The+Sharia+Law+Debate+in+Ontario

Razack Article (short summary for now)

The assigned sections of this article detail the debate over the option to pursue private, independent arbitration in the province of Ontario for matters relating to family. The author argues that “if we remain in the terrain of thinking about women as vulnerable or imperiled, and some women as particularly imperiled, especially Muslim women, we remain squarely within the framework of patriarchy understood as abstracted from all other systems.” The author argues that Canadian feminists, in their panicked and knee-jerk reponse to the “sharia law debate” as it came to be know at the time, reinforced a damning modern/pre-modern, us/them, enlightened/backwards dichotomy and missed the opportunity to engage in productive discussions about how to best deliver resources to a vulnerable population, and to potentially mobilize political capabilities to better the condition of this same vulnerable population (Muslim women).