Cultural Defense for Ethnic Accommodation or Cultural Excuse for Gender Discrimination?

Multiculturalism can be an idea for a society that can be at peace consisting of multiple ethnicities. However, in the context of gender equality, multiculturalism can be a troubling manifestation of gender discrimination endorsed by the court system, while reinforcing gender stereotypes of minority women and even changing the way majority gender norms are perceived. Proponents of the “cultural defence” have a variety of arguments, the most popular of which is that different cultures understand moral or ethical quandaries differently, so therefore the severity of how the law is applied should reflect whether their actions were immoral in their society of origin. That seems like a valid point at the surface, but upon closer inspection, the illogicalness of the proposition seems enough to render the “cultural defence” invalid as a defense in court since the law is supposed to be applied universally. However, in practice, the “cultural defence” for cases involving the rights of women is the final nail in its proverbial coffin. In multiple cases involving men in defense against charges of violent crimes against women, men have used the “cultural defense” to reduce or eliminate criminal charges. Therefore, the “cultural defense” can have the effect of denying equal protection of the law to women.

Three cases of cultural defence in the last half century are particularly pertinent and have proven to be very troubling precedents in cases involving the loss of equal protection under the law by women or to mitigate punishment in cases involving violent crimes against women. The first significant case is Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 in 1978 involving membership rights of women in the Santa Clara Pueblo tribe. The secon...

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...men who use the cultural defense, is it not right to relinquish culturally informed moral and ethical decisions when immigrating to a completely new society?

Works Cited

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Okin, S. M. (1999). Is multiculturalism bad for women?. Princeton University Press.

Phillips, A. (2003). When culture means gender: issues of cultural defence in the English courts. The Modern Law Review, 66(4), 510-531.

Shachar, A. (2001). Multicultural jurisdictions: Cultural differences and women's rights. Cambridge University Press.

Song, S. (2005). Majority norms, multiculturalism, and gender equality.American Political Science Review, 99(04), 473-489.