Carla Lunghi

In contemporary Western societies, as Bourdieu had already clearly stated, capital can not be limited to the economic dimension because it embraces other aspects. Likewise, wealth and also poverty do not depend only by the availability of money but involve areas of experience traditionally excluded from economic calculation and financial exchanges...

Ethnic, gender and cultural differences represent, for western society, not only a challenge for its social unity and identity but also an opportunity to debate and to cultural enrichment. Feminism and multiculturalism picked up this challenge producing new contributions on behalf on cultural differences. But if in the Seventies these two movements were allied in the struggle for recognition of diversity, now they are like enemies for several reasons. Firstly western feminism was accused of ethnocentrism by asian and african women movements: the effect was a weakening of struggle for equal rights as men. Secondly multiculturalism has forgotten the specific topic of gender and defended some culture that are internally patriarchal. Now the relationship between feminism and multiculturalism is more complicated by the strong presence of immigrant women in western societies. The article shows the critical stages of this debate, pointing out the likely and positive opportunity included in the recognition of social and cultural differences.