The topic of female genital mutilation always brings out an odd type of commenter, always male (of course), usually someone who insists on seeing it as the equivalent of male circumcision (which is like comparing what Van Gogh did to getting one’s ear pierced) and/or who vigorously defends multiculturalism, a warped argument because you cannot defend torture and trauma.
The issue raises all sorts of questions of freedom - the freedom to choose what is done to your body, the freedom to observe your thousand-year culture, the freedom to be left free of meddling from outsiders.
Maybe those who want it done should be permitted to preserve their tradition and choose their own path. But since it is mainly done in a state of ignorance, I would argue that we should do everything possible to at least educate them as to the reality of their choice. And again, that’s not the arrogant belief of a snobby white guy looking down at disgust at something in another culture he finds disconcerting. It’s what thousands of African women and global health workers are fighting to do. It’s about saving lives, about protecting women from unbearable pain and suffering.
[Does] the mantra, “It’s our culture” excuse all behavior no matter how sadistic and unjust?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Circumspection Regarding Female Circumcision
I was over at The Peking Duck to take a read on the recent marches in China marking their 60th anniversary. What I found more interesting is his recent post on female genital mutilation:
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2 comments:
I can't post there, since comments are closed, but here is what I was going to post:
Some forms of female circumcision do less damage than the usual form of male circumcision. Sometime there's just an incision with nothing actually removed. One form just removes the clitoral hood (the female foreskin), so it's the exact equivalent of cutting off a boy's foreskin. In some countries, female circumcision is performed by doctors in operating theatres with pain relief. Conversely, male circumcision is often performed as a tribal practice. When circumstances are similar, so are outcomes, and 56 boys have died of circumcision in just one province of South Africa so far this year.
Are you aware that the USA also used to practise female circumcision? Fortunately, it never caught on the same way as male circumcision, but there are middle-aged white US American women walking round today with no external clitoris because it was removed. Some of them don't even realise what has been done to them. There are frequent references to the practice in medical literature up until at least 1959. Most of them point out the similarity with male circumcision, and suggest that it should be performed for the same reasons. Blue Cross/Blue Shield had a code for clitoridectomy till 1977.
One victim wrote a book about it:
Robinett, Patricia (2006). "The rape of innocence: One woman's story of female genital mutilation in the USA."
Nowadays, it's illegal even to make an incision on a girl's genitals though, even if no tissue is removed. Why don't boys get the same protection?
Don't get me wrong. I'm totally against female circumcision, and I probably spend a lot more time and money trying to stop it than most people. If people are serious about stopping female circumcision though, they also have to be against male circumcision. Even if you see a fundamental difference, the people that cut girls don't (and they get furious if you call it "mutilation"). There are intelligent, educated, articulate women who will passionately defend it, and as well as using the exact same reasons that are used to defend male circumcision in the US, they will also point to male circumcision itself (as well as labiaplasty and breast operations), as evidence of western hypocrisy regarding female circumcision. The sooner boys are protected from genital mutilation in the west, the sooner those peoples that practice FGM will interpret western objections as something more than cultural imperialism.
Several people who oppose male circumcision are female btw, and some of them started off focussed solely on female cutting, but expanded this to oppose male circumcision also, partly because they believe that's the fastest way to end female circumcision.
Maybe all children, regardless of gender deserve to be protected from forced genital cutting? Is that really such a novel concept?
Why can the people so intent on cutting, not just cut themselves as a personal choice? Circumcision (or genital mutilation, pick your euphamism), is almost always something someone forces upon someone else.
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