Very well-presented article on genital surgery. Not the typical sensationalistic pablum I am accustomed to seeing. Dr. Shell-Duncan’s points make the University of Washington shine today.
Last I recall from the admittedly minor surgeries that I have undergone, in discussions before the procedure, the doctor explained the procedure, explained what could go wrong, explained what would be done to fix what could go wrong, and then asked whether I had any questions. Oh, and she was clear about how and when I could contact her if I had questions after I left her office. I can only assume that the doctors who perform the various cosmetic surgeries on American and European women do a version of this when they want informed consent from their patients.
Why, exactly, are we discussing “ideal physical forms”? In the Times’s own article “A Cutting Tradition”, the reporter states: ‘”According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation’s chairman of social services, there are three “benefits” to circumcising girls.
“One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.”’
Note that only one of the reasons has to do with “ideal physical form”; the rest have to do with social control of female sexuality. Yes, the quote is from a woman in Indonesia; one of the studies under discussion studies is entitled “Transcultural Bodies: Female Genital Cutting in Global Context.” I can’t imagine the thinking is all that different in Africa.
For the sake of argument, grant that it is “cultural imperialism.” Then what does this mean? Should we then abandon all efforts to stop the practice? In the name of opposition to cultural imperialism should we cease efforts to suppress: slavery, human sacrifice, torture, and other barbaric practices that are sanctioned by certain cultures? It would not be hard to find examples of voluntary slavery, sacrifice, etc., so the argument that it is not “voluntary” is irrelevant. I think we have to recognize that in a civilized world not all cultures deserve to survive; some cultures are barbaric and should be suppressed and allowed to exist only in history texts. Among the cultures that ought not survive are those that condone the mutilation of children.
Yes, protecting innocents is “culturally imperialistic”. Our culture tells us we should stop people from mutilating their children. Religious and cultural license stops at barbaric practices. There is nothing wrong with cultural imperialism if the culture you are spreading is superior; in fact in that case it is quite a good thing. Rome’s cultural imperialism, for example, was quite good for the world. There is no inherent value to cultural diversity (unless you are an anthropologist). Culture is not an end in itself, it exists to serve the needs of individual people, and so there are better and worse cultures.
Bettina’s argument that cutting off an innocent child’s clitoris is akin to adult labia reduction surgery is pure post-modern academic blindness. If FGC amounted to labia reduction, I doubt many people would have a problem with it. Bettina’s discussion of the health risks and different forms of FGC is completely beside the point.
Dr. Shell-Duncan allocates very valid points to the present day debate against FGM and health policy related to the practice. The zero tolerance policy should be re-evaluated critically as it is an extreme form of dealing with a widespread cultural phenomena. Moreover, more sociological research needs to be conducted in the regions where FGM is present in order to tailor a positive solution and also to disambiguate whether or not traditional health practitioners and women are aware of the adverse health problems that may occur, namely to understand the extent of “informed consent.” I disagree with the sensationalist title of this article as cultural imperialism is applied loosely to the realm of the health field and as a whole, the argument is unfounded. It is easy to subjectively label a health organization as being “culturally imperialistic” especially if they are directed by defined Western countries, however to correctly label such an org. is difficult and requires a more comprehensive argument.
#9 Dr. Shweder would you like to interview me? Would you like to know the scaring effect of female genital mutilation? Would you like to know how I wake up hearing the sound of the scissors cutting the flesh between my legs? Why was I mutilated? Because I was born in a female body and, in order for a man to claim me as a worthy wife, I was forced to have my genitals tortured and mutilated. Then, I was placed on a shelf until someone felt the desire to use me for his own pleasure. I can say that as women and babies, our bodies were caught in tripwires the very moment we swam onto the planet earth. Like lambs tied to the jungle trees, we would feel firm hands grabbing our necks and dragging our bodies into the mud and the melting concrete. In horror, we watched our bodies being ripped open like curtains, then raped, mutilated, stoned to death, sold into prostitution, and forced into marriages. It looked like we were destined to always be those scared lambs with sutured lips and empty minds.
