Taking “Culture” out of Multiculturalism

Abstract

The tension between religious freedom and non-discrimination principles is becoming increasingly acute. Questions about the appropriate way to balance the two rights arise with particular regularity. The status of women in multiculturalism policies has been the site for debate as gender issues test the limits of toleration through such practices as under-age marriage and veiling. In policy discourses, the “crisis of multiculturalism” is increasingly tied to gender equality concerns and the need to counter, in particular, the gender inequality in Islam. Debates about gender in the politics of cultural difference serve simultaneously to name certain communities as backward and majority culture as the norm. In the process, the real issues of gendered structural inequality are obscured. I examine these issues through the lens of the Bill 94 in Québec, which seeks to ban the niqab in public places. The ban would encompass nearly every public institution, including childcare centres and public health facilities. The government defended the law by invoking principles of gender equality and secularism. I argue for a multiculturalism policy that focuses on structural inequalities rather than on cultural difference. The shift from a politics of structural difference to an emphasis on cultural difference has obscured the larger issues of structural inequalities—poverty, unemployment, and racism—while simultaneously magnifying issues related to religion or culture. Multiculturalism still has an important role to play in achieving greater social equality. We need new ways of addressing dilemmas of justice and equality in multicultural societies as it is necessary to reformulate multiculturalism rather than to abandon it.