Genital mutilation of women worsens across world

[Thom Little]

Three million women and girls undergo female genital mutilation each year, a higher number than previously believed, and the age at which it is carried out is getting lower in some countries, UNICEF said yesterday.

Nearly half of those cases are in Egypt and Ethiopia, it reported.

"In the 28 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East where female genital mutilation is performed, some 130 million girls and women have been victims of this practice," it said.


http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=2299492005

[undergroundpanther]

1. I wonder why

Women don't start castrating little boys? and make sure they get no genital pleasure... than it will be even,and NOBODY will want sex equally. (sarcasm)
And maybe the messed up, barbaric, sick, pathetic,evil,abusive, human race will DIE OFF quicker!!!!
I hate the social domination game.(not sarcasm)

[PsychoDad]

2. It is a tradition among the women.

It is not the men who do this, but the women who carry on this horrid practice. It is a practice continued under the guise of tradition by women on women.

Education as to the barbarity of this must be applied to both genders. If the mid-wives and "wise women" who practice this stop, then the entire custom will die out.

Peace.

[nodehopper]

3. by saying

that it's a women's tradition carried out by women you downplay the patriarchal context that enables and informs this tradition (i.e. women who don't undergo the procedure in the communities where it is practiced become "unmarrageable" and are thus social outcasts and have very few economically viable options).

[PsychoDad]

4. Indeed, the ignorance and blame resides with both genders.

And both genders must be educated and brought to understand the wrongness of this practice to their daughters.

I wasn't attempting to excuse the men. But I do think this is a process that needs to be applied to both halves of the society that practices it.

Peace

[SemperEadem]

9. How can you educate those who don't want the west's brand of

re-education? They are not interested in what Westerners think or believe about their religious customs (just like this country isn't interested in any religious customs that we don't already embrace) and nothing short of war and death brought by the west is going to change their way of thinking.

It's all well and good to condemn and say they need re-educating while sitting in the comfort of your home in front of your computer, but who's going to be the one who does it? Who's going to go over and enforce the change, militarily if need be--because you're misinformed if you think the west is going in and demand they change and they say "ok... if you say so."

[pitohui]

12. there's the rub

women and girls are not important enough to go to war over

so nothing's going to change

[PsychoDad]

28. Change wouldn't come from the end of a gun either.

Such beliefs resist violent attempts to change them. Consider, Soviet Russia and Communist China's war on religion. It would serve only to push the practice further underground.

Change has to come from within, and in some cases it is.

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/sudan_29886.html

In the case of Islamic communities that practice this there is also pressure to change from outside Islamic communities and groups.

You are correct, we can talk about this until the cows come home, and nothing is going to change. Only action of some sort will help. At the very least we should send support to an NGO that is involved in education as well as write to the governments of countries where this is practiced and call for change from governmental leaders.

You might be surprised at how much western opinion does matter to these countries, particularly when the issue is brought into the limelight.

Peace

[barb162]

16. Excellent point you make here. It's such a sickening

practice, it's amazing to still be reading about it. It's as if it should be in some ancient text and stopped hundreds of years ago.

[Hekate]

5. Well said, PsychoDad

My husband once said to me in connection with another matter: "It is the mothers who bind their daughters' feet." Women enforce the dictates of the patriarchy -- it is women who oppress their daughters and teach them to submit to the culture, all in the name of marriagability and family values.

The posted article is sad beyond belief. Some "cultural values" and "ethnic folkways" are not only not worth preserving, they need to be stamped out in the name of humanity, and this practice is one of them.

I really think a multi-pronged approach is necessary to stamp out FGM, just as with foot-binding in China. A century ago the small number of Chinese who experienced Western-style education (nearly all from Christian missionaries) began to look on this practice as not only old-fashioned but barbaric, which was quite a leap for people from as ancient a civilization as China.

However the practice was entrenched in nearly all levels of society because of its hugely erotic connotations. It took a violent revolution to change the custom, but that change was enforced by laws and with soldiers, who would visit villages and inspect the feet of little girls. If they were bound, the parents were ordered to unbind them forthwith. I don't know what the punishment was for breaking the new law, but the Communists were not known for tenderness. The Communists did, however, believe in gender equality as far as being workers in the new society. Crippled women could not be effective workers.

I'm sure there are any number of thoughtful studies about how to eradicate FGM. As you noted, education and persuasion must take place. But vigorous determination has to be exhibited from the top down in the affected countries: make it illegal; work out how to make a public example of lawbreakers; and fund, train, and deploy public-health workers to reach adult men and women, and children of school age.

