Feminist Ethics

This chapter argues that feminists accuse traditional approaches to ethics of showing less concern for women's as opposed to men's issues and interests. They view as trivial the moral issues that arise in the private world, the realm in which women do housework and take care of children, the infirm, and the elderly. Traditional approaches imply that, in general, women are not as morally mature as men. The approaches overrate culturally masculine traits and underrate culturally feminine traits. They favour male ways of moral reasoning that emphasize rules, rights, universality, and impartiality over female ways of moral reasoning that emphasize relationships, responsibilities, particularity, and partiality. Care-focused and status-focused feminist approaches to ethics do not impose a single normative standard on women. Rather, they offer to women multiple ways to understand the ways in which gender, race, and class affect their moral decisions.

KONTEKSTUALISASI MAKNA DAN HAK-HAK PEREMPUAN DALAM ALQURAN

Gender studies in Islam have always been concerned because many claims that religion, including Islam, is often accused of not being pro-women. This article wold like to the meaning of the Quranic term about women. In this study, there are many words in the Quran that refer to women. There are at least four words, namely nisa', mar'ah, untsa and banat. The first three word refer to adult women and have their own characteristics when they are used in verses. This maturity also has consequences for further studies because it creates the characteristics and categories for women themselves. Based on the character, it is said in the Qur'an that women are pious, hardworking, patient, loyal, rebellious, traitors, teasers and so on. Equally important, Quran only distinguishes women's and men's issues in natural matters. Whereas in other matters, women only get privileges like listing their degrees.

Gender and Development: Where are the Men?

This presentation will focus on men, masculinities and the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Southern Africa. As the interest in gender and development in Africa increases among experts in the development field, men have been increasingly left out of the discourse. Given the severity of gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa, focus on women is necessary. However, due to the prevalence of issues such as violence and HIV/AIDS prevalence among men, masculinity as a social construct must be given appropriate attention. In 2000, The United Nation Joint Programme on HIV/AIDS launched a World AIDS Day campaign called “AIDS: Men Make a Difference”. A UNAIDS March 2000 report acknowledged the importance of working with men to halt the HIV/AIDS pandemic due to “cultural beliefs and expectations [which] heighten men’s vulnerability” to HIV/AIDS. Similarly, scholars have recently taken interest in the intersection between masculinity and HIV/AIDS. This presentation will provide an overview of the exclusion of men’s issues in development and the reasons why we need to start paying attention to masculinity as a gendered construct.