Feminism and Multiculturalism: Some Tensions

Ethics

Volumn 108, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 661-684

  Okin, Susan Moller ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0000171676     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/233846     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. Jacob Levy has recently provided an excellent classification of the types of rights commonly claimed by cultural minorities within nation-states. See Levy, "Classifying Cultural Rights," in NOMOS XXXIX: Ethnicity and Group Rights, ed. Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka (New York: New York University Press, 1997), chap. 2, pp. 22-66.
2. Charles Taylor, Amy Gutmann, and most of the other contributors to Multiculturalism, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), use 'multiculturalism' in both the ways I distinguish here, interchangeably. The same usage occurs in Yael Tamir, "Two Concepts of Multiculturalism," Journal of Philosophy of Education 29 (1995): 161-72. I think this usage tends to cause confusion in these arguments, both because the relevant groups are not the same, though they overlap, and because situations that call for the recognition of previously neglected perspectives in educational curricula would seem to be distinct from (though, again, they may overlap with) situations in which the legal enforcement of group rights is justified, even when such rights conflict with or override certain individual rights.
3. Charles Taylor, Amy Gutmann, and most of the other contributors to Multiculturalism, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), use 'multiculturalism' in both the ways I distinguish here, interchangeably. The same usage occurs in Yael Tamir, "Two Concepts of Multiculturalism," Journal of Philosophy of Education 29 (1995): 161-72. I think this usage tends to cause confusion in these arguments, both because the relevant groups are not the same, though they overlap, and because situations that call for the recognition of previously neglected perspectives in educational curricula would seem to be distinct from (though, again, they may overlap with) situations in which the legal enforcement of group rights is justified, even when such rights conflict with or override certain individual rights.
4. George Kateb, "Notes on Pluralism," Social Research ("Special Issue on Liberalism") 61 (1994): 511-37, p. 512.
5. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 89. Kymlicka points out that this is what Margalit and Raz call a "pervasive culture" (Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz, "National Self-Determination," Journal of Philosophy 87 [1990]: 439-61).
6. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 89. Kymlicka points out that this is what Margalit and Raz call a "pervasive culture" (Avishai Margalit and Joseph Raz, "National Self-Determination," Journal of Philosophy 87 [1990]: 439-61).
7. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 76; emphasis added.
8. For examples of such defenses, see Vernon Van Dyke, "The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory," World Politics 29 (1977): 343-69, and "Collective Entities and Moral Rights: Problems in Liberal-Democratic Thought, "Journal of Politics 44 (1982): 21-40.
9. For examples of such defenses, see Vernon Van Dyke, "The Individual, the State, and Ethnic Communities in Political Theory," World Politics 29 (1977): 343-69, and "Collective Entities and Moral Rights: Problems in Liberal-Democratic Thought, "Journal of Politics 44 (1982): 21-40.
10. All three problems are still apparent in Michael Sandel's recent Democracy's Discontent (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). See review by Susan Moller Okin, American Political Science Review 91 (1997): 440-42.
11. All three problems are still apparent in Michael Sandel's recent Democracy's Discontent (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). See review by Susan Moller Okin, American Political Science Review 91 (1997): 440-42.
12. See Susan Moller Okin, "Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences," Hypatia, vol. 3 (1998), in press.
13. See, e.g., Jane Flax, "Race/Gender and the Ethics of Difference: A Reply to Okin's 'Gender Inequality and Cultural Differences,'" Political Theory 23 (1995): 500-510; Norma Claire Moruzzi, "A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity," Political Theory 22 (1994): 653-72; also the four references to clitoridectomy in Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, eds., Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), all of which consist of critiques of Western feminists for opposing the practice. I address this issue at greater length in "Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences."
14. See, e.g., Jane Flax, "Race/Gender and the Ethics of Difference: A Reply to Okin's 'Gender Inequality and Cultural Differences,'" Political Theory 23 (1995): 500-510; Norma Claire Moruzzi, "A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity," Political Theory 22 (1994): 653-72; also the four references to clitoridectomy in Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, eds., Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), all of which consist of critiques of Western feminists for opposing the practice. I address this issue at greater length in "Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences."
