CONFLICTS BETWEEN MINORITY WOMEN AND TRADITIONAL STRUCTURES - INTERNATIONAL-LAW, RIGHTS AND CULTURE

International feminists are divided over how to deal with discriminati on perpetuated against women by traditional cultures and systems of go vernance. These spheres cannot be viewed as simple tools of patriarchy . In order to confront such issues, innovative strategies are needed, and this article offers a new 'expanded integrationist' approach. It a pplies this approach to the conflicts between the rights of aboriginal women and the suggested forms of aboriginal self-government in Canada . These conflicts reveal the deeper tensions of different visions of c ulture and society, and require both creative, multifaceted solutions, and difficult reinterpretations of the meanings of 'rights' and 'cult ure'.