There are many criticisms of Okin’s argument, but I will touch upon two of them in particular. The first is from Bonnie Hoing who scolds Okin for not looking deeper into the multicultural practices, which could provide relevant background information that she may be ignorant to. (Okin 36) Instead of doing this Hoing says, Okin provides an oversimplified and rigid argument of the concept of culture. (Okin 36) Hoing states that Okin fails to “vigorously interrogate the spurious excuse "my culture made me do it," …[rather] she sees the misogynist actions she's addressing as symptomatic of the ("foreign") cultures to which the actors are connected…”(Okin 36). What Okin should be doing, according to Hoing, is she should be trying to learn more …show more content…
(Okin 124) The second criticism is from Aziza Al-Hibri, who argues that Okin attempts to paint a picture of women in minority cultures as inept, and irrationally co-opted. (Okin 44) She asserts that by doing this, Okin runs the risk of sounding patriarchal, the very concept of male superiority that she advocating against. She provides the example of the many highly successful women, who have adopted orthodox or Hasidic Judaism as adults, even though some of their practices are in direct conflict with modern feminism. Such practices include early marriages, gender roles, and mikvah, which is a ritual purity bathe ceremonies that follow menstruation. (Okin 44) She goes in depth further about the importance of mikvah in Jewish culture, stating, “they see in the mikvah ceremonies “women centered spiritual celebration of women’s bodies, cycles, sexuality and procreative power”(Okin 44). Al-Hibri argues that in this example, it is condescending to believe that such smart and accomplished women would be misled or brainwashed into freely accepting an oppressive lifestyle orchestrated by their male