15. See, e.g., Jane Flax, "Race/Gender and the Ethics of Difference: A Reply to Okin's 'Gender Inequality and Cultural Differences,'" Political Theory 23 (1995): 500-510; Norma Claire Moruzzi, "A Problem with Headscarves: Contemporary Complexities of Political and Social Identity," Political Theory 22 (1994): 653-72; also the four references to clitoridectomy in Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo, and Lourdes Torres, eds., Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), all of which consist of critiques of Western feminists for opposing the practice. I address this issue at greater length in "Feminism, Women's Human Rights, and Cultural Differences."
16. Covenant for the New Millennium: The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Free Hand Books, 1996), pp. 9-10.
17. Ibid., p. 112.
18. See, e.g., Kirti Singh, "Obstacles to Women's Rights in India," in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives, ed. Rebecca J. Cook (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 375-96, esp. pp. 378-89.
19. Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Walter J. Ong, Fighting for Life (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univerily Press, 1981); Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
20. Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Walter J. Ong, Fighting for Life (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univerily Press, 1981); Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
21. Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Walter J. Ong, Fighting for Life (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univerily Press, 1981); Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
22. Dorothy Dinnerstein, The Mermaid and the Minotaur: Sexual Arrangements and Human Malaise (New York: Harper & Row, 1976); Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Walter J. Ong, Fighting for Life (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univerily Press, 1981); Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon, 1988).
23. Arvind Sharma, ed., Women in World Religions (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1987); John Stratton Hawley, ed., Fundamentalism and Gender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
24. Arvind Sharma, ed., Women in World Religions (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 1987); John Stratton Hawley, ed., Fundamentalism and Gender (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
25. See Carol Delaney, Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth (Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1998).
26. Ibid., quotations are from pp. 5 and 23.
27. As Gita Sen and Karen Grown say: "Traditions have always been a double-edged sword for women. Subordinate economic and social status, and restrictions on women's activity and mobility are embedded in most traditional cultures, as our research over the last fifteen years has shown. The call to cultural purity is often a thinly veiled attempt to continue women's subjugation in a rapidly changing society" (Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives, [New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987], p. 76). See also Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture, and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), esp. the introduction and chapters by Rosaldo and Sherry Ortner; also Rosaldo, "The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (1980): 389-417.
28. As Gita Sen and Karen Grown say: "Traditions have always been a double-edged sword for women. Subordinate economic and social status, and restrictions on women's activity and mobility are embedded in most traditional cultures, as our research over the last fifteen years has shown. The call to cultural purity is often a thinly veiled attempt to continue women's subjugation in a rapidly changing society" (Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives, [New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987], p. 76). See also Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture, and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), esp. the introduction and chapters by Rosaldo and Sherry Ortner; also Rosaldo, "The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (1980): 389-417.
29. As Gita Sen and Karen Grown say: "Traditions have always been a double-edged sword for women. Subordinate economic and social status, and restrictions on women's activity and mobility are embedded in most traditional cultures, as our research over the last fifteen years has shown. The call to cultural purity is often a thinly veiled attempt to continue women's subjugation in a rapidly changing society" (Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women's Perspectives, [New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987], p. 76). See also Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds., Woman, Culture, and Society (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974), esp. the introduction and chapters by Rosaldo and Sherry Ortner; also Rosaldo, "The Use and Abuse of Anthropology: Reflections on Feminism and Cross-Cultural Understanding," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (1980): 389-417.
30. Jeremy Bentham, "Of the Influence of Time and Place in Matters of Legislation," in Works, ed. John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838), pt. 1, pp. 173-81, passim. Bentham, like many people writing about other cultures, is far more aware of the beam in the other culture's eye than the beam in his own (mistake intended). After all, contemporary English women lost their legal personhood on marriage, and Bentham himself defended the exclusion of women from even observing Parliamentary debates on the grounds that their presence was too distracting to men engaged in such serious business as legislation. But he persists in thinking English women are far freer than those of the other cultures he describes.
31. Sebastian Poulter, "Ethnic Minority Customs, English Law, and Human Rights," International and Comparative Law Quarterly 36 (1987): 589-615.
32. Amy Gutmann, "The Challenge of Multiculturalism in Political Ethics," Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993): 171-204. Both Poulter and Gutmann use the generic, gender-neutral term "polygamy," but the practice they refer to is polygyny, marriage between a man and more than one woman, and not polyandry, the reverse institution. There are far more examples of the former than the latter in the world today. The latter is practiced by very few groups.
33. For numerous examples of this, see Mahnaz Afghami, ed., Faith and Freedom: Women's Human Rights in the Muslim World (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995); and Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994).
