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Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It

Joan Williams' Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict And What To Do About It (Oxford, 1999) is a "theoretically sophisticated and thoroughly accessible treatise" that offers a new vision of work, family, and gender. (Publisher's Weekly, Nov. 1, 1999) It examines our system of providing for children's care by placing their caregivers at the margins of economic life. This system that stems from the way we define our work ideals, notably from our definition of the ideal worker as one who takes no time off for childbearing or childrearing and who works full-time and is available for overtime. The ideal-worker norm clashes with our sense that children should be cared for by parents. The result is a system that is bad for men, worse for women, and disastrous for children. Williams documents that mothers remain economically marginalized, and points out that when mothers first marginalize and then divorce, their children often accompany them into poverty. Williams argues that designing workplaces around the bodies of men (who need no time off for childbearing) and men's life patterns (for women still do 80% of the child care) often constitutes discrimination against women. She also engages the work/family literature to show that "flexible" workplaces are often better than existing practices for employers' bottom line. On the family side, she argues that the ideal worker's wage -- after as well as before divorce -- reflects the joint work of the ideal worker and the primary caregiver of his children, and should be jointly owned. In a comprehensive examination of the theoretical issues surrounding work/family issues, she uses the work of Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu to explain why gender has proved so unchanging and unbending, reframing the special treatment/equal treatment debate, the debate over "women's voice," and offering new perspective on how to avoid the persistent race and class conflicts that emerge in debates over work and family issues.

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Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It (Panel Two: Who's Minding the Baby?)

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Recent judgments in the Court of Appeal have highlighted the significance of battered woman syndrome. This article describes the origin and features of the syndrome and some of its shortcomings. Medical aspects and legal applications of the concept are discussed. Language: en

Battered woman syndrome.

The increasingly multicultural fabric of modern societies has given rise to many new issues and conflicts, as ethnic and national minorities demand recognition and support for their cultural identity. This book presents a new conception of the rights and status of minority cultures. It argues that certain sorts of 'collective rights' for minority cultures are consistent with liberal democratic principles, and that standard liberal objections to recognizing such rights on grounds of individual freedom, social justice, and national unity, can be answered. However, Professor Kymlicka emphasises that no single formula can be applied to all groups and that the needs and aspirations of immigrants are very different from those of indigenous peoples and national minorities. The book discusses issues such as language rights, group representation, religious education, federalism, and secession - issues which are central to understanding multicultural politics, but which have been surprisingly neglected in contemporary liberal theory.

Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights

In Canada, much media attention has recently been focused on the formation of arbitration tribunals that would use Islamic law or Sharia to settle civil matters in Ontario. In fact, the idea of private parties voluntarily agreeing to arbitration using religious principles or a foreign legal system is not new. Ontario's Arbitration Act has allowed parties to resolve disputes outside the traditional court system for some time. This issue has been complicated by the fact that Canada has a commitment to upholding both a policy of multiculturalism and an international obligation towards women's rights. Although these values need not necessarily conflict, in this context, they have carried a tension that must be reconciled. This paper will examine the legal implications of faith-based arbitration tribunals in family law, with a particular emphasis on the impact that Sharia could have on Muslim women in Ontario.

Family Arbitration Using Sharia Law: Examining Ontario's Arbitration Act and its Impact on Women