Can I tell you the life long complications and psychological trauma the survivors face? What kind of perspective are you seeking to really understand the harmful effect that results the ritual cutting of female genital mutilation? Can I tell you how this harmful ritual destroys significant bodily functions, leaving women with a variety of medical, emotional, and spiritual problems?” Comment from previous article re to FGM,
Why do you(Tierney) continually HIGHLIGHT POSTS FROM SCHWEDER, WHO IS BEING WIDELY DISPUTED IN THE COMMENTS, and not quotes from the comment I include in this letter? This quote should be in calligraphy in the margins.
In addition, after you have statements from reliable WHO sources about the danger of this practice you continue to print alternate arguments.
This is not anthropology. It is pseudoscience. It is sadism, male chauvinism, female abuse, cultism, misogyny. I wonder about the sex lives or fantasy sex lives of the proponents (weeping). Would you find it includes domination, slaves, torture, whips, chains, BDSM, sadomasochism?
I would venture to guess anyone who is supporting female genital mutilation has an ulterior motive. Their own career advancement(including Tierney), sensationalism, deviant attitudes about sexuality, etc.
Female Genital Mutilation is against the law in the United States. Africa is engaged in genocide, torture and many human rights violations. Because it is being practiced in a third world country and some US cults, does not mean the US should be promoting it.
There is also a current bill before Congress to make male circumcision illegal. To say male circumcision is a minor surgery is incorrect.
Even though there may be people who the author legally claims practice FGM in the US, such as plastic surgeons, it doesn’t mean it is correct. WE NOW HAVE AN ENORMOUS CULTURE IN THE US BEING TATTOOED AND PIERCED. There are HUGE CONCERNS related to infection and HIV transmission with these practices. They are also related to the sexual deviances of BDSM.
None of these works supporting FGM discuss what happens to the female body as it ages. They discuss the cultural implications and consequences in the childbearing years, but not the consequences on an older woman.
The lack of sanitary medical facilities and antibiotics in Africa cannot be emphasized enough when considering FGM in Africa, no matter what the degree of mutiliation.
Speaking of “Cultural Imperialism at the W.H.O.”, they have been instrumental in pushing forward and encouraging mass mutilation in Africa. Their selective use of evidence to support a particular cultural perspective is as evident in their circumcision policy for males as for females. Sadly, it seems the W.H.O. cherry-picks their data to support the pre-determined institutional belief that male genital cutting is basically very very good, and female genital cutting is universally very very bad.
In the light of Dr. Bettina Shell-Duncan’s critique John Tierney asks readers to respond to three questions. “Does a zero-tolerance policy concerning even adults amount to cultural imperialism? And what kind of line should be drawn concerning minors? If, as Dr. Shell-Duncan says, some forms of FGC are no more risky than a male circumcision and make no permanent alteration, should parents be permitted to make this choice for their children?”
Below I try to address those questions. I do so with special (and restricted) reference to the moral, legal and social traditions of the contemporary United States, drawing directly on some thoughts presented in an essay titled “What About ‘Female Genital Mutilation’? And Why Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place” in R. Shweder, M. Minow and H. Markus (Eds.), Engaging Cultural Differences, Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2003.
In any discussion of bodily alterations it is useful to draw some distinctions between types of alterations, in particular between: consensual versus nonconsensual alterations; major versus minor alterations; and reversible versus nonreversible alterations. With those distinctions in place, the following policy argument might be made in favor not only of gender parity but also of greater (even if limited) toleration of female genital alterations in the United States.
In order for this argument for (limited) toleration of female genital alterations to succeed, one must first secure agreement on the following three principles. If you have good reasons for rejecting one or more of these principles put them forward and perhaps those reasons will get debated on the Tierneylab.
Principle 1. Certain types of genital alterations are currently legally permissible for males and should be permissible. Thus, as a matter of legal fact in the United States, it is permissible for parents to surgically remove the foreskin of a male infant or young child, even though the infant or child has not given consent, even though the procedure is irreversible, and even though no compelling medical justification exists for performing the operation. “Circumcision” is permissible in this case because the alteration is minor in two senses. From a medical viewpoint, the procedure is easy to perform and, aside from some short-term pain (in the absence of anesthesia), the operation is inconsequential with regard to its effects on basic biological functioning. The procedure also is minor from the viewpoint of social and psychological functioning, in the sense that circumcised males remain perfectly capable of attaining mental health and participating in a normal social life. The majority of American males have had their genitals reshaped in infancy and the vast majority of circumcised American males have no regrets.
