Muslim women and the Ontario Shari'ah tribunals: Discourses of race and imperial hegemony in the name of gender equality

SynopsisIn late 2003, the Ontario-based Islamic Institute of Civil Justice (IICJ) made the announcement that, under the Ontario Arbitration Act, Muslims could resolve their family disputes through faith-based arbitration. This announcement quickly garnered international attention and certain women's rights organizations launched a global campaign to ban this kind of faith-based arbitration, because they argued that Islamic laws did not reflect a certain concept of gender equality. This article argues that the legal and public debates about the Ontario Shari'ah tribunals routinely divided women into two categories: those who could make informed decisions and those who could not. This dichotomy centralized the issue of gender equality and constituted Muslim men as perpetrators. It was also linked to the notion of Islam's “backwardness.” Such representations abstracted a certain difference from its context and power relations, and both fed into and were sustained by longstanding Orientalist discourses, contributing to Islamophobia.

► Ontario Shari'ah tribunal debates point to social hierarchies (racial, gender, religious).
► The notion of gender equality reproduces the myth of the “vulnerable” Muslim woman.
► The binary thinking contributes to Orientalist discourse.
► The legal and public debates lend unconditional aid to imperial agendas.
► Opponents must rethink their approach, not complicit with the white man's burden.