My essential question is “In what ways are women negatively held to a higher moral standard than men?” The source I chose to go with it is “Are women morally different from men?” written by Michael Slote.

My source discusses the ways that men and women are morally different & how feminism plays into that. It also analyzes the separate ways that men and women approach moral issues & the characteristics of both genders. With this, I hope to help you all gain more insight on how these different approaches influence societal views & opinions.

Before we begin, I am going to give you the definition of moral standard. A moral standard is about the behavior and type of actions which society believes to be morally acceptable and morally unacceptable.

It is no secret that men appear to be held to lower standards than women, especially when it comes down to morality. If a woman does something morally wrong, oftentimes, they get the heat for their actions, whereas men get to walk away with their hands free of blood. Take Hester, for example. When she cheats on her husband & has a child with the man she cheated with, readers & characters in the novel don’t hear any mention of his name once. Instead, Hester gets all the punishment & is now a symbol of sin throughout the community.

Men and women do have different approaches to dealing with moral issues though. In the article, “Are women morally different from men?”, Slote states “If women think about morality differently from men, one may then wonder whether men and women are governed by different moralities, [...] (Slote 32,33). Men tend to deal with moral issues by appealing to the principles of justice while women tend to deal with these issues using their feelings & characteristics. One main characteristic is their empathy. Women want to help others by connecting with them & finding a solution that is morally correct, not just lawfully correct. Since women tend to be more empathetic than men, we are expected to maintain that attitude. In a way, we create higher moral standards for ourselves. When we do this, it can lead to situations like the one I mentioned earlier. Of course, that is not always true and men can have a role in that as well.