Imperial Sexism: Why Culture and Women's Rights Don't Clash

Communities across the world engage in gender practices that are seen by many as in conflict with women's rights, such as Muslim women's face veils and polygyny.But in Imperial Sexism, Denise M. Walsh argues that culture and women's rights are not inherently at odds.The root problem is imperial sexism: the legacy of colonial-era racism and sexism and their compounding harms. Through a cross-regional comparative analysis of three dissimilar policy debates in three very different democracies--the 2014 French "burka ban" adjudicated at the European Court of Human Rights, the 1998 legalization of polygyny in post-apartheid South Africa, and the 1985 reform of the "marrying out" rule for Indigenous women in Canada--Walsh confirms that a clash between culture and women's rights is always avoidable, examines why the presumption of a clash endures, and highlights the damage this presumption causes.She centers the voices of women who experience imperial sexism, many of whom resist the notion of