Gender and Moral Development

Gender and Moral Development

Narrow Morality

Why do some people recognize a higher moral law, while others are simply content

to obey rules without question?

Moral Dilemmas: Heinz

Who cares about my stage?!

Your stage matters! Problem-solving changes in your 20s-

30s Specific educational attempts to

influence awareness Behavior is influenced by moral

perception and moral judgments

Kohlberg cared…

Carefully collected international data

Aboriginal villages in Malaysia Turkey Yucatán Urban areas in the US and Mexico

Carol Gilligan

Women & Kohlberg

Women often scored a full stage below their male counterparts

Women focused on SOLUTIONS THAT PRESERVED CONNECTIONS

What’s going on?

Either women are less morally developed than men

OR

Something is wrong with Kohlberg’s framework

Women and their moral dilemmas

In a Different VOICE

Harmony without sameness Collaborative (not

competitive/combative) Voices are different without excluding

one another A wide vocabulary that has NOTHING to

do with right/wrong or true/false

Men’s View of the Self

Autonomy Freedom Independence Separateness Hierarchy Rules guide interactions Roles establish place in hierarchy

Women’s View of the Self

Relatedness Interdependence Emotional Connectedness Responsiveness to needs of others Web of relationships Empathy & connectedness guide

interactions Roles are secondary to connections

Men’s Moral Voices

Justice Rights Treating everyone fair/the same Apply rules impartially to everyone Responsibility towards abstract codes of

conduct

Women’s Moral Voices

Care Responsibility Caring about everyone's suffering Preserve emotional connectedness Responsibility toward real individuals

Stages of Women’s Moral Development

Umm…who cares?

Different ideas about what to do about these gender-based ways of making decisions

Separate but equal

Men and women have different but equally valuable moral voices

Reinforces stereotypes Hard to retain “…but equal” part We have nothing to learn from one

another Devalues those with “non-traditional”

moral voices

Superiority Thesis

Women’s moral voices are superior

Exclusionary Demands that someone be the loser Inverts traditional claims of male

“superiority”

Integrationist Thesis

There is only one moral voice: It’s the same for men and women

No richness or diversity Assimilationist-everybody needs to fall

in line with the powerful majority

Diversity Thesis

There are different moral voices and this is a source of richness and diversity

External: Different sex-based moral voices

Internal: We all have masculine AND feminine moral voices within us•Minimizes gender stereotyping

Bem’s Sex Roles

How does all of this carry over to leadership?

3 male + 3 female leaders What industry? Adjectives to describe them as an

individual Adjectives to describe their moral voice What you think it’s like to work for

them?

Leadership Preferences?

Sam Palmisano: CEO IBM

Where are we headed?

“We need not just a new generation of leadership but a new gender of

leadership.”-Bill Clinton

Acknowledgement that BOTH male and female voices and leadership styles are necessary for a successful organization!

Next Class

Tokenism & the pay gap