Justice Gender And The Politics Of Multiculturalism

Justice, Gender and the Politics of Multiculturalism explores the tensions that arise when culturally diverse democratic states pursue both justice for religious and cultural minorities and justice for women. Sarah Song provides a distinctive argument about the circumstances under which egalitarian justice requires special accommodations for cultural minorities while emphasizing the value of gender equality as an important limit on cultural accommodation. Drawing on detailed case studies of gendered cultural conflicts, including conflicts over the 'cultural defense' in criminal law, aboriginal membership rules and polygamy, Song offers a fresh perspective on multicultural politics by examining the role of intercultural interactions in shaping such conflicts. In particular, she demonstrates the different ways that majority institutions have reinforced gender inequality in minority communities and, in light of this, argues in favour of resolving gendered cultural dilemmas through intercultural democratic dialogue.

Explores the tensions that arise in pursuing justice for minority groups and gender equality.

Explores the tensions that arise in pursuing justice for minority groups and gender equality.

This key volume explores the relationship between cultural justice and sexual justice in multicultural societies in a new light. The authors challenge the framing of ‘feminism and multiculturalism’ as one of inevitable conflict, as well as the portrayal of liberal sexual equality and cultural rights as irreconcilable, moving the debate beyond the culture/gender impasse. Focusing on three theoretical themes from a feminist perspective: the meaning and role of culture and identity in politics the problem of autonomy in relation to culture and identity the crucial role of democracy in addressing the theoretical and practical problems raised by this set of issues. The diverse contributors break new theoretical ground by providing detailed engagement with the concrete experiences of women and minorities who are caught in the dilemmas of gender and cultural justice. The collected chapters address sexual/cultural justice in a range of different countries, offering illuminating case studies on Britain, South Africa, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, Mexico, and the United States. Sexual Justice / Cultural Justice will be of strong interest to students and researchers working in the areas of gender and feminist theory, politics, law, philosophy and sociology.

This book offers a persuasive new argument for reconciling the tensions that arise when liberal democratic states try to protect two important kinds of equality: sexual equality and cultural equality.

This book attempts to reconfigure feminism in a way that responds to cultural diversity. The author contends that a discourse of rights can be formulated and that this task is crucial to negotiating a balance between women's interests and multicultural cl

Multiculturalism is a concept that has been stretched to include a variety of political conditions, mainly in countries that have liberal democratic political systems and traditions. In this North/South ‘comparison’ we illuminate remedies pursued by governments and various political interests to address the binary. Tensions of culture and rights may not be the same everywhere. An interesting point of comparison is in the treatment of liberalism – often assumed in the global North to be the universal norms to be defended, whereas in the global South, liberalism itself may be viewed as the problem. Colonial histories are fraught with discriminatory legislation aimed at accommodating indigenous populations, often a trade-off for more structural redistributive justice through, for example, land reform. In Africa, for example, the codification of customary law has reinforced misogynistic and static interpretations of ‘African culture’. This book will show how varied and complex the embodiment of multiculturalism as a political practice, or policy discourse in different political contexts can be, and how often the outcome of multicultural discourses creates a binary between culture and universal human rights. The aim of this book is to grapple with dislodging this binary. This book was published as a special issue of Politikon.

The idea that respect for cultural diversity conflicts with gender equality is now a staple of both public and academic debate. Yet discussion of these tensions is marred by exaggerated talk of cultural difference, leading to ethnic reductionism, cultural stereotyping, and a hierarchy of traditional and modern. In this volume, Anne Phillips firmly rejects the notion that ‘culture’ might justify the oppression of women, but also queries the stereotypical binaries that have represented people from ethnocultural minorities as peculiarly resistant to gender equality. The questions addressed include the relationship between universalism and cultural relativism, how to distinguish valid generalisation from either gender or cultural essentialism, and how to recognise women as agents rather than captives of culture. The discussions are illuminated by reference to legal cases and policy interventions, with a particular focus on forced marriage and cultural defence.