As Okin rightly points out, the way a culture treats women is of considerable importance. However, a culture encompasses a lot of other things as well, such as how one should live, relate to one's fellow humans and the natural world, and find meaning in one's life. It also gives its members a sense of rootedness, a ready access to an ongoing community, and intergenerational continuity, and is a vital economic and political resource. It is therefore a mistake to judge it solely or even primarily in terms of, and to make its rights dependent on, its treatment of women. This is why it qualitatively differs from other political doctrines and has been able to adjust to different philosophical and cultural traditions.
Liberals do, of course, deeply cherish the individual.
However the latter can be conceptualized in several different ways such as the libertarian, the communal, and the religious, each giving rise to different conceptions of freedom and human well-being. If we are to persuade minorities to reform their practices, it is no use appealing to liberal principles, both because they do not accept them and because we need to show that the principles are worth accepting. It is not enough to say that since they live in a liberal society, they should accept liberal principles. The minorities are an integral part of the society, and they are not liberal. And though some areas of the society are liberal, others are not, and even so far as the former are concerned, liberal principles are constantly contested.