From a political perspective, it is important to uphold certain universal principles so that, for example, you can condemn both Islamist forms of violence and injustice as well as forms of violence and injustice from other groups - some superpowers, for example, or the English Defence League, as other examples.

Whatever the universal perspective one adopts, it is important to recognise that some form of universalism is politically and ethically necessary.

From a political perspective, it is important to uphold certain universal principles so that, for example, you can condemn both Islamist forms of violence and injustice as well as forms of violence and injustice from other groups - some superpowers, for example, or the English Defence League, as other examples.

Ethically and politically it is important to face up to the need for a universal perspective in our divided, multi-cultural, unequal and unjust world.

If someone says that they have to 'tolerate' cultural differences and cultural groupings different from themselves then that may make it difficult, at the same time, to condemn unjust practices within those cultures.

I believe that a concept that may have some flaws is nonetheless important as a tool to critique abuses on all sides of the political spectrum. In the end, I think that a more useful 'universal' concept than that of a 'right', though, is a 'need'.

The subject of feminism cannot be purely a fiction, as some postmodern writers suggest, produced by the discourses of power.