“Human Rights Protection, Democratic Deliberation”
69
Instead of working to uncover, and possibly prevent, forms of VAW,
especially those deeply embedded in systems of kinship and
traditional practices, the legitimacy of democratic deliberation has
been co-opted by the powers-that-be. Thus, it is argumentatively
sound that some women did in fact reject protection for polygyny
(Deveaux, 2006: 209)
—
and ought to reject it, again, in the future.
IV. An Alternative: The Policing Approach
As prelude, let me summarize the shortcomings of the existing
approaches. Seeing these and where they are located should point
to the direction in which an alternative approach ought to advance.
Especially germane to an alternative approach are these three issues:
(1) special protections that can often give, and in practice have
given, sustenance to patriarchal institutions, such as polygyny, (2)
implementations in terms of legal enforcements of these special
protections that tend to marginalize the protections for women,
and (3) police enforcement of domestic laws. Defenders of the
existing approaches like Okin have captured the first two elements,
but not the third. Okin’s interventions and like-minded scholars’
are mainly concerned with illuminating and arguing for the
abolishment of unjust power structures and related social and
political institutionalizations. In this regard, patriarchal ideations,
practices, and traditions are roundly criticized. The argument about
how institutions of patriarchy can often be given sustenance by the
enforcement of special protections is
—
at root
—
based upon
empirical findings that suggested the commitment to enforcement
of the special protections for groups had weakened the
commitment to enforcement of protections for women. This
occurred, for instance, when more resources were given to the
former such that the latter became for all practical purposes
undervalued (Consider, again, the Bangladeshi example cited
earlier). Clearly, this is a powerful argument, one that has recently
catalyzed some of the research on feminism, multiculturalism, and
