"Moral typecasting" is a phenomenon whereby some people are perceived more as moral agents (highly capable of doing right or wrong) and others as moral patients (highly capable of experiencing victimhood or receiving beneficence). These traits are inversely related.

Here's the Gray and Wagner paper on this:

http://scholar.harvard.edu/dwegner/files/gray__wegner_2009_moral_typecasting.pdf

Children tend to be seen as moral patients and adults as moral agents.

And, as many of you have guessed, women tend to be seen as moral patients and men as moral agents.

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/mark.swilt/files/genderdualism_dyadicmorality_finaldrafting_r5.pptx

(The above was produced by graduate students and wasn't peer reviewed. I had to include it though since it directly tested moral typecasting and gender)

This phenomenon is very central to gender inequality. So many inequalities are explained by men being seen as actors and women being seen as acted upon. It explains why leaders, businessmen, and inventors tend to be men. It explains why we tend to put men in harm's way. It explains why men are sentenced to longer prison terms than women. It explains why harming a woman is seen as worse than harming a man. It explains why a woman in need elicits more sympathy than a man. It explains why men are perceived to be the group that has "created" the current gender system.