Multiculturalism, Universalism and the Claims of Democracy(Anne Phillips)

자료: UNRISD 2001 December

By Anne Phillips

Contents: 

Introduction 1 

Tensions between Sexual and Cultural Equality 6 

   Appealing to principles that are also negated by Western societies 8 

   Appealing to principles that are themselves open to critique 9 

   Failing to understand the social meaning of different practices 10 

Equalizing Women’s Power 12 

Bibliography 19

※ Summary: 

This paper explores the tensions between universalism and cultural relativism, and the role of democracy in resolving these tensions. It argues that cultural relativism is not a useful ally for feminism. While the social meanings and significance of cultural practices are best understood by those who engage in them, the social construction of preferences and aspirations can mean that those most oppressed by a particular practice become less able to recognize its inegalitarian character. A “hands-off” approach to cultural difference can then end up capitulating to unjust social power. At the same time, principles of justice and equality are always formed in particular historical contexts, and often reflect the preoccupations of more powerful groups. This means they must always be regarded as open to contestation, reformulation and change.

One implication is that both principles and policies should be worked out with the fullest possible involvement of all relevant groups. In seeking to establish which rights should be regarded as inalienable or which practices as inimical to equality between women and men, it is not possible to rely on simple deduction from supposedly universal principles. We always need the maximum possible dialogue to counter the false universalisms that have so dogged previous practice, as well as the “substitutionism” that has allowed certain groups to present themselves as spokespersons for the rest. The persistent under-representation of women in most of the forums in which these issues are addressed then emerges as a particularly pressing problem.

Ensuring more inclusive participation is therefore a major element in addressing the tensions between universalism and cultural relativism, but the paper cautions against utopian expectations of achieving a fully inclusive democracy. If societies were to recognize as legitimate only those conclusions that emerged from the full and equal participation of men and women, young and old, more and less powerful across the globe, they would be unable to recognize the legitimacy of any rights, for there would always be issues about whether those included in the discussion were genuinely representative. The paper then argues for a “good enough democracy”, and concludes with a number of guiding principles that can help identify which practices are most indefensible or most at odds with sexual equality concerns.

Anne Phillips is Professor of Gender Theory and Director of The Gender Institute at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom.

※ 메모: 

Failing to understand the social meaning of different practces

A third objection levelled at Okin is that her understanding of the practices she criticizes is constrained by her “outsider” status, and that particularly in her critique of the religious practices that segregate women from men and enforce their subordination, she overstates the patriarchalism of what she describes. I am not primarily concerned with whether this is a fair criticism of the specific points she makes, but more with the underlying issue about who is in the best position to understand.

There are three sub-issues here. The first relates to the observation in the last section about misreading objections to liberalism as “illiberal throwbacks miraculously marooned in the modern world”. Against this perception, I find it more compelling to read contemporary assertions of cultural, religious or ethnic identity, and their associated demands for recognition, as a quintessentially modern phenomenon. One only has to think of the recent movements against secularism in India, the Islamist revival of the 1980s, or the “re-discovery” of ethnic and religious identities in the former Yugoslavia, to recognize that cultural and religious identities have come to matter in a new way over recent decades. Within Europe, one might also look at the tensions that arise between first- and second-generation migrants, and the bewilderment of parents who worked hard to assimilate with the dominant culture when their children (and not only their boy children) now reject this. Global migration is intensifying problems of group inequality within countries, often along the fault line of ethnic or religious difference; while between countries, globalization and its associated “sharp shocks” has generated counter-movements that frequently mobilize along cultural lines. Within this, women are often significant players. In Turkey, the mobilization of Islamist women was one of the major contributors to the electoral success the Welfare Party in the local elections of 1994 (Arat, 1998), and their challenge to the secular dress codes that denied “covered women” access to the universities or professions has been one of the most explosive political battles in recent years. If we fail to understand these developments as features of contemporary politics, we will end up with an oversimplified picture of ancient patriarchy tussling with modern principles of sexual equality. This would be a reassuring picture—making the issues considerably easier than they really are—but it is not in accord with reality.

The second point is that we do not understand social practices unless we understand the social meanings with which they are invested, and that critics from outside a particular cultural setting are often too ready to dismiss what they do not understand. I have never heard a plausible version of this that makes me less critical of genital mutilation, and I have found it hard to sympathize with the explanations of polygamy when these invariably explain why men should have multiple wives rather than women having multiple husbands. But I can see that the critique of arranged marriages often fails to differentiate between marriages that are forced on unwilling partners and marriages arranged by parents concerned with their children’s best interests; and that veiling sometimes contests the sexual commodification of women even while confirming unveiled women as “sexually loose”.

A number of the respondents to Okin’s essay stress what they see as her lack of sympathy for religion, and that gulf between believers and non-believers (even greater, it often seems, than the gulf between those who follow different religions) is indeed one of the more difficult ones for the social critic to bridge. There are limits to what we can ask of the social critic (we clearly cannot insist that people engage in a particular practice or embrace a particular set of beliefs before venturing any judgement), but differences in culture and religion have provided a particularly fertile ground for misunderstanding, and it is likely that many of the initial judgements will prove too simple or too harsh.

