Women as individuals and members of minority groups: how to reconcile human rights and the values of cultural pluralism

The paper represents an attempt to understand how, in a democratic and pluralistic state, it is possible to reconcile the values of individual freedom with those granted to minority groups. In this perspective, the paper argues that, without questioning the importance of differentiated cultural rights that allow cultural minorities to be on an equal footing with the mainstream society, women’s rights cannot be ignored. Instead, rights for women are not exclusive of any particular culture or society, being indeed one of the human rights common to all groups of people, those rights which attest to the existence of a bond among individuals as members of the human community.