Cultural stereotypes often harm women most

CALGARY, AB, October 10, 2008/Troy Media/ -- It was a shocking incident. In 2006, three top administrators at a Toronto high school who learned that a 14-year-old Muslim student had been sexually assaulted in a school washroom did not report it to police.

Although media reported that administrators thought there was “no evidence” of the crime, it was later revealed that the principal and two vice-principals feared that reporting the crime to police might trigger further punishment of the victim – a practice followed in some fundamentalist Muslim cultures.

But a symposium held in Calgary on Oct. 4 by the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership heard from experts who characterized that decision as either “racist”, “malpractice” or simple incompetence – a tragic illustration of the cultural ignorance of some school administrators.

Further, presenters argued, it reveals one of the many ways in which the treatment of women on issues involving culture and religion is dramatically at odds with the treatment of men.

Salima Ebrahim, a Calgary-based board member of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, told the symposium’s 220 attendees that the decision not to report the assault was an ill-based assumption that “the parents would react in a certain way.”

Yet, Ebrahim says she knows her own Muslim parents would never have punished her if she were so victimized – instead, they would react with compassion and support. After meeting with the victim some time after the incident, Ebrahim says she was struck by how the girl was treated in a “one-dimensional” fashion, identified only by her faith.

While the Toronto District School Board was called out for failing to deal with the incident appropriately, Ebrahim noted it is not the only educational institution to make such stereotypical decisions. A recent assault on a Muslim woman at the University of Ottawa, for example, was also not reported for similar reasons.

Panelists agreed that school boards need to significantly bolster cultural training for administrators and staff.

Charlene Hay, executive director of the Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations, told participants that it is common for schools to have “little or no understanding” of diverse cultures. She says many such institutions are in denial – refusing to accept that racism is present.

But Janice Stein, director of the Munk Centre for International Studies, at the University of Toronto, said the unequal treatment of women that is rooted in religion is hardly limited to our education systems. In fact, it permeates many religions and cultures, from Orthodox Jews to Roman Catholics – both of which may impose rules on what women may wear in public.

“The debate about what people wear is actually a discussion about what women wear,” she said.

And the unequal treatment is also found in civil law, said Stein. Ontario’s controversial move to recognize Sharia – Islamic law – in family arbitrations was in her view misguided, but hardly precedent-setting. In fact, when the province passed its Arbitration Act in 1990, it legitimized Orthodox Jewish courts, a decision that as a non-Orthodox Jew she strongly objects to.

“I’m not happy,” she told the Calgary audience. “Women consistently do worse in mediated divorces” than they do through the judicial system.

But achieving justice through the courts can also be a lengthy, costly process. Stein referred to the December 2007 Supreme Court of Canada decision involving a Montreal woman’s claim for damages because her husband reneged on his promise to give her a religious divorce. In this case, the court ordered Stephanie Bruker’s ex-husband to pay $47,500 in damages for the years he denied giving her a religious divorce - a “get” - after agreeing in his 1981 civil divorce settlement to do so.

His refusal meant that Bruker, an observant Jew, could not remarry as a Jew and have children within the faith, although, of course, she could enter into a non-religious, civil marriage.

It took nearly two decades for Bruker, who first sued her husband in 1989, to find justice.

Even so, the case is considered a breakthrough because it more sharply defines the point at which church and state intersect. Courts are constitutionally limited in matters of religion, and that is why the Supreme Court could only award damages in the Bruker case, and not mandate the ex-husband provide the religious divorce.

Stein notes, however, that the European-rooted concept of separation of church and state is held by only a small minority of the world’s population. And, though Canada now thinks of itself as a secular nation, our religious traditions infuse our laws and institutions.

That blend of the religious and secular means that “conversation alone will not resolve our differences,” she said.

Race, culture, ethnicity and identity were common themes throughout the day-and-a-half of presentations from some of North America’s most prominent social academics, including Princeton University’s Kwame Anthony Appiah, Daniel Weinstock from the University of Montreal and Carl James, from Toronto’s York University.

The Calgary symposium launches a new initiative for the Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation, said president Janet Keeping. The goal is to engage citizens from all walks of life on cultural identity and polarization, an issue of national importance. Similar dialogues will be held across the country in the coming months.

Keywords: Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, Janet Keeping. Canadian Council of Muslim Women, Toronto District School Board, Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations, Munk Centre for International Studies, multiculturalism, diversity, politics, Islamic law, sharia, get, race, culture, ethnicity, religion

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