Historiquement, la relation entre le feminisme et la religion a ete lourde de tension. Les feministes ont, avec justesse, critique les approches patriarcales de la pratique et de la theorie religieuses qui ont limite ou meme exclu la participation des femmes de plusieurs domaines de la vie quotidienne et religieuse. Dans le recent debat sur la sharia en Ontario, les organisations feministes ont critique et expose plusieurs lacunes de la Loi sur l'arbitrage qui ont ajoute, de maniere particulierement demesuree, aux fardeaux des femmes. En se fondant sur cette analyse, la mobilisation feministe a concentre ses efforts sur la proscription de l'arbitrage religieux comme seule methode acceptable de proteger les femmes vulnerables. Les feministes canadiennes ont resolu que les interets des femmes vulnerables—les musulmanes, en particulier—seraient mieux proteges par une separation stricte du droit et de la religion. Cette strategie de secularisation comme solution evidente a l'inegalite des genres pose, cependant, probleme pour de nombreuses raisons. Premierement, elle ne tient pas compte des femmes religieuses qui voudraient peut-etre vivre une vie axee sur leur religion. Deuxiemement, l'appui feministe d'un mecanisme reglemente exclusivement par l'Etat occulte la resistance legitime aux politiques adoptees par le gouvernement depuis les evenements du 11 septembre 2001 qui perpetuent des mesures punitives et stigmatisantes a l'egard des personnes de couleur. A travers le prisme du debat sur la sharia, le presente article explore et complexifie la division stricte dressee volontairement entre le religieux et le seculaire en vue de retablir un equilibre qui reponde mieux aux besoins des femmes religieuses.The relationship between feminism and religion has historically been fraught with tension. Feminists have rightly criticized patriarchal approaches to religious practice and theory that have limited or excluded women's participation in many matters of everyday and/or religious life. In the recent "sharia debate" in Ontario, feminist organizations were critical in exposing the several deficiencies in the Arbitration Act that had an unduly burdensome impact on women. Relying on their analysis, feminist mobilization focused its lobbying efforts on proscribing religious arbitration as the only acceptable means of protecting vulnerable women. Canadian feminists resolved that the vulnerable interests of women—Muslim women, in particular—were best protected through the strict separation of law and religion. However, this strategy of secularism as the obvious solution to gender inequality was problematic for a number of reasons. First, it shows no consideration for religious women who might want to live a faith-based life. Second, the feminist endorsement of an exclusively state-run apparatus fails to understand the legitimate resistance to government policies post 9/11 that have perpetuated punitive and stigmatizing measures against people of colour. Through the prism of the "sharia debate," this article explores and complicates the strict divide that was created between the religious and the secular with a view to finding a balance that more appropriately meets the needs of religious women.

Religious Arbitration in Canada: Protecting Women by Protecting Them from Religion

The religious arbitration controversy created a moral panic that Muslim barbarians were knocking on the gates of Ontario. Historically, feminists have rightly criticized patriarchal approaches to religious practice that have limited/excluded women's participation in matters of everyday and/or religious life. In the recent sharia debate, feminist organizations were critical in exposing several deficiencies in the Arbitration Act that had an unduly burdensome impact on women. Relying on their analysis, feminists successfully lobbied to proscribe religious arbitration as the only acceptable means of protecting vulnerable women. It was resolved that the interests of women, Muslim women in particular, were best protected through the strict separation of law and religion. However, this strategy of secularism as the obvious solution to gender inequality was problematic for a number of reasons. First, it showed no consideration for religious women who might want to live a faith-based life. Second, feminist endorsement of an exclusively state run apparatus failed to understand legitimate resistance to government policies post 9/11 that have perpetuated punitive and stigmatizing measures against people of colour. Finally, the supposed ban on religious arbitration failed to prohibit religious arbitration at all; it merely perpetuated the Orientalist dichotomy between the enlightened West and backward Islam.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=1121790

Were Muslim Barbarians Really Knocking on the Gates of Ontario?: The Religious Arbitration Controversy - Another Perspective

This article is an attempt to analyze the growing agitation that has been expressed about Muslim women who cover their faces. I trace North American and European contexts in which the issue of the veil is a site of social debate and contestation by canvassing the media and law reports from the last five years. The depth of discomfort evoked by these women and their outward markers of religiosity is extraordinary and as I will demonstrate results in a wide range of rationalizations as to why their public displays of religiosity must be banned. Part I of this paper describes various explanations as to why some Muslim women cover parts of their bodies. However, the main purpose of this article is to examine opposition to the niqab. Thus part II of this paper critically examines ten arguments for why women should not wear the niqab. The focus of this article, on opposition to niqab-wearing women in public spaces, is not to further marginalize an already beleaguered minority. Rather, it is to critically unpack arguments that insist on alienating a religious minority such that the refocusing of the gaze is on “us”, on the reasons we offer to exclude certain people from social and political life. That the plight of niqab-wearing women might help us better understand ourselves is the ultimate objective of this paper.

Natasha Bakht

Papers

Family Arbitration Using Sharia Law: Examining Ontario's Arbitration Act and its Impact on Women

Religious Arbitration in Canada: Protecting Women by Protecting Them from Religion

Family Arbitration Using Sharia Law: Examining Ontario's Arbitration Act and its Impact on Women

Were Muslim Barbarians Really Knocking on the Gates of Ontario?: The Religious Arbitration Controversy - Another Perspective

Veiled Objections: Facing Public Opposition to the Niqab