Female Genital Cutting

For some background, I'm in a senior seminar class in Anthropology, which is set up so that we cover 6 major debates within anthropology, spending 2 weeks on each. For each topic, we read a couple of articles on each position. The issue we are on now is whether anthropologists should try to get rid of female circumcision or to simply understand it within its cultural context.

First, there are varying levels of cutting involved (differs with each culture), from a simple nip off the tip of the clit, to excision of the labia & the whole clit, to infibulation (excision then sew it up so that only a small hole is left for urination & menstruation). Apparently the long term health risks that people associate with FGC are associated with infibulation, which is relatively rare (according to one of the articles I read for this, so don't scream if I am wrong!).

So, the point I wanted to bring up here is the issue of whether it is oppressive. Most of what I have come across that talked about it before this class addressed it as a way of sexually oppressing women. Tho, to be fair, males go thru incredibly painful ordeals, including circumcision (which also has no proven health benefits, unnecessarily invites the risk of infection if the instruments are not sterile, and has been shown to reduce male sexual sensitivity & pleasure).

But, the most striking thing I found is the argument that the initiation rites including circumcision are a means of actually challenging male dominance. In the first article that claimed this, written by a male anthropologist, I thought he was full of shit. Then I read an article by an African woman who was mostly raised in the States and who, while in college, chose to go back to her place of birth to undergo the procedure. She talked about how the ritual is really about teaching girls to be subservient to their female elders and to only pretend to be subservient to males. Also, the woman who leads the ritual has power over all men, because she can supernaturally cause impotence or even death. These rituals are all led by and controlled by women, which is different than if a man were doing this.

So, the aspect of this that I wanted to discuss is that bit about the ritual teaching women to only pretend to be subservient to men, which would argue against it being sexually oppressive, since they are not really subjugated, they are just pretending. On the one hand, is it just arrogance to tell these women that they don't know what they are talking about, they are being oppressed no matter what they think the power dynamics are. On the other hand, if all accounts show them behaving as though they are subservient, is it just self-delusion to claim to be just pretending to be subservient?

 

female genatalia mutilation is a horrible horrible thing. it must be stopped. how can just an act be right? ever? (you might be interested to know that there are those who believe that circumsizing a male is also barbaric and should be considered mutilation.0

 

Im shocked! I didnt even know some people did that!

 

there's a major difference between fgm and male circumcision. the clit is the only part of anatomy that has only a sexual pleasure function. even the g-spot is really just an internal part of the clit. after a woman undergoes fgm, she loses her ability to orgasm. circumcised males do not lose their ability to have pleasurable sex. losing your clit is not comparable to losing your foreskin... it would be more like losing your entire penis and balls. at the very minimum, losing the head.

i've been siting here for a minute, trying to figure out how losing your ability to enjoy sex can "empower" you. they sure seem to be doing a good job of "convincing" the men that they're dominant. really, though, it sounds like the men are convincing them that they should submit. i'm trying to be really open minded, but i'm not coming up with much. now, i definitely do not agree with the practice, but i wanted to come up with some sort of reasoning... so, here's the best i could do:

men, who are traditionally "dominant," fear the sexual power of women.. so if women are the truly dominant ones in their culture, perhaps that fear would reverse on them, and they would fear the sexual power of men? if a man can choose to get a woman pregnant, she has no control over her body... but if the women are truly dominant, they might have to make sure that they will not lose that control. so by removing their ability to orgasm, they're also less likely to be seduced. i sure as hell wouldn't want to have sex if i had to get unstiched and restiched each time. then again, women who undergo fgm are often forced into marriages, and then drowned or burnt alive for not having sex with their husband. virginity isn't the focus, though... emphasizing that failed, as we can in the states with bush & abstinance-only. are there any restrictions on which women can perform the rituals?

let me try and make that more succinct...

okay.. so, in other words, you can look at the traditional relationship between men and women and compare it to a master/slave relationship, the men being the masters and the women the slaves. (calm down! this is not a male-bashing statement!) the master sees himself as a completely autonomous individual -- soverign and in control of every situation. this is a false sense of autonomy, because the master is dependent upon his slave/s. the master is in control, but the slave is the superior.

anyway, just speculation... i don't support it, but i wanted to try and come up with a defense for the other side.

cultures all view women differently, but this is certainly something worth fighting to end. this is a greater battle than worrying whether or not women are allowed to drive or show thier knees in public.

