Continuing the responses in Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, Yael Tamir agrees with Okin’s original essay, and elaborates upon her thesis by asking us to look within the ethnocultural groups that would benefit from the group rights multiculturalism promises. Tamir suggests that these groups are divided amongst themselves regarding the issue of reform, and that multiculturalism can be used to favor the traditionalists while disregarding reformists within the groups as assimilationists.

Sander L. Gilman doesn’t offer suggestions so much as just universally slams Okin. His essay is not only patronizing and angry, littered with entirely too many exclamation points, but rather pointless, as he is merely reactionary and does not offer any suggestion of moving forward. The closest he gets is suggesting that a problem with Okin is that “she fails to see ceremonial acts in her own culture as limiting and abhorrent” (57-8). This reminds me of the theory of diatopical hermeneutics, which I will discuss after these summaries.

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