Male circumcision in infancy and childhood is permissible because in our liberal pluralistic society we are willing to respect the cultural and religious traditions of the family, acknowledging and respecting, for example, the idea that circumcision is what some Jewish and Muslim peoples do to their sons because of their perception of a long standing covenant with their God. Moreover, circumcision is permissible because we are willing to make room for family privacy and leave child care to parents rather than to the state, except under extreme circumstances. Indeed, in the case of infant male circumcision the procedure is so commonplace and tolerated that a sufficient reason for conducting the surgery is that the father does not want his son’s genitals to look different from his own, or simply because he thinks it looks good. Principle 1 allows for minor genital alterations for males, at every stage of life.
(In articulating principle 1 I am not suggesting that it has never been contested. There are and have been anti-male circumcision advocates throughout history who view(ed) the removal of the foreskin as a “mutilation.” Today there are activists in the anti–male circumcision movement who are prepared to be unmoved by claims of religious freedom, cultural rights, family privacy, parental rights or pluralism, and who seem quite prepared to disparage and castigate all religious and cultural traditions in which male circumcision is condoned, as a violation of the principle of individual autonomy. Nevertheless the claims that children have a “natural right” to autonomy or the related claim that a right to autonomy must take precedence over all other rights – such as, for example, the rights of parents to inoculate their children against their will or of parents of a Down Syndrome child to perform cosmetic facial surgery on their daughter or son for the sake of “normalizing” her or his appearance – do not seem convincing; indeed such claims, precisely because they are not mandated by logic or evidence, are vulnerable to charges ranging from “ethnocentrism” and “cultural imperialism” to “moral arrogance.” Various historical and virulent attacks on Judaism, for example the severe penalties imposed on mohels and mothers of circumcised infants by Antiochus Epiphanes, the ruler of Judea in the second century B.C.; and the English “Jew Bill” of 1753 have been associated with precisely these types of moral arguments and with assaults on the practice of male circumcision.)
Principle 2. Major body alterations are permissible if you know what you are doing and why such alterations are being done. In other words, it is and ought to be permissible for someone who has reached the appropriate age for autonomous decision making (or the age at which discretion is permitted, with parental consent) to alter his or her body in ways that are more substantial than would be allowed by principle 1 alone.
At some point in growing up we are granted rights of discretion over our own body (although as Dr. Shell-Duncan notes, above, some zero tolerance activists have pressed for laws denying African adults that discretion even with respect to their own bodies; and there are laws to that effect in some European countries, which as far as I know have not been denounced by anti-“fgm” activists). But this is the United States. If a girl is old enough to get pregnant, we believe that she is old enough to have considerable discretion (either on her own or with parental backing) over any decision to abort the fetus. If she is old enough to experience her own body as ugly or “abnormal” or distressing or (or even just ordinary) and if she is mentally healthy and old enough to be cognizant of the costs and benefits of altering her body, we grant her considerable discretion to do so (either on her own or with parental permission) in major or irreversible ways. If you have the support of your parents (and even in some cases if you don’t), you do not have to wait until you are eighteen to have a breast implant or nose job, pierce your nipples or clitoris, radically stretch your earlobes, or even engage in a sex-change operation. These more major body alterations are permitted in the United States because of consent, and we do not require that every surgery done in the USA be done only for medical reasons. We believe that people who are old enough to care about themselves ought to be able to have the things they want that make them “happy,” by their own lights. This holds true even if the things they want done don’t make us happy, as long as the body alterations they bring upon themselves cause us no greater harm than offending our tastes or deviating from our idea of correct body politics.
Principle 3. No major irreversible alterations of your body should be permitted without your consent. In other words, we should have a strong presumption against nonconsensual alterations of the body that have major consequences for either normal biological functioning or participation in a meaningful and fulfilling social life, and even more so if such alterations are irreversible. (There are some circumstances where even this strong presumption might be overturned – for example, in the case of someone who is unconscious and certain to die unless a leg is amputated.)
If we agree on those three principles, then the “zero tolerance” policy and its aggressively repressive attitude towards female genital alterations should be looked upon with suspicion. We should at least be willing to listen to the claims of those African immigrant mothers who believe that, in a tolerant pluralistic liberal democratic society such as the United States, there ought to be some room for their conceptions of a “normal” body and gender identity.
