The Participatory Turn in Gender Equality and its Relevance for Multicultural Feminism

Abstract

This chapter identifies two parallel ‘participatory turns’ in the pursuit of gender equality. At the state level, this participatory turn is best epitomized by the global adoption of gender quotas to promote gender equality and democratic legitimacy. At the level of minority groups, multicultural feminists have proposed institutional innovations to strengthen the voice of women within minority groups in decisions about the interpretation and evolution of cultural and religious practices. These two trends have largely occurred in isolation from each other, with little academic or political attention to how they might enrich or conflict with each other. This chapter introduces these two fields of academic debate and political practice, and lays out a range of questions about how they might be connected, which the following chapters explore. The chapter concludes with summaries of the remaining chapters.