What is it about?
This paper explores the limits of state intervention in regulating cultural practices that harm women and girls. Accentuating gender equality, the paper focuses on gender discrimination, denial of meaningful education, and forced or arranged marriages. Such practices—exemplified by child marriage and educational deprivation—constitute serious violations of basic human rights as articulated in the UDHR, ICCPR, ICESCR, and subsequent conventions protecting women and children. Through an examination of discriminatory Pueblo tribal norms and the U.S. Supreme Court case Santa Clara v. Martinez, as well as the forced marriage patterns among Jewish Yemenite immigrants to Israel in the 1950s, the paper assesses when a liberal state is justified in overriding cultural autonomy. Drawing on Rawls’s conception of justice, it argues that cultural practices that undermine women’s equal dignity and opportunities cannot be shielded by claims of cultural or religious protection, and warrant state action to safeguard vulnerable individuals.
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Why is it important?
This paper examines the limits of legitimate state intervention in regulating cultural practices that cause serious harm to women and girls.
Perspectives
This relates to my research Just, Reasonable Multiculturalism: Liberalism, Culture and Coercion (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)
Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Need for Liberal Democracy to Protect Women Against Discriminatory Group Rights, SSRN Electronic Journal, January 2026, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.6559342.
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