The tension identified by Okin also underscores fundamental ambiguities in the position of liberal multiculturalism, at least as that position is defended by proponents such as Will Kymlicka. Within the perspective of liberal multiculturalism, therefore, culture both sustains and constrains individual freedom. This means that we may ask about any given cultural norm whether its enforcement should be interpreted as a precondition of choice, or instead as a restraint on choice. Okin's essay illustrates how Kymlicka systematically evades this question. 3 Kymlicka opposes in theory awarding minority groups such rights.
Cultures can be oppressive because of the values or social roles they inculcate.
It seems difficult to defend external protections for such cultures on the liberal grounds advanced by Kymlicka. The problem is particularly difficult because the oppressiveness of a culture cannot be evaluated merely by reference to contemporary notions of political and civil liberties. This is because such liberties are themselves the result of a long and complex historical evolution within the context of our own Western culture. We have little or no idea what civil rights would be necessary to protect individual choice within the context of an alien structure of culture. It may be, for example, that liberalism would espouse very different forms of civil and political liberties if attempting to preserve autonomy in the face of a pervasively patriarchal culture like Orthodox Ashkenazi Judaism.