ABSTRACT
One of the key theoretical problems in the attempts to reconcile the demands of “sexual justice” with “cultural justice” is the manner in which the debate has been framed. In seeking to overcome the historical exclusion, subordination or assimilation of individuals or groups on the basis of gender or cultural identity, depriving those of full citizenship and the power to live authentic lives, many of the leading liberal feminist and multicultural theorists have defined their goals largely as a set of trade-offs between on the one hand sexual equality ( sexual justice), and ethno-cultural protection (cultural justice); which are to be fulfilled through the vehicle of individual and group rights, respectively. When these two normative principles and/or the set of rights underpinning them inevitably conflict, liberal feminists and multiculturalists see their task as finding a resolution between two opposing political and ethical demands. This is often constructed as the trade-off between individual women’s rights on the one hand and group ethno-cultural protections on the other, within an assumed liberal theoretical world.
