I’ve written before (brushed over might be a more accurate descriptor) about my interest in what I referred to as “a feminist ethics” and I have been kind of surprised about how little theory there is behind it. Sure, there are theories of feminist ethics, such as the works of philosophers like Carol Gilligan (whose work set some of the basis for the “Ethics of Care”) but in almost everything I read about feminist ethics, I am put off by two issues: 1) the staggering gender essentialism that surrounds most of the analysis and 2) how it is actually devoid of a more intersectional approach. To me, ethics are not removed from the overall social context where we exist. So, I would expect a feminist approach to ethics to take these into account.
So now, I am trying to formulate some coherent thoughts around “the moral imperative” (which is part of Kant’s categorical imperative). The reason I am doing this is because I’ve been invited to give a workshop about radical anger and political action at a festival in May here in Amsterdam (I won’t disclose details until the program of the festival comes out because I wouldn’t want to spoil it for the organizers). So, I’ve been thinking of the “moral imperative” and how, to me, it is inextricably connected to anger and how both can be the basis for political action. Of course, this is not the only topic I am scribbling about in relation to political/ feminist anger, but it’s one of my starting points. And here is what I am failing at: I can hardly find any reference materials to support my ideas. Sure these ideas cannot be original (hardly anything is original these days, after we’ve been developing politics and philosophy as areas of study for a couple thousand years). It’s just that I find it hard to believe that feminist scholars/ academics would not be interested in these topics (alas, I am not part of academia so my searches are limited to whatever is available for the general public). Yet, I would expect there would be *some* books and/ or papers published by feminists on these topics.
Because, here’s what I find troubling in my search: how can a political and philosophical movement like feminism not have developed some considerable body of work related to ethics and how ethics relate to praxis? Sure I must be looking in the wrong places, right? Or could this be the very reason why feminism, as a philosophy, keeps failing on many levels (how after so many decades, we still need to explain basic concepts like intersectional analysis and so on). Or could it be that, as a philosophy, mainstream, contemporary feminism fails many of us because it has been inextricably tied to capitalism and its constant need to situate women in “careers”, instead of providing tools to lead ethically conscious lives and enact political change?
I have questions; I am failing to find the answers.
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