Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Book

Susan Okin presents her audience with an interesting viewpoint about the effects of multiculturalism on women across the globe; however, her argument contains crucial holes and false assumptions that work against her claims. Her central point that multiculturalism and the idea of minority group rights allows for violences against women to persist in minority cultures is especially compelling and certainly in need of critical discussion. Okin's main starting point for criticizing multiculturalism is the assumption that Western liberal cultures have achieved the right kind of multiculturalism and that other cultures should mirror the practices of the West. This claim, and the evidence Okin uses to support it, is dangerous for analyzing multiculturalism because of certain problems within Western culture in terms of how women are treated and viewed. Another crucial flaw in Okin's argument is that she fails to look deeper into the damaging practices she uses as examples. That is, the circumstances and cases described or cited by Okin are seen in her essay only on the surface and, while it is clear that these practices should be abolished, Okin's only solution offered is assimilation into Western culture or the extinction of such cultures. For the purposes of Okin's argument, this solution only creates an imperialistic attitude towards the cultures she is criticizing and does not allow her audience to consider the root causes of certain cultural practices. Thus, I would argue that Okin's analysis of multiculturalism contains assumptions about Western liberal cultures that overlook damaging Western ideologies about women and the violences and injustices caused by those ideologies, and that her criticism of cultural practices lacks an in depth look at the underlying beliefs and ideologies driving such practices.
Okin's discussion on the Western liberal world in her original essay constructs a view of the west that glosses over any issues women in this culture may have and excuses the violences and injustices against women in these cultures in a way that is in itself an injustice to women. Okin lists a series of injustices or violences against women in Western liberal culture; such as economic inequality, a focus on beauty, and illegal violence (16). However, she then argues that, in light of the rest of the world, these problems are not as bad as what other women across the globe are subjected to. She also uses global circumstances of women as a way of saying, basically, that our patriarchy is better than the rest of the world's patriarchy. Furthermore, she does so by giving a list of things Western liberal cultures do not do to their women; such as, the idea that girls are not told that they are less valuable than males or that they should be subservient to the male population (17). These particular claims, and the direction they take Okins' audience, are not only flawed, but also extremely risky for analyzing multiculturalism. The first claim works against women across the globe by allowing certain problems, quite serious problems, to be overlooked or put aside for the sake of Okin's central argument. Thus, while writing to help women across the globe, Okin is doing much the same thing as the cultures she is condemning throughout the rest of her essay. That is, Okin has taken the negative circumstances of many Western liberated women and made them less important to the world because the West has achieved liberation for its women and minorities. This is very much like what she accuses minority groups within multicultural societies of doing to their own women. Okin claims that these cultures basically make their women into a minority within the minority, and therefore further take away the rights and concerns for women in these minority cultures. However, by discounting injustices on women in Western culture as she does, Okin makes Western women's problems less important to the big picture.
Okin's claim concerning the ways in which we do not teach our daughters damaging ideologies about their place in the world is also a crucial point at which her argument loses some credibility. Yes, in Western Liberal cultures, such as the U.S., we publicly and verbally tend to work to provide a positive outlook for the young women in our culture; however, the covert messages in everyday life are much more damaging. For instance, the most popular toys for young girls today are baby dolls, barbies, and other maternal or image based objects. These toys send messages about the place of females in our society that continue to put women and girls in subservient positions. Furthermore, the images of the ideal American woman in mass media are either concerned with maternal natures, sexiness, or a mixture of the two. If a popularized American woman does not fit into these images, she is often demonized or, at the very least, put under scrutiny and ridicule by the public. Thus, the covert messages sent to our girls basically say that they should attempt to fit into a mold of sexiness and/or maternity in order to be considered a good American woman. Unfortunately, Okin does not explore even the possibility of such hidden messages within our society. Instead, she uses the U.S. As an example of the good cultures while ignoring the potential danger of basing cultural reforms on America's success as a liberal society. The inherent danger here being that, while the violences within the minority cultures Okin describes may cease if completely assimilated into Western liberal culture, but these cultures will be receiving a new group of ideologies and damaging mainstream beliefs about women that could influence more violence against women.
Not only does Okin not give enough consideration to problems within Western liberal cultures, but she also fails to really deconstruct the examples of violence against women she provides as evidence for her argument. For instance, Okin cites examples of clitoridectomy and forced marriages of young women (14). While she begins deconstructing them by going into the religious ideologies inherent in several of these practices, Okin does not look much deeper to attempt understanding the underlying assumptions, beliefs, and traditions of such practices. For example, when discussing polygamy Okin quotes an immigrant from Mali to display the obvious assumptions and beliefs about women in this particular culture and practice (15). However, there must also be a tradition and deeper belief system that is not openly expressed in this example, but rather is the driving force behind such practices. Without acknowledging the deeper levels of belief inherent in all cultural practices, any attempts at reconciling such practices will fail. Furthermore, Okin's strategy of criticizing certain cultural practices while maintaining the assumption that Western liberal cultures are the ones to be mirrored by less liberal cultures is an inherently imperialistic strategy. While Okin may not wish to portray such an imperialistic attitude, the way in which she presents her argument does so in a way that encourages the attitude that the world should assimilate into Western culture no matter the sacrifices of (not dangerous) culture values, religious practices, and native languages.
The claims Okin presents about multiculturalism and its possible negative effects on women are, on the surface, quite compelling; however, because of the way in which these claims are presented, her argument lacks some credibility. Her focus on the way in which minority group rights allow certain injustices and violences against women to persist makes for an interesting and important issue to be discussed. However, Okin's treatment of Western liberal culture as the portrait of how other cultures should operate ignores crucial Western ideologies and the damaging effects of those ideologies. Furthermore, Okin's argument as a whole operates as a glossing over of the major issues she presents to her audience, when several of these issues are in need of being further deconstructed and explored.