land is

assigned to the men, therefore they make sure that the
inheritors of their land are males of their own genetic line.
Women nowadays are defined by how their bodies are shaped
according to how media have determined their desirability. The main
traits of desirable women as depicted by media are thinness, firmness,
that is still defined by soft line, flawless skin, silken hair, and whiteness-
and, to some extent, firm, round breast. Women are generally so
obsessed with this standard of universal womanhood that they go on
such extent to achieve this. Men otherwise do not subject themselves
to such processes because in most societies, women have been
determined to be the subjects of the male gaze. Only existing to be
desired, owned, and shown off as trophies of successful men. Women
are sometimes object for men to act upon. This is supported by the
mass media and is portrayed in commercials every day.


Social structures support these kind of images. Dolls either teach girls
that they have to be pretty and present themselves to men like Barbie,
or that they should be trained to care for babies. As women grow up
their mothers constantly nag them about how they look and how
people percieve them. In teenage years, they are valued by how many
boys they attract. And in the world of work, they are rarely assigned
management or leadership positions and are expected to take on jobs
where they care for children or the sick. Thus, a very important theme
of Feminist ethics is to emancipate or set free women from such social
structures that keep them oppressed and unequal.
 Struggle for liberation
The first phase of their struggle for liberation was the struggle for
equal rights. Women demanded for the equal right to vote, and later
expanded to the demand for equal rights in various aspects of life. This
began around the turn of the 19th century until the latter part of 20th
century. During this phase, women were able to examine how
oppressive the social systems were because these defined them as
housewives and caregivers. It was also in this phase where women
realized that they should not only have equal rights as men but also
wanted to be recognized as different and equal to men.
Filipina feminist explored how their traditional cultures should be
embraced for how they celebrated the centrality of women's roles
as nurturers and healers, as much as they celebrated their role as
warriors and community leaders.
Filipina feminist explored how their traditional cultures should be
embraced for how they celebrated the centrality of women's roles
as nurturers and healers, as much as they celebrated their role as
warriors and community leaders.
Women leaders
Gabriela Silang was a Filipina military
leader best known for her role as the
female leader of the Ilocano independence
movement from Spain. She took over from
her second husband Diego Silang after his
assassination in 1763, leading her people
for four months before she was captured
and executed by the colonial government
of the Captaincy General of the Philippines.
Women leaders
Gregoria de Jesús also known by her
nickname Oriang, was the founder and vice-
president of the women's chapter of the
Katipunan of the Philippines. She was also the
custodian of the documents and seal of the
Katipunan.
Women leaders
The Babaylan were women who the spirits
chose to communicate with them through
some process of initiation. The babaylan were
very important to the community because
their welfare depended on these women.
When the commonfolk suffers the babaylan
would help and guide them.
Gabriela Silang, Gregoria de Jesus, and the many Babaylan are
the precursors of the Filipina activist, development workers,
politicians, and educators of today.
 Working toward
Emancipation
To this day women emancipation is an ongoing project for women
continuing the struggle for equality, however, they also discover
various and creatives ways of becoming a women. The aim of the
movement continue to evolve with more and more women
exploring social realities and exposing how economic
communication, governance, and cultural systems oppress
women.
 Women should not be
discriminated against
In most societies, women bear the responsibility of child rearing
and are the first persons to introduce children into the ways of
their civilization. They also raise children while earning a
livelihood. In modern societies, we depend on women in order
to run a household, especially in ensuring the well-being of all
from nutrition to health.
There are studies that shows how women were actually the
more dominant gender in early human history until about 1500
BC. There was a time when human beings revered the earth as
a mysterious bearer of life. As long as women were associated
with the powers of fertility, they were revered and thought of
as the superior sex. However, at about 1500 BC there was a turn
in human history where penis worship replaced womb worship.
A theory for this shift is that human were developing
agriculture and were learning more about the fertilization of
eggs. They realized that the male principle was essential to the
development of life.
 Conclusion
Feminist ethics demands an opening of our perspectives about
the meaning of being human in a way that does not
discriminate against but celebrates the different possibilities of
womanhood. This is an essential task because the oppression of
women necessarily mean the oppression of man as well. We
often think that men benefit from the oppression of women
because of the fact that they get more respected jobs, the
position of power, the higher pay, and the best care. However,
men are in this way the perpetrators of violence, defined as the
violent sex, and bear the responsibility for always being defined
to be strong and non-feminine.
Thus, men are immediately associated in a certain way with
violence, aggressiveness, and detachment from their emotional
life. Any self-aware man will tell you that it is not healthy for
their emotional development. And so, everyone must engage in
the movement of women's liberation as an act of social justice
and as an act of liberation of all mankind as much as it is a
liberation of womankind