Something I noticed when I taught Business Ethics, primarily to male students, is that men seem to think ethics is ‘a girl thing’. What? What?! (My god, that can explain everything!)
Men routinely insult other men who express concern about doing the right thing—“What are you, a fucking boy scout?” Note that boy scouts are children.
Worse, men who raise ethical questions are accused of going soft, being weak, being a bleeding heart. Note that these qualities are associated with being female. It’s thus emasculating to be concerned about right and wrong. What?!
Apparently, Mom is assigned the role of teaching the kids right from wrong. And, of course, anything Mom does is held in contempt as soon as a boy hits twelve, so this may partly explain why men eschew ethics.
Right and wrong is also the arena of priests and we all know priests aren’t real men. They’re celibate for god’s sake.
Ethics presumes caring, and real men don’t care. (They especially don’t cry, tears being evidence of caring about something.) They may protest that they can’t ‘afford’ to care; they have to make real decisions about profit and war, and feelings just get in the way. As if ethics is all, only, about feelings. (Where did they get their education? Oh, they didn’t. We don’t actually teach ethics. Except in a few university courses.)
The problem is men run the world. And it’s not going well.
Isn’t it about time men reclaim the moral? If rising above the gendered worldview is too much, then just redefine your terms a bit—and for gawdsake Man up! Consider (and then do) the right thing!
