Hilarious. Thanks Leslie for the very sensitive and provocative article, to the 'usual suspects' for their predictable responses, and especially to the last three commentators.

I saw this article when it first appeared in the SMH but I am sorry that I didn't read it as deeply as I should have. I was put off by the mention of Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism in the same breath as female circumcision.

Dr Carnold makes some important points - the main ones to me being the right of exit - after all, you can usually exit from a particular faith group if you want to in Western cultures without too many other ruptures (excepting of course if you are a member of one of those particular groups such as the Exclusive Brethren). It is much harder to exit when you have been kept isolated from the host culture and have been told that the women in the host culture are all sluts, whores and are asking to be raped by their conduct.

The most important problem is that feminism, apart from attempting to cross cultures, does not privilege any particular sub group within society, excepting for the female gender as a whole, and then both as a group and in respect to individuals within that group.

Multiculturalism is about privileging groups over individuals, otherwise it would be known as multi-individualism rather than multiculturalism.

Women, as a group cannot separate themselves from the rest of society the same way that cultural groups can. Women are already with us, they have rightful claims and grievances. They did not seek to inject themselves into the host society, instead they form part of the host society.

Multiculturalism has much to be afraid of from feminism, after all, feminists are in the ideal situation to break down cultural barriers and bring women under the protection of the host culture from under the respression of their cultural groups.

Okin has some fearsome rivals--Judith Jarvis Thomson, Mary
Warnock, Martha Nussbaum and Elizabeth Anscombe, for example. I don't think your assertion of Okin's pre-eminence is arguable.

The moral situation is more complex than you suppose--or than you can deal with in the space available. The rights to self determination, to freedom from oppression and to bodlily integrity cleary trump rights to cultural identity. The major reason for the arguments about human rights since the second world war has been to try and provide a philosophical basis and a basis in interenational law for the intervention in cultures, demanding change. What applies between countries also applies between cultural groups within a country.

Similar points can and have been made about the limits of parents' rights.

But to determine that one right trumps another is not the end of the matter. Forcing major change in a culture carries serious consequences. We should surely then ask how the superior right can be afforded with the least transgression of the lesser one; and whether compensation is required as well.

The womens liberationists who are responsible for a lot of the support for multiculturalism are now waking up decades too late of the dangers it may present to their own culture of Western freedom. Cant say they weren’t warned that it was a dangerous social experiment but as usual they thought they had all the answers.

We define ourselves by our clothes . When children wear school uniforms it tells the world what schools they go to.. When Muslims wear their headgear they proclaim that they belong to a certain tribe. They proclaim a sort of apartheid or segregation with their mode of dress. That is what Australians instinctively dislike, this them and us mode of dress.
It also sends a signal to men that the women are muslim and so it ensures they are only approached by muslim men. A very effective way of ensuring that their tribal blood is not contaminated by other races. True whether they admit to it or not.

Yes religions are tribes,when they don’t marry outside of their religion and they are just as guilty of racism against other groups who are not of their tribe.

Why would God be offended by the hair on a womans head . Covering their pubic hair I I can understand. If you believe that Allah created women then why would he be offended by the sight of what he created?.

But I, like most Australians don’t give two hoots about what muslims believe in. What I do care about is their creating of a big separate tribe because that is a direct threat to the freedom of my daughters if they start to vote muslim priests into parliament and they get the numbers to demand that my daughters have to live under Shari law. My sons also will have to wear beards and stick their bum up in the air and pray 5 times a day.
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Every weekday I go into St Georges Terrace here in Perth I am confronted with humans of the female gender dressed in black attire.Thirty or so years ago the only females so attired were widows of Mediterranean origin. To what ideology are these women conforming to? Are these examples of "enlightenment" so cowed so as not to express their own induviduality. Yet when they enter into a contract of marriage they participate in costumes of the theatre of the absurd.

Cannold sees multicultural feminism as standing in the way of a homogonous feminist culture.

“But the right to escape a community that is oppressive is not enough. Gender-discriminatory cultures and religions have a profound impact on women's beliefs about their legitimate entitlements in this life.”

“As a consequence, asserts Okin, where multicultural practices eviscerate the self-esteem necessary for girls and women to develop their own values and plans, the State is well within its bounds to outlaw them.”

How refreshing to read that culture is the new enemy. From this vantage, one is tempted to expose one’s mangina and romp into the fracas.