Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief
Last Modified: 16:00 PM EDT, 3 May 2012
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is currently one of the most egregious women’s rights abuses occurring globally. It is a subject that is hard to discuss because of its intimate, sexual and graphic nature.
However, it is exactly because of the life-long psychological and physical effects this barbaric practice has on its innocent and unwilling victims, that it is incumbent upon us to publicize this abuse until it is eradicated.
This issue was first brought to the public’s attention by Waris Dirie, Somalian author, activist, and victim of FGM, when she published her memoir titled ‘Desert Flower.’ The book was subsequently made into a movie in 2009, and Liya Kebede, an Ethiopian supermodel, played Waris Dirie in the heart wrenching but ultimately victorious story of survival.
Initially, when we featured a post about this topic, a number of readers commented about male circumcision and how this is just as barbaric as FGM and should also be classified as a human rights abuse.
Though it is true that any type of unwanted genital mutilation is a crime, the major differences between male circumcision and FGM are as follows:
- Most boys are circumcised at birth, or in the case of Jews and some Muslims, on the 8th day of life;
- Men who are circumcised later in life often elect to have this procedure for personal, religious, or health reasons;
- The surgery is performed in a sterile environment, usually under anesthesia;
- Male circumcision is usually performed in a non-invasive manner that ultimately results in few, if any adverse psychological effects.
By comparison, FGM has more in common and correlates best to physical castration in men.
- Girls who undergo FGM (aka female circumcision) are forcibly mutilated anywhere between 13 and 15 years of age;
- The ‘procedure’ occurs without anesthesia in unsanitary environments;
- Rusty razor blades, old knives, or shards of glass are used to cut the flesh;
- The clitoris and the inner and outer labia are torn away;
- Finally, the wound is crudely stitched together and must be cut open for sex and childbirth.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are benefits to men and boys becoming circumcised particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Strong evidence from Africa indicates that circumcision reduces the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men by 38-66%, and studies have concluded it is cost effective in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends circumcision be recognized as an intervention as part of a comprehensive program for prevention of HIV transmission in areas with high endemic rates of HIV.” (Source: WHO)
The effects of FGM are profoundly debilitating and deleterious to women’s reproductive health and serves no useful purpose. It is a practice deeply rooted in misogyny, tyranny and the concept of women as chattel.
Men who have been circumcised can still enjoy a robust sex life filled with numerous encounters, whereas women who have undergone FGM must suffer immense pain to remove the sutures, and as one can imagine, sexual intercourse thereafter would be excruciating.
In the Europe between the 16th and 17th centuries the ‘Chastity Belt‘ was developed to prohibit women from having sexual intercourse. This device was also a contrivance of men desiring to control the sexuality of the women in their societies. In comparison to FGM, a ‘Chastity Belt’ was infinitely less egregious, but definitely a women’s rights violation.
Surprisingly, FGM procedures are on the rise in Western nations such as the United Kingdom. It is easy for most people to acquiesce in the face of such a daunting problem that is occurring half-way across the world. It is also more comfortable to believe that this is an Islamic problem though FGM is no prescribed in the Quran.
It is easiest to effect change in one’s backyard, and thus, in Western societies where there are no health reasons to recommend FGM it is up to the medical establishment and authorities to intervene and halt these procedures.
Misogyny like rape, is less about the object of abuse, in this case, women, and more about control. The net result of FGM is that it diminishes all women everywhere even if it hasn’t personally impacted your life or those of your friends and family.
