Thea Hassan's "An Ethic of Care Critique" Response
In Thea Hassan’s “An Ethic of Care Critique” Hassan aims to show how Nel Nodding’s proposed “An Ethic of Caring”, while it is beneficial to most general ethic guidelines, is not an appropriate ethical theory for feminism. In her article, Hassan claims that Nel Nodding’s example of ethics of care encourages traditional gender roles of women, ignores other important virtues besides care, and inhibits a person from becoming autonomous, a term defined as “state of existing or acting separately from others. With feminisms goal of equality; aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women, to be on the same playing field, if you will, with men, Hassan has a strong argument to show how Nodding’s proposed ethics is inadequate for feminism. A huge factor in the feminist movement is the idea of equal roles. Hassan claims that care ethics actually reinforces the ideas of those traditional roles of women as the homemakers and caretakers. Hassan states that reinforcing such roles “the woman is caught in the role of a subservient person, caring for others but not herself”, giving them an obligation to care while forgetting one’s own needs. This prevents women from being equal with men, by making them more dependent of men as their provider, a role that is huge and encouraged for women to take up in feminism. Hassan claims that ethics of care not only prevent women from following their own, independent, morals, but how it ignores other virtues besides care. Three examples were used to make this point clear. The first was the wife who, in accordance with ethics of care, supported her K.K.K. husband. This act, which ethics of care would support, displaces the woman’s own values by supporting his, becoming evil herself. The other example was of a woman torn between her black friend and her racist family. According the ethics of care, the woman would have to side with her family, although it is wrong to treat another