Nussbaum Martha Craven - Is multiculturalism bad for women?

Is Multiculturalism

Bad for Women?

SUSAN MOLLER OKIN

WITH RESPONDENTS

EDITED BY JOSHUA COHEN,
MATTHEW HOWARD,
AND MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM

Copyright 1999 by Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,

Chichester, West Sussex

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Okin, Susan Moller.

Is multiculturalism bad for women? / Susan Moller Okin

with respondents ; edited by Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard,

and Martha C. Nussbaum.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-691-00431-5 (cloth : alk. paper).

ISBN 0-691-00432-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Minority womenSocial conditions. 2. Sex discrimination
against women. 3. Multiculturalism. 4. Culture conflict.
5. Feminism. I. Cohen, Joshua, 1951 . II. Howard, Matthew, 1971 .
III. Nussbaum, Martha Craven, 1947 . IV. Title.

HQ1161.045 1999

305.42dc21 99-21303

This book has been composed in Sabon

The paper used in this publication meets

the minimum requirements of

ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997)

(Permanence of Paper)

http://pup.princeton.edu

Printed in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

(PBK.)

Joshua Cohen, Matthew Howard, and Martha C. Nussbaum

Susan Moller Okin

Katha Pollitt

Will Kymlicka

Bonnie Honig

Azizah Y. al-Hibri

Yael Tamir

Sander L. Gilman

Abdullahi An-Naim

Robert Post

Bhikhu Parekh

Saskia Sassen

Homi K. Bhabha

Cass R. Sunstein

Joseph Raz

Janet E. Halley

Martha C. Nussbaum

Susan Moller Okin

Is Multiculturalism

Bad for Women?

JOSHUA COHEN,
MATTHEW HOWARD, AND
MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM

OVER THE past two centuries, social and political hierarchies in this country have met with repeated challenge from movements inspired by ideas of human equality. Abolitionists insisted that slaves are human beings, not to be held as property. Working-class movements of the 1920s and 1930s argued that a decent life for human beings should not depend on market success. The civil rights struggle of the 1960s said that skin color must be irrelevant to human fate, and condemned the practice of racial apartheid. More recently, movements for gay and lesbian rights have rejected the idea that people should be subjected to public humiliation for their choice of sexual partner.

Similarly with the modern womens movement and the feminist theory associated with it. That movement condemned settled practicestunning levels of violence against women, ceaseless efforts to turn womens sexuality into a special burden, and persistent disparities of economic opportunityin the name of the radical idea that women are human beings, too; that they are the moral equals of men, owed equal respect and concern, and that womens lives are not to be discounted nor women to be treated as a subordinate caste.

Over the past decade, a variety of movements, theories, and proposals have emerged under the banner of multiculturalism. Though some embrace a romantic politics of group identity, others make a straightforward egalitarian claim. Multiculturalism, according to one especially compelling formulation, is the radical idea that people in other cultures, foreign and domestic, are human beings, toomoral equals, entitled to equal respect and concern, not to be discounted or treated as a subordinate caste. Thus understood, multiculturalism condemns intolerance of other ways of life, finds the human in what might seem Other, and encourages cultural diversity.

But on closer inspection, multiculturalism resists easy reconciliation with egalitarian convictions. After all, some cultures do not accept, even as theory, the principle that people are owed equal respect and concern (of course, no culture fully practices the principle). Moreover, tensions with decent treatment for women seem especially acute. In some contemporary cultures we see practicesincluding differential nutrition and health care, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence, and the denial of educational opportunitiesthat appear to fly in the face of the idea that women are entitled to be treated as equals. Such tensions become especially clear when we consider a controversial proposal endorsed by some multiculturalists: to provide cultural minorities with group rights as a way to preserve those minorities from undue pressure on their ways of life. But how can we endorse special rights for groups that treat female members as subordinate no-counts?

Susan Okin, a leading political theorist, forcefully puts that question to us in the lead essay in this volume. Okins essay, originally published in Boston Review, observes that regnant cultural ideasincluding religious ideassometimes provide rationales for controlling womens bodies and ruling their lives. When the dominant ideas and practices in a group offend so deeply against the idea that men and women are moral equals, Okin argues, we ought to be less solicitous of the group and more attentive to the costs visited on female members.

The responses to Okins essaymany of which appeared in an earlier form in Boston Reviewrange widely. Some emphasize more than Okin does the plasticity of cultures and religions, and conclude (with Okin) that they can fairly be expected to adapt to minimal demands of political moralityfor example, that women are to be treated as equals. Some broadly agree with Okin, but suggest that her focus on womens status is arbitrary: Shouldnt we condemn group rights whenever a culture is unduly constraining of its members? Others think it intolerant to require that cultures and religious outlooks endorse, in theory or practice, the egalitarian principle, and to condition special rights on such endorsement. A final group thinks that Okins juxtaposition of feminism and multiculturalism is blind to cultural differencesa failing rooted ultimately in her confusion (characteristic of moral universalists) of the generically human with its familiar, local visage.

The exploration of these disagreements sharply clarifies the central question in this debate: How should we understand a commitment to equality in a world of multiple human differences, grim hierarchies of power, and cruel divisions of life circumstance? And at its best moments, the debate pushes beyond such clarification, forcing us to rethink our understanding of feminism and multiculturalism, and to reflect on the practical prospects for reconciling these different aspects of the radical idea of human equalityto consider how we might achieve, in Susan Okins words, a multiculturalism that effectively treats all persons as each others moral equals.