More specifically, if genital alterations are permitted for boys on the grounds of family privacy, religious freedom, and the fact that they are not harmful to health or sexual functioning (principle 1)(see earlier Tierneylab statements, for example by Dr. Lucretia Catania on the sexuality of Somali women, published on January 14) then to the extent that the same conditions hold, genital alterations should be permitted for girls as well. The determination of which types of procedures or styles of genital reshaping should be allowed should rest entirely on scientific and medical evidence concerning the consequences of different procedures. There is no doubt that there are existing forms of female genital reshaping which already are no more consequential for health and sexual functioning then the typical male operation as currently practiced in the United States. Precisely why should we not extend that option to Kono parents of daughters (they would undoubtedly treat their sons and daughters equitably and “circumcise” both) as well as to the parents of sons? Legal and moral notions such as gender equity, due process before the law, religious and cultural freedom, and family privacy would seem to support the option.
And if body alterations such as breast implants or sex change operations are allowable with consent at an appropriate age (principle 2) then why not consensual genital alterations aimed at enhancing beauty and confirming appropriate gender identity (which, for some African immigrants, means getting rid of the male element in the female, and the female element in the male), as long as the procedure is done safely and is compatible with sexual and reproductive functioning? Such procedures are not only feasible, they already exist.
Needless to say, there is plenty of room for argument about the appropriate age of discretion and the conditions for establishing informed consent. In ethnic groups with a heritage of both male and female circumcision, the psychological burden of being “uncircumcised” (of feeling ugly, sexually ambiguous, immature and unmarriageable) is likely to intensify as one begins to sexually mature, which might be a lower bound for an age of discretion (with permission from ones parents). But such issues are not unique to this case. One might start by considering the age at which young people are permitted (with parental consent) to have a breast implant or an abortion or a sex change operation.
There is also plenty of room for argument about what counts as a major body alteration and what counts as minor. There may be types of body alterations that are benign from the point of view of health and sexuality, yet nevertheless radically reduce a person’s chances of having a meaningful and rewarding social and family life. Sane and rational parents do not do things to their child’s body that they think will ruin the child’s life or turn them into “freaks”, and that includes African parents. The more uncertainty there is about whether this body alteration will ruin rather than enhance the child’s life, the more the procedure should be viewed as major rather than minor, and the more the need for informed consent (principle 3). In the case of circumcision (for both males and females) the judgment about what is good for your child not only depends upon, but also affects, what is considered by relevant others to be beautiful or ugly, normal or mutilated. There is little risk that parents will circumcise their children in the absence of a community of relevant others who share the same tastes.
Fortunately, in a liberal pluralistic democracy such as our own (which has already made room for tattoos, piercings, brandings and scarifications of various sorts, and many other forms of body reshaping) there are many ways for men and women to live meaningful social lives without securing universal agreement about the aesthetics of the human body, especially when the body parts in question are private and not meant to be open to everyone’s inspection. If happiness in life depended upon being physically attractive to all members of the opposite sex, happiness would be in short supply.
Under this scenario, all genital surgeries in the USA would be either minor (and hence permissible at an early age) or would have to wait until some reasonable age of consent. In the USA given those principles infibulations of children before reaching an appropriate age of consent would be out of the question, although that procedure might be freely chosen after the appropriate age of discretion. Given that an infibulation is a relatively infrequent procedure even in Africa (the most careful and rigorous recent estimate suggests that 90% of female genital alterations in Africa are NOT Type 3 infibulations, despite the lurid and sensationalized focus on infibulations by activist organizations), it seems unlikely that in the United States it would emerge as a popular style of genital alteration. (For the recent estimate see P. Stanley Yoder and Shane Khan “Numbers of Women Circumcised in Africa: The Production of a Total,” Macro International, Inc., October 2007 ).
Of course, who would have predicted ear lobe plugs, tongue or nipple piercings or elaborate tattoos to become fashionable in the United States? In a liberal pluralistic democracy we grant to each other various liberties or freedoms (of choice, association, expression, religion) and various protections (of bodily privacy, of family privacy), even when other members of our society do things to themselves that offend our (Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or feminist or bourgeois) sensibilities. It is the price you pay for freedom and equality in a politically liberal pluralistic society. Under such circumstances, it is the virtue of tolerance that makes it possible for people to be quite different from one another, yet socially cooperate with each other at the same time.
