Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief
Last Modified: 16:35 PM EDT, 19 April 2010
AFRICA – The practice of female genital mutilation entails the partial or total cutting away of external female genitalia. Traditional healers, birth attendants, or elderly woman usually carry out the procedure, usually in septic environments.
The clitoris is excised with crude instruments such as knives, razor blades and broken glass without anesthesia. During post surgical healing the girls are at greatest risk of infection, and the agony they suffer is exacerbated by the lack of access to pain medication. In lieu of this herbal solutions or poultices are applied to check the bleeding and lessen the pain.
This crude and hazardous procedure is grounded in and surrounded by various myths, misconceptions, and superstition nonsense. For instance, the ritual is performed as a rite of passage to prepare young girls for womanhood and marriage. The belief that it prevents a woman from giving birth to a stillborn child is also quite prevalent. In some parts of western Nigeria it is regarded as a taboo for the head of a child to touch the mother’s clitoris during delivery. Some of the proverbs that support and underscore these mythical postulations include:
- “The clitoris is a cap of prostitution which the vagina wears from heaven.”
- “If we don’t clip the clitoris, it is going to be asking great sacrifices of the penis when it grows.”
- “The fortune gathered by the penis is taken up by the vagina.”
Even though these beliefs predate the coming and spread of Islam, traditional African practices have subsequently become closely related and allied with radical Islamic teachings, traditions, and customs. Africa is a deeply patriarchal society. Men dominate the socioeconomic and political machinery and organizations. Men are regarded as natural leaders who are superior and born to rule over women.
Women are considered weaker vessels who are merely extensions of men and secondary human beings. The pride and dignity that women feel in these societies is derived from and dependent upon men. Hence, African societies attach more value and importance to a male child than to a female child. Ten daughters are not worth a son. No woman is regarded as complete or real until she gives birth to a male. Delivering a son gives a woman pride and a place at her husband’s home.
It is said that every married woman stands with one leg in her husband’s house until she gives birth to a male child. Like the many traditional societies in China, India and the Middle East, the traditional African value system is fundamentally biased against women and is gender insensitive. Thus, in many parts of Africa, girls as young as seven are married to men old enough to be their fathers, and in some cases their grandfathers. Parents often marry their daughters off before they are old enough to decide for themselves. When the issue of dowry comes into play, the girls are literally treated as chattel that can bought and sold, thereby becoming the property of the purchaser who can then use her as he deems fit. This usually culminates in rape, physical abuse, abandonment, or murder.
Women are further diminished through the practice of Polygamy which is another traditional custom that prevails in Africa. Men are licensed to marry as many women as “they can afford” to support. Therefore, theoretically the number of wives a man has can infer his level of wealth or business acumen. However, as with any “status” symbol, many women are acquired as wives by men who are ill-equipped to care for them or the offspring that are borne to him. As part of this tradition, upon the death of a woman’s husband, the eldest man in the family inherits the woman and she is evicted from her husband’s house while her children and property are confiscated. Source: Excerpted from text written by Leo Igwe. Mr. Igwe is director of the Centre for Inquiry in Nigeria. He can be reached at nskepticleo@yahoo.com.
Related articles
- Theresa May: ‘Shocking’ number of girls still undergoing female genital mutilation in the UK (dailymail.co.uk)
- Female genital mutilation has medical benefits? (freethoughtblogs.com)
- The Orgasm After Clitoris Removal (socyberty.com)
26/08/2011 at 15:12
Even though these beliefs predate the coming and spread of Islam, traditional African practices have subsequently become closely related and allied with radical Islamic teachings, traditions, and customs”
I wonder why you bring in the issue of Islam as if Islam recommends female circumcision!. This is purely a cultural thing whose behavior is not at all related to Islamic code of conduct..and Islam is Islam. No radicalized Islam!
About marrying more than one wife, there is a criteria for that and not just simply marrying. there is a full chapter in the Koran about marriage and the one described in your article is totally different from that of the Koran. About taking over some one’s wife. There is a procedure and the woman has to consent. its not a matter of taking over. What u describe in your article is not at all related to Islam..
06/09/2011 at 16:45
Appreciate your comment and your opinion. It is true that there are many aberrant practices of all religions and I do not single out Islam. I also focus on Judaism and to a lesser extent Christianity. I write about topics of which I have first hand knowledge as it brings a level of veracity to my recantations.
It is my hope that through writing about my experiences it would challenge the reader to go beyond what I have written to seek the truth directly from the source texts. The things which I write about may represent aberrant practices but they are practices that I have seen and experienced.
As Oscar Wilde said, “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
14/04/2011 at 16:03
Hello i am 25 yrs old boy.. from a country of spirituality and superstitions. I am interested in reading and exploring new topics.. but today i came across “WOMEN CIRCUMCISION” , it is completely the violation of the laws laid down by the government.
It is only been practiced in some parts of the world, what the tradition is going on from centuries, the people are dying to maintain the same thing without thinking what is correct. They believe what their ancestors did it was all correct.
“the cap of prostitution”… i does not want to say anything.
22/04/2010 at 09:31
I’m familiar with most of this history and it’s heartbreaking. However, I always find it ironic that despite the second-class position of African women, they are famously strong and the backbone of most African economies. What do you think about this?
22/04/2010 at 16:02
First, I would like to thank you for visiting my blog and for taking the time to write a comment. With regard to some of the more disturbing cultural, religious, or societal practices that I feature on the blog, I feature these items with the intent to raise awareness not evoke pity nor to further diminish the women who are unfortunate enough to find themselves in these situations. I am a very strong woman and I am a survivor. I am a survivor of child abuse, rape, physical and domestic abuse, misogyny, and of aberrant Islamic practices that designated me as nothing more than chattel.
And yet, I am still here. I am a mother to a son whom I am raising to be proud of his African heritage. A mother who is instilling in her son the appropriate role of men and women and the strength that each can find within this context. As an Orthodox woman, I practice, am comfortable with, and believe in separation of men and women during prayer services. Some women feel that this diminishes them, but in truth, we are first conquered in our minds before we are ever conquered by others. Maya Angelou said it best when she stated, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”
African women in particular and all women in general are uniquely designed to be strong in the face of great adversity. We travail through childbirth which takes an inordinate amount of strength; we hold our families together and nurture children and husbands. We are the glue that ensures the continuation of our species as we instill in our progeny all the hopes and aspirations we have for a better future. We are the economic backbone of many societies, and our strength in this arena is most visible in indigenous, less technologically developed societies.
In technologically advanced societies we continue to be the economic backbone as we labor in a market place that still pays us less than our male counterparts for the same amount and type of work. We are, through choice or force of circumstance, raising children alone as we provide their sole means of support through the salaries we garner. Despite our disappointments with life, we continue to instill the intoxicating spirit of possibility in our children so that they may assume command of a world that we will leave to them.
Women have been subjected from time immemorial to treatment that is not in accordance with the best that humanity can be. This does not mean that a woman who finds herself in any number of different societal, cultural, or familial situations is not powerful, for to survive is power. It simply means that we must continue to highlight injustice wherever we see it and change ourselves so that we become the best that we have to offer. Leading this charge are strong mother’s everywhere, and I am one of them.