{"id":174,"date":"2010-02-04T12:22:03","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T17:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/?p=174"},"modified":"2011-11-07T15:20:35","modified_gmt":"2011-11-07T20:20:35","slug":"rights-religion-and-relativism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/2010\/02\/04\/rights-religion-and-relativism\/","title":{"rendered":"Rights, Religion and Relativism"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a case study that could accompany any discussion on rights and cultural relativism.\u00a0 For example, it could be paired with any article in Contexts<\/em> that deals with religion, culture, etc.\u00a0 Another option would be to use it with “Keyword: Culture” by Joseph R. Gusfield in Contexts<\/em>, Winter 2006.\u00a0 Click here<\/a> for a pdf version of the case study.<\/p>\n

Kelly is discussing women\u2019s rights with a group of her friends before their International Law class starts.\u00a0 As an avid feminist, she prides herself in her belief that women and men are equal.\u00a0 She says to her friends, \u201cI feel sorry for the women that feel like they have to submit themselves to men.\u00a0 I mean, look at Muslim women.\u00a0 Why should they have to cover their heads or faces?\u00a0 They are beautiful.\u00a0 It\u2019s a violation of their human rights to be treated as inferior to men.\u00a0 Why should they have to wear one if men don\u2019t have to?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several of Kelly\u2019s friends look uncomfortable and motion with their eyes to the right of Kelly.\u00a0 She glances over and realizes that Salma, who is originally from Kenya, is sitting next to them wearing her hijab.\u00a0 Thankfully for Kelly, their professor enters the room and begins the day\u2019s lecture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0After class, Salma approaches Kelly as she putting her things away in her backpack.\u00a0 Salma explains that she heard Kelly\u2019s conversation and that she wears a hijab because in her culture it is empowering.\u00a0 To her, a hijab is a sign of her submission to Allah.\u00a0 It also makes it so that men judge her by her personality rather than by her appearance.\u00a0 Surprised, Kelly apologizes.\u00a0 Yet, she is confused.\u00a0 She thought hijabs were degrading and a violation of women\u2019s fundamental rights.\u00a0 How could two people view women\u2019s right so differently?<\/p>\n

Discussion Questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Do you agree with Kelly that hijabs violate women\u2019s rights?<\/li>\n
  2. If human rights are universal, how do we account for cultural differences?<\/li>\n
  3. Are human rights and cultural relativism fundamentally incompatible?\u00a0 Which one is more important?\u00a0<\/li>\n
  4. Who has the power to decide how human rights are interpreted?\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is a case study that could accompany any discussion on rights and cultural relativism.\u00a0 For example, it could be paired with any article in Contexts that deals with religion, culture, etc.\u00a0 Another option would be to use it with “Keyword: Culture” by Joseph R. Gusfield in Contexts, Winter 2006.\u00a0 Click here for a pdf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[15,461,837,42],"class_list":["post-174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-culture","tag-human-rights","tag-materials","tag-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":918,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174\/revisions\/918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}