I wanted to reflect on my personal reactions to Flynn's article on feminism, specifically the idea that morality of boys and girls differ even though they are usually both raised primarily by the female figure of the family. Lexi relayed on her blog post that women view morality as "conflicting responsibilities" and their solution is "contextual and narrative." She also posted that men think of morality in terms of "rights and rules."
This is so true and so mind-boggling! I don't have sibling so I can't say I see this first-hand, but to go to a close example, my godfather has a boy and a girl. They were raised mostly by their mom because she was home during the day and volunteered at school as they got older. Before reading this article, I would assume that my cousins would develop the same system of morality since they were raised the same way. Flynn says differently and I think in many situations, she is right. Women tend to be very emotionally driven with a strong sense of justice and fairness, but men tend to make quicker judgements supported by previous or given knowledge.
I think it would be interesting to poll a group of law students or lawyers about their feelings on controversial court cases. Do you think women would be more likely to look at the predisposition of the criminals and be sympthetic for their actions, which may have been caused by circumstances outside of the criminal's control? And would men be more likely to look the other way when a women robs a bank to feed her starving children because it is still against the law?
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I'll give my own answer to your question based on my own beliefs in justice and morality.
For me, I like to think that differences in controversial court case rulings is not dependant on the judge being either male or female, but their own belief in law. For me, what makes a good judge is his/her ability to rule ACCORDING to the LAW, and what makes a good attorney is his/her ability to find the legality of an action. I don't think "women's emotions" should have anything to do with legality.
I've commented before that I may be what Flynn would call a "male thinker" because I tend to think abstractly and not in very personal terms, but my bf Samuel gets outraged watching Law & Order. 'That's stupid' he says. 'She only killed him because he raped her daughter.' Then I get outraged saying 'How can she get off with a fine when she took the law into her own hands and punished the offender? We can't all go around killing those people who harm us! If you can't live by the rules of the community, then you can't live IN the community.'
I give this ridiculous example only to show how completely opposite our views and justifications are. I judge Actions and Consequences. Sam judges Emotions and Cause.
I hate my verb usage in sentence 2! EEK!!!! Where's the edit button on this thing?
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