You've Got to Be Kidding!: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity

Myth 2: “Women Are More Ethical than Men; They Are More Moral and More Principled”

Reality: Not necessarily true! The most recent research is that there is a universal sequence of the stages of moral development for both genders. I have found in my own research, however, that the process of how men and women reach their moral and ethical decisions often differs.

My sister-in-law, Dolores, is a pastoral care chaplain who has raised four boys and two girls. She says her sons and daughters both wanted to win equally in sandbox games, but her daughters were quicker to complain, “That’s not fair!” And that’s when the squabbling began.

At the risk of being mislabeled a sexist, I do believe many females’ approach to handling ethical dilemmas differs from our male counterparts. Maybe Dolores is right; as women, we generally seem to place a premium value on the process by which we win. Perhaps we need to feel we won fair and square. But I think it is a stretch to say that men are therefore more willing to fight unfairly. Males have a cultural history defined by sportsmanship and “playing by the rules,” so they care about winning fairly, too, just in a slightly different way than we do. Now that more of us are growing up with organized athletics (thank you, Title IX!), we are—like the men—also looking at ethics through the lens of “good sportsmanship.”

Men and women certainly communicate about ethics differently. I was a guest on an East Coast radio show exploring this topic when a caller ...