So for the sake of this argument imagine this variation on an example I have used before: a fourteen year old female teenager from a West African Mandinka background living in Washington, D.C. who believes that a genital alteration would be “something very great.” She likes the look of her mother’s body and her recently circumcised cousin’s body far better than she likes the look of her own. She wants to be a mature and beautiful woman, Mandinka style. She wants to marry a West African man , or at least a man who appreciates the intimate appearances of an initiated woman’s body. She wants to show solidarity with other African women who express their sense of beauty, civility, and feminine dignity in this way, and she shares their sense of aesthetics and seemliness. She reviews the medical literature and the literature on cosmetic surgeries and discovers that the operation can be done safely, hygienically and with no great effect on her capacity to enjoy sex (that’s how it is being done these days in Beverly Hills). After consultation with her parents and the full support of other members of her community, she elects to carry on the tradition. What principle of justice demands that her cultural heritage should be “eradicated” and brought to an end by zero tolerance activists?
This is an enormous contribution to the popular debate – to admit that male circumcision is comparable to SOME (just some) forms of FGM, and to point out the intrinsic hypocrisy of living in a male circ culture while haughtily condemning and outlawing all forms of FGM. Thank you for the refreshing breath of intellectual honesty.
Bettina Shell-Duncan raises some very important points, especially regarding the lack of differentiation between the forms of FGM. Unfortunately this lack of differentiation is used on both sides of the argument and goes something like this:
“FGM type III (infibulation) has serious detrimental effects, therefore ALL forms FGM are dangerous.”
On the question of consent: I would not tell any adult woman what she can or can’t do with her body. However, what percentage of FGM is actually carried out on adult women?
I wonder if you can supply some statistics? With your extensive research record, you may be able to answer this question.
I saw the article blurb and photo of anguish about female circumcision on the home page of the Times a few days ago.
Among Kenyan-born and Somalia-born Somali women Of my acquaintance in Nairobi, from those with one or two years of primary education up through those with a degree from the University of Nairobi, it was the common stereotype that women who had had Pharaonic cutting and infibulation, on the one extreme, to those who had had no form of FGC at all, that the more “severe” the level of cutting, the HIGHER the libido, and not as this quote suggests: “One, it will stabilize her libido,” he said through an interpreter. “Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology.”’ Somali men of my acquaintance expressed no preference one way or the other, and as to psychological balance, both men and women of Somali origins thought that FGC had no influence. This was in a culture where many non-Somalis considered the Somali “crazy,” but the Somalis themselves said that FGC probably had no effect on individual pyschology. I make no claims to scientific rigor – my observations are based only on conversations with Somali friends of both sexes.
MCT (#8)is right on. Circumcision,be it male or female and practiced on infants and minors, is the purest form of child molestation ever divised by men. It is almost always committed against those that rely most on the protection of their elders and society. Anyone, including physicians, taking a knife to cut an indefensible infant after birth, or as a minor, should be persecuted by the law as a child molester.
These practices find their origin in religion and have been manipulated over time by those religions to become acceptable rituals.
As a feminist, living in Africa has opened me up to the possibility that some of my own viewpoints need to be challenged in order to fully appreciate the complexity of accepted social norms on the continent.
A strictly condemning attitude to FGM also blinds one to the reasons why it is practiced in the first place. Yes, the reasons it is practiced are often paternalistic, chauvinistic– clear testimonies to a fear of female sexuality. But these attitudes exist. We cannot just conveniently erase them.
FGM continues to be practiced because there is a lack of reasonable alternatives to FGM. These alternatives include sex education, demystification of sex to young people– even basic health care and empowerment of women through basic education.
Until these alternatives are made available (and this is also not our fight, as westerners), let’s not condemn Africans and Asians. Lets not be shocked at their attitudes and impose our cultural standards on them. Let’s instead take steps to inform and educate and offer the possibility of healthy and safe alternatives.
tries to have it both ways, attempting to reconcile his self-concocted “principle I” (i.e. religious and cultural male circumcision on non-consenting babies) and “Principle III” (i.e. No major irreversible alterations of your body should be permitted without your consent), through the disingenous use of the words “minor” (i.e. acceptable) and “major” (i.e. unacceptable). I may be mistaken but his need to justify the current practices in the USA and in the Jewish and Muslim communities somehow trumps logic.