34. For numerous examples of this, see Mahnaz Afghami, ed., Faith and Freedom: Women's Human Rights in the Muslim World (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995); and Valentine M. Moghadam, ed., Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994).
35. Avishai Margalit and Moshe Halbertal, "Liberalism and the Right to Culture," Social Research 61 (1994): 491-510.
36. Chandran Kukathas, "Are There Any Cultural Rights?" Political Theory 20 (1992): 105-39.
37. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989), and Multicultural Citizenship.
38. Margalit and Halbertal, p. 491.
39. Ibid., p. 499. See also Frances Raday, "Religion, Multiculturalism and Equality: The Israeli Case," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 25 (1996): 193-241. Raday's arguments and conclusions about the justification for government support for the Ultra-Orthodox differ radically from those of Margalit and Halbertal.
40. Ibid., p. 499. See also Frances Raday, "Religion, Multiculturalism and Equality: The Israeli Case," Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 25 (1996): 193-241. Raday's arguments and conclusions about the justification for government support for the Ultra-Orthodox differ radically from those of Margalit and Halbertal.
41. Margalit and Halbertal, p. 505; see also p. 502.
42. Margalit and Halbertal, p. 505; see also p. 502.
43. However, in a conversation with me, Halbertal indicated that he and Margalit think everyone has a personality identity, of some sort or other (Jerusalem, December 1996).
44. Margalit and Halbertal, pp. 493-94.
45. Avishai Margalit, "Israel: The Rise of the Ultra-Orthodox," New York Review of Books (November 9, 1989), pp. 38-44, p. 39.
46. This is also the reasoning behind the prohibition on women's praying publicly in a voice above a whisper. The danger is that the sound of women's voices will sexually arouse men, which is strictly incompatible with the latters' praying. This same attitude about women and sexuality is clearly apparent in a statement made by Mahammed Moujaher, spokesperson for the Association Islamique en France, during the recent "affaire du foulard" in France. Defending the girl's right to wear her headscarf to school, he said that it is necessary "so that she he considered from the viewpoint of her intellectual or spiritual capacities and not from that of her body, which is (it's a simple observation) an object of desire" ("Moujaher: Le voile, une obligation morale!" Le Figaro [October 26, 1989]). This male-centric notion - that a woman's body is "an object of desire" - is what is behind virtually all religious restrictions on the ways women may dress, as well as, in many cases, where they can and cannot go, in whose company, what kind of work they can and cannot do, whether they can participate in important decision-making fora, and when and where they can speak or sing, and so on. For a woman or girl to be treated as a sexual object, rather than a person whose body is her body, not someone else's "object of desire," is an unacceptable breach of her basic rights.
47. Kukathas, p. 123.
48. Ibid., pp. 121, 124.
49. Ibid., p. 114.
50. For an account of a people with a similar outlook on their status as slaves, see Elinor Burkett, "God Created Me to Be a Slave," New York Times Magazine (October 12, 1997), pp. 56-60. But the situation of women in highly patriarchal cultures has added dimensions. I have recently outlined three explanations for the lesser likelihood that the older women of such cultures will seek change than the young: "It is not easy to question cultural constraints that have had a major impact on one's whole life; . . . the experience of such constraints may produce a psychological need to enforce the constraints on the younger generation [of women]; . . . [and] an older woman's relatively high status within the group . . . results in part from her leading a virtuous life, which includes successful enculturation of her children and grandchildren into their prescribed gender roles" ("Susan Okin Responds," Boston Review 22 [1997]: 40). For an excellent lengthier consideration of this issue, see Hanna Papanek, "To Each Less than She Needs, from Each More than She Can Do: Allocations, Entitlements, and Value," in Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development, ed. Irene Tinker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 162-81, esp. pp. 176-81.
51. For an account of a people with a similar outlook on their status as slaves, see Elinor Burkett, "God Created Me to Be a Slave," New York Times Magazine (October 12, 1997), pp. 56-60. But the situation of women in highly patriarchal cultures has added dimensions. I have recently outlined three explanations for the lesser likelihood that the older women of such cultures will seek change than the young: "It is not easy to question cultural constraints that have had a major impact on one's whole life; . . . the experience of such constraints may produce a psychological need to enforce the constraints on the younger generation [of women]; . . . [and] an older woman's relatively high status within the group . . . results in part from her leading a virtuous life, which includes successful enculturation of her children and grandchildren into their prescribed gender roles" ("Susan Okin Responds," Boston Review 22 [1997]: 40). For an excellent lengthier consideration of this issue, see Hanna Papanek, "To Each Less than She Needs, from Each More than She Can Do: Allocations, Entitlements, and Value," in Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development, ed. Irene Tinker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 162-81, esp. pp. 176-81.
