Canberra, Monday 8 April 2002

What happens if our commitment to gender equality and multiculturalism collide?

All egalitarians should be committed to gender equality and at least some version of multiculturalism. But what, then, do we do, if these commitments collide?

Dr Anne Phillips, Visiting Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Politics at the Research School of Social Science, the Australian National University (ANU), will explore the tensions between multiculturalism and women's equality at a public lecture at the ANU tomorrow night.

Dr Phillips, who is widely published in the areas of equality, democracy and citizenship believes monoculturalism unfairly privileges majority over minority cultures and can reinforce power inequalities between ethnic groups.

"However, multiculturalism, it is said, encourages gross violations of women's rights in the name of cultural tradition."

"Some of the policies associated with multiculturalism have little or no impact on sexual equality, however, in many cases, some cultural practices will have significant consequences, such as when courts are asked to recognise divorce systems that allow husband to retain virtually all the family assets, or to accept the validity of polygynous marriages," Professor Phillips said.

Professor Phillips also believes that gender is certainly one of the key ordering principles of culture and often a template through which we identify and measure cultural change.

"When a cultural group feels themselves under threat, perhaps precisely because of pressure to assimilate, the first sign of danger may well be an unwelcome assertiveness on the part of women or younger members," Professor Phillips said.

The Dr Anne Phillips lecture is the next in the highly popular Toyota-ANU Public Lecture Series and presented by the National Institute of Social Sciences.

When: 6pm Tuesday 9 April 2002
Where: National Library Theatre, Parkes Place, Canberra

For more information contact Dr Anne Phillips on (02) 6125 0012 or (02) 6247 6601 or Genevieve Turville (02) 6125 6125 or 0416 249 245

No 42/2002

© 2000 Marketing & Communications Division,
The Australian National University.
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Last Modified Tue, July 16, 2002