Nevertheless, in such a presentation, maybe unwittingly, he successfully exposes the main barrier to the elimination of genital mutilations of any type: how can the US press against FGM elsewhere, when it carries out its own wholesale mutilations at home? As we have seen in these boards, this argument is often thrown right back at the faces of (largely) Americans.
And yet, I can’t help but wishing that, whichever their reasons may be, Dr. Schweder and John Tierney continue pressing their ambiguous stand on FGM. Doing so in the USA, where genital mutilations are virtually barred from mass media discussion (God forbid somebody gets offended!) and relegated to ad hoc fora such as this one, they continue to raise a mirror for Americans to look into what they are doing to their children in the US, while deluding themselves into believing that their reasons are so different and so much loable than their African counterpart’s.
What is extremely troubling about the conclusions of Richard Shweder, Dr. Shell-Duncan and of those who agree with their troubling perspective of female genital mutilation (FGM), is the lack of a human rights and gender analysis. Equality Now has been working to end FGM since its inception in 1992 and supports partners in over two dozen grassroots organizations across Africa that are struggling – and succeeding – to end all forms of FGM. As even Dr. Shell-Duncan notes, there is no shortage of research on the lifelong devastating health effects of FGM, but the physical health of African girls and women who have been subjected to FGM – although critical in order to reach one’s highest potential in life – is not the sole criterion for condemning FGM in all of its forms. There is little or no research on the mortality rates caused by FGM (either immediately or in the short-,medium- or long-term after the procedure) and no research on the psychological impact of FGM. In communities where FGM is practiced as a rite of passage (among the Maasai, for instance), girls as young as 9 years-old are forced to abandon school and to marry to adult men after being subjected to FGM, securing a bleak future for the girl-child.
Every grassroots and national group in African countries working to eradicate FGM will vehemently confirm that FGM is a fundamental human rights violation against girls and women. FGM engenders and perpetuates discrimination against girls and women because they were born female. Unlike male circumcision, FGM is a prerequisite to marriage and performed to secure virginity, chastity, obedience to father and husband, and guarantees a women’s lower status in society. International law and principles condemn FGM as a violation that deprives girls from the right to bodily integrity and the right to live a life free of violence, to name just two. The African Protocol on the Rights of Women urges all governments to enact laws that prohibit FGM and take action to prevent and prosecute FGM. When the American academic community refuses to listen to the voices of the survivors of FGM and local grassroots groups in Africa working tirelessly to end this 5,000 year- old harmful traditional practice – who, we ask, are the cultural imperialists?
Dr. Shell-Duncan’s points about being against all forms of fgc because two can cause great harm and her noting that the forms of evidence we have now are interpretive rather than empirical are good ones. Her post is actually much more well thought out than Dr. Shweder’s in my opinion. I do agree that when there is danger to a woman “a hands off strategy would be as equally unethical as a cultural imperialistic one,” as Dr. Shell-Duncan notes.
Also, I think that American and European women find it as difficult to rise above ideals of physical beauty as African women. Obviously, the American culture is fraught with ridiculous media depictions of overly thin, tall women with what we think are “perfect” features when the average woman is actully 5’4″ and 140 pounds, not 5’10” and 90 pounds.
Shweder’s statements about how our practice of male circumcision in the U.S. makes it hypocritical for us to criticize fgc is one I disagree with. In Africa, as I understand, fgc is performed on a girl usually between the ages of 4 and 10. In the U.S. male circumcision is usally performed on a male infant who is only a few days old. Hence, these are two different processes.
Also, just because studies have shown that African women do not have increased childbirth risks from fgc does not make types 2 and 3 ok. There are other issues besides childbirth risks for these women (or girls since I’m sure some have babies at a very young age.) Obviously girls and women can suffer severe psychological trauma from fgc and other methods of control over their sexuality.
If fgc 1 is truly harmless and painless to girls and women and performed in a surgically safe setting (how many of these operations are performed in a surgically safe settings?) then it should be up to the parents and culture. However, the 2 and 3 versions do not sound safe and women have reported great trauma from them. Hence, it does not make sense for the U.S. to sanction these methods. We do not support slavery and torture in other countries so why should we support more extreme fgc methods? This is not cultural imperialism, it is a human rights stance. When we decided we were against apartheid in S. Africa, we implemented economic sanctions against the countries there. Was that cultural imperialism or a human rights issue? I say it was a human rights issue.