52. For an account of a people with a similar outlook on their status as slaves, see Elinor Burkett, "God Created Me to Be a Slave," New York Times Magazine (October 12, 1997), pp. 56-60. But the situation of women in highly patriarchal cultures has added dimensions. I have recently outlined three explanations for the lesser likelihood that the older women of such cultures will seek change than the young: "It is not easy to question cultural constraints that have had a major impact on one's whole life; . . . the experience of such constraints may produce a psychological need to enforce the constraints on the younger generation [of women]; . . . [and] an older woman's relatively high status within the group . . . results in part from her leading a virtuous life, which includes successful enculturation of her children and grandchildren into their prescribed gender roles" ("Susan Okin Responds," Boston Review 22 [1997]: 40). For an excellent lengthier consideration of this issue, see Hanna Papanek, "To Each Less than She Needs, from Each More than She Can Do: Allocations, Entitlements, and Value," in Persistent Inequalities: Women and World Development, ed. Irene Tinker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 162-81, esp. pp. 176-81.
53. Kukathas, p. 133.
54. For some extreme examples, see "Marked for Death, by Their Families," New York Times (October 18, 1997), p. A4.
55. Kymlicka relies less on these other theorists, especially Rawls, in Multicultural Citizenship than in Liberalism, Community, and Culture, partly because of changes he discerns in Rawls's relevant arguments.
56. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, p. 165.
57. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 83.
58. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, pp. 168-72, 195-98.
59. His examples include Lord Devlin and Islamic fundamentalists; Margalit and Halbertal appear to me to make the same error.
60. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, pp. 170-71. His examples of when this has justifiably been evoked are cases in which the Indian community in Canada, "weakened (and denigrated) by the white majority," needs time for its cultural structure to recover "its normal healthy strength and flexibility" (p. 171).
61. Ibid., p. 171.
62. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, p. 152. There is one major change here from Kymlicka's position in his earlier book: now he argues that minority cultures that qualify as "national minorities" should not he required to he internally liberal. Thus, indigenous peoples and other groups whose lands were conquered should not be forced to practice internal tolerance and to forgo discrimination. I think his grounds for making this exception are unconvincing, but will set aside this aspect of his argument for now.
63. Ibid., p. 92; emphasis added.
64. Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture, pp. 171-72.
65. See, e.g., Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, pp. 153, 165.
66. See Amartya Sen, "More than One Hundred Million Women Are Missing," New York Review of Books (December 20, 1990), pp. 61-66.
67. Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), esp. pp. 239-62.
68. For more examples, see Susan Moller Okin, "Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?" Boston Review 22 (1997): 25-28.
69. New York Times (December 2, 1996), p. A6.
70. For discussion of some such cases, see Deirdre Evans-Pritchard and Alison Dundes Renteln, "The Interpretation and Distortion of Culture: A Hmong 'Marriage by Capture' Case in Fresno, California," California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 4 (1995): 1-48; and Catherine Trevison, "Changing Sexual Assault Law and the Hmong," Indiana Law Review 27 (1993): 393-408.
71. For discussion of some such cases, see Deirdre Evans-Pritchard and Alison Dundes Renteln, "The Interpretation and Distortion of Culture: A Hmong 'Marriage by Capture' Case in Fresno, California," California Interdisciplinary Law Journal 4 (1995): 1-48; and Catherine Trevison, "Changing Sexual Assault Law and the Hmong," Indiana Law Review 27 (1993): 393-408.
72. Celia Dugger, New York Times (October 12, 1996). As Dugger notes: "Experts say there is no way of knowing how many girls are being genitally cut in the United States since the rite is usually performed privately" (p. A1).
73. Laurie Olsen, Made in America: Immigrant Students in Our Public Schools (New York: New Press, 1997), p. 124. See esp. chap. 6, "Love and Marriage: How Immigrant Women Negotiate the Terrain between Two Cultures."
74. Ibid., p. 148.
75. See ibid., chap. 6. For the extreme case of immigrant families in Britain from rural Pakistan who kill or try to kill daughters who resist arranged marriages, see "Marked for Death, by Their Families."
76. Olsen, chap. 6.
77. For some of the reasons for this, see n. 35 above.