Even today, andro-centric pre-suppositions characterise the work of a number of thinkers without them necessarily being aware of this. As per feminist research, the definition of Man, of the human being, historically constructed and thought about with the male type in mind, does not take into account the experience and specific situation of women. The word "man" (or "Man") does not refer, as it supposedly does, to both man and woman, but only to man and his specific experience (and even then, most of the time, to the lives of a certain category of men). While explicitly insisting that women are included in the word "Man" and hailing the equality of the sexes as an asset, the works of contemporary theologians, philosophers and scientists thus continue to in fact exclude women and their specific experience from their reflection on the responsibility of human beings with regard to the world and within society.

The marginalisation of women in ethical reflection

The consequences of this marginalisation of women in ethical reflection are many: first, an entire facet of human experience is absent from this reflection which is all the poorer for it and therefore less pertinent. Also, questions arising from specific struggles involving women have gone unspoken, as though they did not require essential examination and a complete and in-depth reflection. Instead, these are considered to be "personal problems" that need to be resolved -- individual troubles without any social significance. For example, a number of women in positions of responsibility are confronted with the dilemma wherein they constantly have to prove that they are capable of the tasks that they are assigned ("as well if not better than men") while at the same time, they do not merely want to adapt themselves to the roles and structures that are created with male logic. They feel the need to re-examine the equations of power, the organisation of relations within companies, and the finality of the work, and also to invent other ways of combining love and professional life, their children's education and their career. Forced to straddle the fence between two worlds, between the traditionally feminine universe and the one that was once reserved only for men (a world into which women have only recently entered), they have to confront several challenges that deserve to be thought out in a collective manner as they involve real ethical questions.

The responsibility of women as participants

The andro-centric pre-supposition that characterises ethical reflection fails to clarify the specific responsibility of women as participants. According to Ina Praetorius, the Christian interpretation of success in the scientific field clearly illustrates this failure, which denies women certain important elements of reflection on their actions as women. The progress made possible thanks to discoveries in the natural sciences is hailed by theologians for improving the quality of life for many. However, as the future of life on earth, the integrity of the species and the quality of human life often seem threatened by what becomes possible as research discovers new possibilities to manipulate living beings and things, a number of questions arise regarding the legitimacy of systematically doing everything simply because it becomes possible. For example, the development of atomic and chemical arms and genetic manipulation -- already widely applied in agriculture and other fields -- show that the positive results of scientific discoveries are sometimes largely overtaken by the destructive and disastrous consequences of their application.

Thinkers developing a critical approach to the natural sciences have shown that over and above the application at any cost of scientific discoveries, the scientific approach itself also presents a problem as it adopts an approach that instrumentalises nature. By considering nature as a simple thing, an object that can be infinitely manipulated, it places man, the scientist in the role of an all-powerful actor. It is uncontrolled ambition and thirst for power, according to a theological work on creation, that insists on the finitude of man and any human action: "man should not take the place of God, asked to manage creation, he should be at the service of life and not of death". After having conducted an in-depth analysis of the texts of a number of theologians that I can only mention briefly here, Ina Praetorius indicated how this work too remains enclosed within andro-centric pre-suppositions. It does not take into account the specific participation of women in the development of the paradigm of science that gives them problems. It particularly remains silent about the historical exclusion of women from the field of research at a time when, hunted and even put to death for being considered dangerous and threatening during witch-hunts, they were progressively placed on par, ideologically speaking, with Nature, that had to be mastered, dominated, controlled and rendered submissive. But this also prevents women from understanding their own share of responsibility in the development of a science and a destructive technology that had no respect for the processes of life. This is mainly due to the fact that women had systematically distanced men from the contingencies of daily life with their services and their devoted care, allowing them to forget the multiple dependencies and interdependencies that form the bases of life. Their passivity and their consent to a complementary sharing of tasks made it possible for men to live and work in an "artificial" universe, free from material constraints and ties of affection, which would have contributed to the creation of a lack of understanding of the values inherent to the protection of life in the world of research.

Contributing actively to rethinking the world

The moral precepts advanced by theologians like "man must recognise that he is a limited creature", or else "man must recognise that he is not God" cannot therefore refer to women. Women should, on the contrary, be reminded that it is essential to be aware of their social responsibility with regard to world events, to not waste their energy in blind devotion to the little group in their charge, to not dispense services that they are asked for without verifying that these do not serve or support destructive projects.

Besides this study that indicates that women are victims of historical exclusion as is still very evident in contemporary texts, the criticism of andro-centric pre-suppositions in ethical reflection seeks then above all else to grant women their responsibility. The passivity, the consent, the adaptation to the rules of the game conceived by men in a patriarchal society are as much the expression of a fundamental alienation as the corollary attitude that consists of wanting to dominate, intrumentalise and make objects of human beings. It is time for women to contribute in an active manner towards redefining the world, to radically modify the current rules of the game by introducing an approach that respects life and beings. Thinking of themselves as responsible participants and leaving the sidelines to take their place in the centre of the Universe constitute the first steps towards this fundamental change.

Arina van de Kerk (Netherlands)

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