The state role in the vulnerability of minority women through the case of polygamous Bedouins in Israel
USA: MULTICULTURALISM AND EQUALITY
2021
Miriam ZUCKER, «The Role of the State in the Intra-Group Vulnerability of Women: Revisting Debates About Multiculturalism Through the Case of Polygamy Among the Bedouins in Isreael», Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 2021, S. 313-353.
This paper shows how a state could, on the one hand, protect the female members of minority communities who are oppressed within these communities and, on the other hand, keep multiculturalism. It explains that either an interventionist or an exit right model are proposed in critical works. In interventionist models, the state rigorously interferes to enforce liberal rights in minority communities. With exit right models, only the freedom of women to leave their minority group is protected. The author argues that both models do not take enough the interests of the victim of oppression into account. Direct action against the members of the victim’s family can namely mean financial and emotional distress for the victim. Exit rights are an illusion if the victim has no perspective of joining the mainstream society. Without rejecting these models in all situations, the author proposes the following alternative: the state should take positive measures to progressively foster the possibility for women to alter their life conditions, aside from leaving their community. She illustrates her analysis though the case of polygamy among Bedouins in Israel. She shows how this practice causes damages for the first wives and their children. The first wives are namely victim of oppressive marriage arrangements and are often not supported by their husband anymore when he has an additional wife of his own choice. The author argues that the state has a direct responsibility in this oppression because since 1948, it has changed the living conditions of the Bedouins which, according to the author, has encouraged a return to polygamy in this community. Furthermore, the police of Israel tolerated polygamy among Bedouins until 2017. Finally, the state has laid linguistic and geographic obstacles to the access of Bedouin women to legal representation funded by the state in family law. The author therefore considers that the state has a positive obligation to tackle this inequality by fostering the ability of Bedouin women to resist and leave unfavourable marriage arrangements. She explains that this approach would relax tensions between multiculturalism and feminism because a better access of the female member of a minority community to public resources would also benefit their entire community.