Consent, Multiculturalism, and Exit: A Contemporary Critique of Religious Accommodation and the Right to Sex Equality

As liberal legal systems worldwide develop new forms of multicultural accommodation, this article identifies a noteworthy shift. Democracies have been moving from non-interference in internal illiberal community norms to a growing readiness to allow inegalitarian norms, especially norms discriminating against women, into general societal spheres, as a means for minority integration. Religious women’s consent to modesty and segregation norms has been central in legitimating these novel modes of accommodation. Relying on feminist critiques of consent and using Israeli law as its case study, the article demonstrates how the liberal discourse readily embraces women’s consent to sidestep difficult questions concerning harm to gender equality. Consent serves to sustain normative ambiguity about sex segregation and about the boundaries between public and private. Finally, the expansion of inegalitarian practices from the community onto the larger society further problematizes the idea of the right of exit, a core component of liberal multiculturalism theory.