Multicultural Jurisdictions: Cultural Differences and Women's Rights. By Ayelet Shachar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 207p. $55.00 cloth, $20.00 paper.

Abstract

Liberal multiculturalism contains a tension. It values culture as the source of individual identity and development, and seeks to accommodate cultural differences by granting the relevant groups special rights, exemptions, and, in some cases, varying degrees of autonomy. However, it also values basic individual rights that some of these groups might deny or severely curtail, especially in relation to women. Liberal multiculturalism is therefore faced with a conflict between what it takes to be two important goods, or what Ayelet Shachar calls the paradox of multicultural vulnerability. If it privileges cultural differences, it compromises and even jettisons its liberalism; if it privileges individual rights, it ceases to be multicultural. Is there a way of conceptualizing and organizing society such that both these goods can be realized? Shachar thinks there is, and devotes her thoughtful and well-argued book to outlining and defending it.