Majoritarian interculturalism and women: an ambiguous relationship

In this article, I critically analyze the response offered by Gerard Bouchard, Jerome Gosselin-Tapp and Michel Seymour - the three main theorists of "majoritarian interculturalism" - to the question of internal minorities. This question is how to protect religious minorities' right to practice their religion (as created or facilitated by multiculturalism or interculturalism) without violating their female members' right to lead a life free from oppression (as defended by feminism). I argue that these authors' response is ambiguous, in that it simultaneously embraces two postures - firmness and flexibility - which, when taken together, are contradictory and, when taken separately, present specific problems. If, in the particular case of the Islamic headscarf, these authors momentarily broaden their perspective, their arguments in this regard call for important nuances that are currently absent from their reasoning.