Follow Nahmias Cipher Report on Twitter Twitter: @nahmias_reportEditor: @ayannanahmias
Related articles
- Medics Offered Genital Mutilation, Report Says (news.sky.com)
- Medics ‘offered genital mutilation’ (express.co.uk)
- Investigation Exposes Awful U.K. Doctors Willing to Perform FGM [Unkindest Cut] (jezebel.com)
- Female Genital Mutilation Being “Offered” In UK (inquisitr.com)
- 100,000 women undergo genital mutilation in Britain and some are 10 -year-olds (kractivist.wordpress.com)
![Rehtaeh Parsons, a teen from Nova Scotia, was a gorgeous, kind, straight-A student with her whole life ahead of her. On Thursday, she hung herself in her bathroom. On Sunday night, her family took her off life-support. Approximately a year and a half earlier, in November 2011, when Rehtaeh was 15 years old, she was reportedly gang-raped by four boys, classmates of hers. The trauma did not end there. One of the boys reportedly took a photo of the act and circulated it among Rehtaeh’s school and community where, as noted, by Rehtaeh’s mother, “it quickly went viral.” Authorities reportedly investigated the sexual assault but claimed there was insufficient evidence to make formal charges. Rehtaeh’s mother recalls the investigation: They didn’t even interview the boys until much, much later. To me, I’d think you’d get the boys right away, separate them…. Nothing was done about [the photos] because they couldn’t prove who had pressed the photo button on the phone. [She was told that the distribution of the photos is] not really a criminal issue, it’s more of a community issue. Even though she was 15 at the time, which is child pornography…. The whole case was full of things like that. We didn’t have a rape kit done because we didn’t even know (anything had happened) until several days later when she had a breakdown in my kitchen. She was trying to keep it to herself. Tormented and bullied, Rehtaeh was forced to leave her school and tried to start fresh in a new community. Despite efforts, she continued to struggle, at one point checking into a hospital to cope with suicidal thoughts, anger, and depression. In an extensive post on a Facebook memorial page, her mother Leah Parsons described how the straight-A high school student became depressed and suicidal after the incident. “The person Rehtaeh once was all changed one dreaded night in November 2011. She went with a friend to another’s home. In that home she was raped by four young boys . . . one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral,” Leah Parsons wrote. “Because the boys already had a ‘slut’ story, the victim of the rape Rehtaeh was considered a slut. “This day changed the lives of our family forever.” Rehtaeh, who was a 15-year-old high school student in Cole Harbour at the time, was repeatedly bullied at school and “suddenly shunned by almost everyone she knew.” “She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn’t know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped,” her mother told CBC.](http://ayannanahmias.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rehtaeh-parsons-17-canadian-rape-victim-commits-suicide-3.jpg?w=45&h=45&crop=1){kind=small}
10/07/2012 at 09:19
The Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland confirmed in a letter to our organisation that male circumcision may cause psychological problems in some young men and boys.
Working in the field of FGM and MGM it is clear that many men complain of physical, sexual and psychological damage, with a recent study confirming that a physical examination of circumcised males revealed extensive scarring, bent and twisted penis’s, etc.however the men thought that this was normal.
Also deaths and total amputations can and do occur from male circumcision even when conducted in the medical setting with many men unaware of how they have been harmed, the practice continues.
Male circumcision was introduced into medical practice to curb male sexuality and for many it does, this often goes unreported due to the shame they feel and the lack of understanding they encounter by some professionals who are unaware of the effects of circumcision and the current research in this area,
Ending FGM/MGM can only be achieved by condemning both practices, we cannot deny the harm of one and not the other. Many of us have damaged male children, done in sterile medical conditions, we now know through personal experience that this has harmed our children and we campaign equally to end both practices.
10/07/2012 at 11:16
Appreciate the comment and the information. Very cogent argument.
09/05/2012 at 18:50
To establish my framework, I don’t think you’ve endorsed male circumcision. However, I don’t think you’ve made a comparison that shows a distinction. You write of the “innocent and unwilling victims” of FGM. I agree. That also gets to the core similarity in FGM and male circumcision. They are both non-therapeutic genital cutting on a non-consenting individual.
Within my research, it seems clear that the form of FGM (i.e. Type IV) most physically comparable to male circumcision is the least practiced. The forms most commonly practiced are more severe than male circumcision, often significantly. I want that point to be clear, as well as the point that FGM is evil. But the basic human rights violation is the same. Both are an assault on the individual’s genital integrity and bodily autonomy. We can distinguish between a punch to the face and a knife to the guts without imagining the latter negates the problem with the former.
Your comparison doesn’t work because you apply a cultural rather than medical standard in 3 of the 4 items. Would we change our view on FGM (or “mere” FGC if just a subset of Type IV) if it were imposed on girls at birth? If we acknowledge that some adult women already choose cosmetic surgery on their own genitals? If it were performed in a sterile hospital environment with proper anesthesia? I wouldn’t. I don’t think you would, either, because these aren’t logical criteria to judge surgery by proxy consent. The presence – or complete absence – of therapeutic need is the only valid criterion.
The last item is a valid difference, although it’s odd to call male circumcision “non-invasive”. (A surgical procedure that removes healthy, functioning tissue is by definition “invasive”.) But the difference is in degree rather than kind. Again, non-therapeutic genital cutting on a non-consenting individual is the comparison. Everyone has a right to be free from that harm without his or her active consent. I think the differences in severity should inform how we punish, so they’re not irrelevant. They just don’t support protection for girls only.
Ms. Dirie’s discussion in “Desert Flower” of her son’s non-therapeutic circumcision is instructive in the comparison. She wrote that her son now has “a beautiful penis”, that it’s “lovely to look at!”. What is his opinion about his penis? What would it have been if he’d been left with his foreskin to decide for himself? We reject this subjective parental opinion when it’s a society saying females should be cut to be aesthetically and/or sexually appealing to men. What’s the difference with this imposition of parental opinion on males, if not mere cultural acceptance? For females and males, it’s unnecessary genital cutting without the individual’s consent. Isn’t it also more likely to perpetuate female genital cutting in cultures where it exists if we trivialize and excuse (or promote) male genital cutting?
10/05/2012 at 10:53
Well said! We can agree to disagree but your framework is solid, your argument is cogent and persuasive. Thanks for writing back.