Also, if Shweder if making the argument against male circumcision, shouldn’t he be against fgc? Again, do we always have to point out that because boys rights are violated, we should stop complaining about girls rights being violated. Can anyone say sexism?
“So for the sake of this argument imagine this variation on an example I have used before: a fourteen year old female teenager from a West African Mandinka background living in Washington, D.C. who believes that a genital alteration would be “something very great.””
The last time you used this example your hypothetical teenager was Somali, and that means the genital alteration involved would be infibulation.
But let’s make her Mandinka, ie, she wants to have her clitoris and labia removed. Why shouldn’t she wait until she is 18?
post 18: “…Shweder’s statements about how our practice of male circumcision in the U.S. makes it hypocritical for us to criticize fgc is one I disagree with. In Africa, as I understand, fgc is performed on a girl usually between the ages of 4 and 10. In the U.S. male circumcision is usally performed on a male infant who is only a few days old. Hence, these are two different processes…”, posted by Judy.
Sorry, Judy, but I don’t get your point. So, yes, FGM is performed between 4 and 10 (maybe even later too), and MGM is performed at 2 days (routine infant circumcision performed in hospitals under “medical” pretexts) or at 8 days (Jewish bris). Besides that time differential, how else do they constitute “different processes” to the point of making a difference as to whether they should be accepted or rejected?
Furthermore, I believe that you read Schweder wrongly. With his pseudo-distinctions detailed in his “principle I” and “principle III”, I think that he is actually making a point for male genital mutilation in the American, Jewish and Muslim communities as something acceptable that should be protected in the name of pluriculturalism.
“In order for this argument for (limited) toleration of female genital alterations to succeed, one must first secure agreement on the following three principles. If you have good reasons for rejecting one or more of these principles put them forward and perhaps those reasons will get debated on the Tierneylab.
Principle 1. Certain types of genital alterations are currently legally permissible for males and should be permissible.”
I appreciate, however, the subsequent argument which convincingly demonstrates that if accepted, zero-tolerance for female genital shaping is hypocrisy.
For demonstrating that, the author will be guaranteed no shortage of criticism from those whose cultural lens it shatters.
Though an anthropologist may be less likely to answer than a magician asked to explain his trick, I cannot help but wonder, while he articulates it as the dominant public view at this time in the Unites States, whether the author himself accepts Principle 1.
I wonder this as one of the “majority of American males [who] have had their genitals reshaped in infancy,” but not one of the presumed “vast majority of circumcised American males [who] have no regrets.”
“There is nothing wrong with cultural imperialism if the culture you are spreading is superior; in fact in that case it is quite a good thing.”
Not being a scientist nor having any interest in trying to impress by over intelectualizing this, but speaking as a woman who enjoys sex, this issue isn’t just a question of if this a physically damaging process. There are a lot of people in the world who never care for sex or give it up pretty early in the game. Women who are mutilated will never know what they are missing, no matter how much desire they have, unless they are exceptional, they won’t be having orgasms. That may not register in any of your surveys or tests but it is a huge quality of life issue.
Female genital mutilation is about sexual control – plain and simple. Male circumcision really isn’t comparable on that issue, it doesn’t significantly reduce or eliminate men’s ablity to experience sexual pleasure. That the question of whether a portion of the population is entitled to or has a right to discover sexual pleasure for themselves is even debated, says a great deal about the ambivalent and negative attitudes towards sexuality and female sexuality in particular across all world cultures.
“That the question of whether a portion of the population is entitled to or has a right to discover sexual pleasure for themselves is even debated, says a great deal about the ambivalent and negative attitudes towards sexuality and female sexuality in particular across all world cultures.”
I’m sorry, Deanna, I can’t seem to find the argument that a portion of the population is not entitled to discover sexual pleasure for themselves in any of the commentary. Could you direct me to it? Thank you.
In your defense of male circumcision, you keep emphasising those Jewish and Muslim parents who would be unfairly discriminated against if male circumcision was abolished in the US. Aren’t you being just a tad disingenuous here? Estimates vary, but let’s say, as a low estimate, 60% of American males have been circumcised. Jews account for about 1.3% of the US population, muslims for 0.5%, total 1.8%. So 58% of American male infants are circumcised for other than religious reasons, or to put it differently, 97% of all circumcised American males have been circumcised for other than religious reasons, usually spurious medical reasons. I can’t imagine that you’re unaware of this.
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