 

Circumcision of both kinds, male and female, is mutilation and should be stopped all over the world. Who are you to influence a child and tell them that this is they way to be? Who are you to change a child's body and cut bits off them just because YOU think its right?

Im jewish - I'm not gonna circumcise my sons when I have kids.

 

How does losing your ability to enjoy sex "teach" anything? Fear maybe, but no more than that.

I think ANY form of genital mutilation, from Full Infibulation, to clitorectomy to circing of little boys is sick and twisted.

No one should be deprived of parts that were put there for a reason.

Of course this procedre makes womyn "subservient." They cannot enjoy sex, so they will probably not wander, this is done by societies with the worst form of misogyny. Make a womyn a cripple so she won't cheat on me. And they get the "granmothers" involved, as they are most likely jealous that that poor child still has her clit and labia, so she is happy to cut the child to shreds.

Sick sick soceities which do this. As for the military getting involved, most countries which do this are poor African countires which have no oil, so of course, the US Military has no interest on them.

 

woah quit it!!!!

 

That's just horrific, and completely wrong. I can't get over the cultures of some people. There is absolutely no need for doing such a monsterous thing, and it really takes away the female's right to a sexually satisfying relationship.

So wrong. It should be stopped, it should be illegal. This infuriates me to no end.

Peace.

 

We're not talking about a simple medical procedure, like male circumcision in the US. The cutting is part of a long ritual process, in which boys learn the proper ritual songs & demonstrate the ability to be stoic in the face of pain, which are required to be a man, and girls learn how to be women. It all ties in to different conceptions of what it means to be a man and to be a woman -- those protruding bits (clit & labia) are seen as masculinity on a female, so polluting & dirty, while the covering bit (sheath, I guess is the proper term) on males are seen as feminine, so are also polluting & dirty. Which is why the issue is not as simple as just ordering these people to stop doing this.

That said, I have a problem with any procedure of this type, including male circumcision. I'm not trying to defend the practice, but just saying "ew that's horrible" without understanding why these women choose to do this to their daughters (or choose to go back of their own free will as adults) will do nothing to resolve the issue. That's like the US government expecting to get rid of drug use by just saying "don't do drugs, m'kay" -- you have to deal with the underlying reasons people do it before you can have any effect.

So, the question I really would like to discuss is what you would say to a woman who has a Western education, has undergone the procedure, and claims to have had no reduction in sexual pleasure (and quotes other women who were sexually active before the excision and claim to have no reduction or even to have had an increase in sexual pleasure), and who claims that the ritual, including excision in her case, is empowering for women. Is it arrogant to tell her that she doesn't know what she's talking about, when she is the one who has been thru the ritual, not us? Is she deluding herself into thinking it's not as bad as it really is? How do you deal with her?

 

there are a lot of places in this world that hate women because they believe that men being turned on and rape occuring is completley a womans fault. By abolishing a females sexuality during childhood (fgm) it takes away the one last rue power that women hold in those countries.

 

I'd say she must have had really bad sex in order to not have had a reduction in pleasure.

 

I was watching comedy central one time and this comedian said "It is horrible to see that woman's clitorus's are being cut off in places like Africa...good thing we know that will never happen here...because...men don't know where the clit is" haha, just thought that might lighten up the thread...

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

Yeah right. The last thing this world needs is another war over intangible concepts. We already have the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror", now you want a "war on FGM"? You do realize that this is a part of the cultures of over 30 countries in Africa--what, are we going to air-bomb them until they stop? Since this is a practice that occurs on individual levels in no distinct place (i.e., they don't have mass FGM conventions) it would be impossible and redicuous to think our military should have any say in it.

