Mainstream feminist organizations led the alarm against Sharia arbitration in Canada

Evidence

Canadian feminists believed there was a great deal to fear from Mumtaz Ali and his small group. The Canadian Council of Muslim Women met with the government to discuss their concerns. An International Campaign Against Sharia, headed by a Canadian of Iranian origin, was formed. Various feminist organizations, among them the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL), the Metropolitan Toronto Action Committee on Violence Against Women (METRAC), and the National Council of University Women, added their voices to the general feminist alarm. Feminist lobbying succeeded to the extent that the Ontario government responded by appointing a Member of Parliament, Marion Boyd, a long-time feminist who was well respected by feminists in the mainstream anti-violence movement, to explore the ‘use of private arbitration to resolve family and inheritance cases, and the impact that using arbitration may have on vulnerable people.’ Boyd met with over fifty individuals and organizations from July to September 2004, releasing a report that left feminists dismayed by her recommendation that the Arbitration Act remain unchanged. Boyd also concluded that the safeguards recommended by feminists worried about vulnerable Muslim women were not necessary. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 347

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the uncomfortable story of feminist organizations joining a civilizational panic — a case where anti-racist and feminist commitments collided, and a feminist minister found the safeguards were needed less than the panic claimed.
• XREF: Parallels the reader’s moral-panic material on dress: progressive movements as carriers of moral-panic narratives targeting out-groups.