Polygyny

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Abstract Chapter 3, “Polygyny” confirms that aligning cultural rights and women’s rights is possible even when it comes to the practice of a man marrying more than one woman. This chapter traces how white rule disrupted South African customary marriage, intensifying patriarchy while generating a new form of polygyny rooted in segregation and migratory labor policies. During the democratic transition, rural women demanded equality and an end to polygyny even as they embraced their culture. In 1998, the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act appeared to fulfill these demands as it legalized millions of marriages and secured rural women’s legal equality. However, it also recognized polygyny. How and why did this happen? Although Traditional Leaders are often blamed, the real drivers were legal experts charged with drafting the new legislation. In contrast to rural women, these experts minimized the harms of polygyny and recommended legalizing it. Their policy story has had lasting negative consequences for rural women and their communities.

Glossary

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Notes

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Dedication

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An Alternative

2025-08-01

Abstract This chapter, “An Alternative,” compares stories from policy actors who refused the conventional wisdom that culture and women’s rights clash. Minoritized women, their allies, and sympathizers resisted imperial common sense and instead embraced intersectional thinking, recognizing the plural identities and lived experiences of minoritized women. They also attacked imperial sexism. Rather than deepening cultural divisions through these attacks, they emphasized shared commitments to human rights. Compatibility storytellers thus buttress the indivisibility of human rights and promote mutual coexistence. Unlike clash stories, which are associated with significant harms, compatibility stories are associated with positive effects for minoritized women and their communities.

The Marrying-Out Rule

2025-08-01

Abstract “Marrying Out” challenges the view that Canadian debates over Indigenous women’s official Indian status involved a clash between culture and women’s rights. British colonists imposed patriarchal norms on Indigenous peoples, including the “marrying out” rule, which stripped women of their official Indian status if they married a non-status man. Men faced no such penalty. In the 1970s, as many Indigenous women demanded an end to this rule, few on any side of the debate claimed Indigenous culture was opposed to women’s rights. But by the 1980s, government officials framed the marrying out rule as a clash between Indigenous rights and women’s rights. Dissenting, organizations like the Tobique Women’s Political Action Group embraced both sets of rights. Bill C-31 ended the “marrying-out” rule but smuggled in a new form of sexism that had serious repercussions for Indigenous women and their communities.

The Clash

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Abstract “The Clash” opens by highlighting the misguided debates among politicians, pundits, activists, and scholars over how democracies should handle controversial gender practices like veiling. Some people argue that women’s rights should prevail, others prioritize cultural and religious rights, endorse compromise, or rely on women’s empowerment to end the practice. But what if the supposed clash between culture and women’s rights is avoidable? And what if insisting otherwise harms women and their communities? Focusing on popular controversies about the hijab, this chapter uncovers the costs Muslim women bear when the assumption that culture and women’s rights clash prevails. It also previews the three policy debates featured in the book, revealing how the presumption of a clash was associated with similarly detrimental outcomes. The chapter concludes with the book’s central argument: instead of framing culture and women’s rights as opposing forces, it is time to dismantle imperial sexism which fuels these beliefs.

Critical Frame Analysis Revised Template, Sample: <i>S.A.S. v. France</i>, 2014

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The Clash Matrix

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Abstract This chapter compares the clash stories told during policy debates about veiling, polygyny, and the marrying out rule to expose the confluence of factors that sustain the illusion that culture and women’s rights are inherently at odds. These factors—clash stories, biased debate conditions, European policy environments, imperial common sense, and the misuse of history—interact to form a clash matrix. This matrix fuels the perception that these two sets of rights are fundamentally opposed and is associated with harmful consequences for minoritized women and their communities. These outcomes unfold in a controversial gender spiral, which is initiated when minoritized women claim their rights. These claims sometimes spark scandals that prompt governments to respond with clash stories. By bringing the clash matrix and controversial gender spirals into focus, the chapter argues that governments frequently weaponize cultural, religious, and women’s rights against minoritized women and their communities.

Veiling

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Abstract “Veiling” demonstrates that the full-face veil worn by Muslim women needn’t clash with women’s rights. The chapter delves into veiling’s colonial history, honing in on France, where debates about Muslim women’s dress surged at the end of the twentieth century. These tensions culminated in the “burka ban,” a 2010 law forbidding the full-face veil in public which was justified by claims that it clashed with women’s rights. In the landmark case S.A.S. v. France, the European Court of Human Rights upheld the ban. Yet, both the judges and most involved parties dismissed the notion that the full-face veil violated women’s rights. This raises the question: Why did the court favor the ban and what was this case truly about? By addressing this question, the chapter exposes the many harms inflicted on Muslim women and their communities that flowed from the 2010 law and the court’s decision to uphold it.