Against both these points is a third issue that concerns the tendency of all human beings to make the best of a bad job (Condorcet’s point). It must surely be that “insiders” can claim a deeper understanding of their social meanings and social practices, but they may also be so thoroughly subordinated by their conditions that they are unable to recognize any injustice. Though this edges disturbingly close to notions of “false consciousness”, I think it remains an indispensable element in feminist thought. Sexual oppression is not justified by the generations of women who have put up with it; nor is it justified by them saying that the silencing of women in public or the unequal division of domestic labour is “natural” and right. We know that people living in unjust or impoverished conditions adjust their expectations downwards in order to survive and remain sane; we know that women can live their lives by images of femininity that do immense damage to their self-esteem; we know that people living in relations of domination often find it hard to imagine themselves living under anything else. Perceptions of what is desirable are always shaped and constrained by perceptions of what is possible, and the fact that a woman living in a society where women have always taken the responsibility for children and household may think it unnatural for men to take an equal share does not require us to suspend our critique of the sexual division of labour. Similarly, the fact that women living in societies where girls are considered unmarriageable if they freely enjoy their sexuality may insist on the genital mutilation of their daughters does not require us to regard the practice as what they freely “choose”. Choices are made within particular social constraints, and much of the time we are not even aware that other choices are possible. If so, this suggests that those most subordinated may also be those least able to recognize the injustice of their position. It may then be the outsiders, not the insiders, who are best placed to judge.

This is not a comfortable conclusion, and clearly has to be moderated by the earlier points about the tendency to misrepresent current tensions as episodes in the battle between modernity and tradition, and the likely misreading of social practices and values by those who can only view them from outside. In most cases, the starkness of the conclusion is further moderated by the presence of internal critics who do not accept their conditions as either natural or just, but I have argued that this last cannot be the decisive consideration. Criticism will certainly be better informed when there are internal as well as external critics, and the resulting dialogue may well lead to a different understanding of values and rights. We should not, however, conclude that there is nothing to be said about abuses of women’s rights until these abuses have been challenged from inside. We should not, as Martha Nussbaum observes, allow the fears of a “do-gooder colonialism” to block initiatives toward gender justice (Nussbaum, 1999:32).

Equalizing Women’s Power

All the above is by way of preamble and clarification: setting out the reasons for anticipating both alliance and tension between feminism and multiculturalism; arguing the dangers of cultural relativism but also the legitimate concerns about universalism; challenging the paralysis that sometimes sets in when confronted with cultural claims. Let me restate some key points:

 

• Cultural relativism, understood as the belief that norms of justice are relative to the society in which they are formed and that it is inappropriate to take the norms that emerge within one society as the measure against which to assess the practices of others, is not a useful way forward.

• At the same time, principles of justice are always formed in a particular historical context, and often reflect the preoccupations of more powerful groups. This does not prevent such principles from having a universal application, but it does mean they must always be regarded as open to contestation, reformulation and change.

• Cultural reification, understood as the belief that “cultures” are monolithic, internally self-consistent and externally sealed off from other influences, is not a plausible way of understanding the world.

• The social meaning and significance of cultural practices is best understood by those who engage in them, and it is all too easy for “outsiders” to misread them.

• At the same time, the social construction of preferences and aspirations suggests that those most oppressed by a particular practice may also be the least well equipped to recognize its inegalitarian character. Evidence of internal support or consensus is not decisive, and a “hands-off” approach to cultural difference can end up capitulating to unjust social power.

If principles of justice are always potentially skewed by the conditions of their formulation, and the understanding of social practices is always open to re-interpretation in the light of new knowledge and experience, one clear implication is that both principles and policies should be worked out with the fullest possible involvement of all relevant groups. So this implies not just the “global citizens” working to define human rights or principles of justice, nor the religious and cultural leaders representing the principles of “their” culture or religion, but also the more hidden constituencies with what may be their very different experiences, perspectives and concerns. In seeking to establish which rights should be regarded as inalienable or which practices are inimical to equality between women and men, it is not possible to rely on simple deduction from supposedly universal principles. We always need the maximum possible dialogue to counter the false universalisms that have so dogged previous practice, as well as the “substitutionism” that has allowed certain groups to present themselves as spokespersons for the rest. The persistent under-representation of women in most of the forums in which these issues are addressed then emerges as a particularly pressing problem. This leads us to what I have elsewhere described as a “politics of presence” to ensure full participation of all those concerned (Phillips, 1995).

I do not mean by this that matters of basic principle are to be settled by majority vote, and I shall return shortly to reasons why democratization alone is not enough of an answer. But it is only in relatively rare circumstances that policy disagreements involve fundamental issues of principle—pitting equality, for example, against inequality, or the right to life against the right to kill. More commonly, disagreements revolve around competing interpretations of such principles, as in the famous disputes about when a foetus becomes a human being, and whether it has an independent right to life. Even if we start (as I would recommend) from an unashamed commitment to equality, this often turns out to settle surprisingly little. To give some of the commoner examples, it can be argued that equality means desegregation: no separate spheres for men and women, no separate enclaves for white and black. But there is often a compelling egalitarian case for segregation, as when people suggest that, in the context of current gender relations, girls will get more equal attention from their teachers and a more equal opportunity to advance their education if they are taught in single sex schools; or that in a context of racist attacks, ethnic minority groups will enjoy more equal security when they are able to concentrate in the same neighbourhood rather than being dispersed throughout a wider community. The French affaire des foulards (when Muslim schoolgirls were banned from wearing headscarves in school) was argued in competing discourses of equality: on the one hand, that all citizens should be equally bound by the same principles of secularism; on the other, that it was unfair to prevent Muslim students from wearing a symbol of their religion when Catholic schoolgirls were permitted to wear the crucifixes that symbolize their own.