I went to Tanzania (one of the countries in which it is practiced) and I must say this: In order for this issue to be resolved, THE CHANGE MUST COME FROM WITHIN THEIR OWN CULTURE! That is, we, as westerners, have absolutely no right to march into their society and say, "Africa, we're white so we must know what's best for you, so stop cutting off your clits. Here, have a vibrator." This brings up the ghosts of paternalism--a damning concept during colonial periods which basically theorized that black people are like children and thus need us to guide them in the right direction.

This is not to say that we as westerners are completely powerless. If we want to help, we must provide financial and educational resources to local grass-roots organizers working against it (and yes, these do exist). It isn't just because of paternalism that we cannot get too personally invovled--it is also due to the fact that tribes who practice this are much more likely to listen to someone from their own culture. We essentially would be wasting our time trying to convince a population that is generally extremely skeptical of Western ideas.

-Kate

 

me either!

 

I completely agree with you. We just can't simply step in and expect them to listen to us. It's their culture, it's what they do, and we gotta accept, no matter how strange or barbaric is it to us. I don't like the fact that that's done, it's not a pleasant thing, but who am I to say?

 

A lot of Christians do it too, since they include the Old Testament in their holy scriptures.

Exodus 4:24-31
24 On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the Lord met him and tried to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, "Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" 26 So he let him alone. It was then she said, "A bridegroom of blood by circumcision."

I was actually surprised to find that... I thought it was because of when Abraham was going to sacrifice his son because god wanted him to, then at the last minute god said it was just a test... I thought the foreskin was taken as the sacrifice to stand in for actually killing the child, but I guess it was introduced before that...

Either way, the Old Testament is fucking barbaric. It's not just "others" that do horrible things in the name of tradition and/or religion.

 

This is not an islamic practice. It is more cultural dealing with africa. I know that some practice it in egypt where the religion is predominantly islam. but in countries like morocco and algeria, it is not practiced. so it is not a "muslim" thing to do. I read that there is a reference to it in the Quran, where it says they should only perform a female circumcision if the clitoris is deformed, as in abnormally long. I am in no way a muslim, so please correct me if i am wrong.
It seems that sometimes the muslims are blamed for this practice. But it is practiced by some muslims, christians, jews (i believe) and other smaller religious peoples in some parts of africa.

 

Strawberry Fields, that is a very convincing argument. Wow!

You're right... bringing the military into Africa and dropping bombs isn't going to make things any better. It would probably make things worse... if fgm becomes completely outlawed/unregulated, it's not going to end fgm, it only means un-safe, un-sanity 'surgeries' are even more likely to occur. You made a good point when you said they they would be more likely to listen to someone from their own culture. Change must occur from within. You can't convince someone that their culture is "wrong" by shooting them and burning their villages. How would that be any different from murdering abortion doctors? (<-- EDIT: maybe I shouldn't have said that last part; I'm definitely not trying to start an abortion debate with anyone.)

 

I must admit, I wanted to comment on that, but don't know enuf about the details. The little bit that I've read says that most who practice this are Muslims, but I don't know whether the Quran says anything about it at all. My assumption was that the practice existed before Islam came to the area, then people interpreted Islam to accept or support the practice, in the same way that certain Lakota have incorporated the use of the peace pipe into Catholic ceremonies -- by a literal reading of doctrine, the practice is not suggested or even mentioned, but as people interpret doctrine to make it relevant to their lives they adapt it to include culture-specific practices. I've heard of clitoridectomy practiced in Saudi Arabia, but otherwise I've only heard of it in Africa, not in every predominantly Muslim region.

 

No, God said to Abraham that there was a sheep stuck in a bush nearby (and there was) and he sacrificed that instead.

That is the quote from the bible that circumcision comes from but its used to create the covenant between a boy and god.