The international community can do its part by making health-related donations contingent on FGM-suppression-education. Heretofore I think Western nations may have been too squeamish to adequately address this issue; certainly I wonder how much leadership the US can offer on this issue if they refuse to give funds that might in any way even be in the same room as a discussion about abortion. If US foreign policy is in that much thrall to religious wingnuts about one area of sexuality, then it may not be able to address FGM adequately either.

So that leaves the UN and crusading individuals, for the time being. Eventually, that may be enough to finally sway the course of history -- it certainly has done so before.

Hekate

[rayofreason]

21. Foot binding..

...has it origins as a practice among the aristocracy in Tang dynasty China. As often happens, a fad among the elites spread to the common people. Ending foot binding was part of the great Chinese revolution.

Want to end FGM in Islamic cultures (and it is in Islamic cultures that the practice now continues with religious sanction)? You will need a more general revolution that emancipates women. Want to start a war of civilizations? Call for female emancipation in Islamic society.

Eventually emancipation will come, but expect a lot of violent resistance and lashing out at emancipated societies (from whence the evil comes). In fact, you can see it now.

[undergroundpanther]

13. I know

But it's the men who insist a woman be de-sexualized subservient property. It's the men who think uncontrolled female sexuality means they are inferior(to men themselves) The women who practice this shit are doing as they were taught to to make their daughters de-sexualized and
'non threatening' to bully men,in a sick hierarchical society made more comfy for men by dominator men..at womens expense.If these so called wise women are anti sex it's because they have internalized the lies,reinforced in their culture,the men dominate and are the only ones "allowed" to feel anything sexual. So in their warped way they are thinking they help their daughters because a de-sexualized woman will never threaten a so called dominant males ego and illusion he controls the woman, and she never undermines that sick craving for selfish dominance, that men desire too much in EVERY culture..and will never upset the toxic social "order" reinforced by messed up women who intenalized the lies of dominators and perpetuate the insane traumas that men use to keep social dominance/control.

[emad]

6. Female circumcision 'affects 3m a year'

Associated Press in Cairo
Friday November 25, 2005
The Guardian


Female genital mutilation is carried out on at least 3 million women and girls a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, says a new Unicef report.

Nearly half of those circumcised, a tradition believed to enhance a girl's beauty, tame her sexual desires, maintain her honour and increase her marriage prospects, are in Egypt and Ethiopia.

Most are cut between ages four to 12. Unicef says the life-risking custom, which is largely a social practice, not a religious one, could be eliminated within a generation with government backing, but there should be a "collective choice" not a ban.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,11812,1650476,00.html

[emad]

8. Patriarchal religions hold women hostage. Cutting their sex organs

away is the enforcement part.

[burrowowl]

22. It is more than circumcision

Circumcision only removes the foreskin on the glans.
FGM removes the entire clitris, more or less the equivalent of the glans and includes sewing together the labia, which are cut open by a knife at marriage. A much higher percentage of girls die from this procedure than boys from circumcision. May I also add that in some areas, dung is used as the staunching agent.
FGM also occurs in some of the ghettos in France wherein some of these cultures are predominate, people caught have been tried in French courts.

[CatBoreal]

7. I read an article a few years ago,

by an African doctor (I think). She had undergone FGM as a child and there was no way she was going to allow this to happen to her own daughters.

As you can imagine, her two daughters were ostracized by their peers for not having undergone the "proceedure". The girls tearfully begger their mother to let them undergo FGM. The mother instead read the Q'ran carefully and determined that all that was required was bloodletting.

So she had her daughter's friends over, pricked them with a needle, the girls saw the blood and that was the end of it.

It's a bloody outrage that this still happens in this day and age.

[barb162]

18. Now that's a story of societal pressure, isn't it?

[GliderGuider]

10. I wonder if this increase is indirectly related to the spread of AIDS?

One of the things that has happened as AIDS has spread through many of these same regions is that the social fabric has started to unravel. Life expectancy is dropping like a rock, poverty is increasing, and the middle-class influences that support modernization are eroding at an alarming rate. Into this vacuum steps tribal custom...

[depakid]

11. Probably not- but in fact there is a connection

Research shows a correlation between female genital mutilation and the likelihood of developing AIDS.

Of course, if you want to see just how difficult it is to use that as an approach to fighting the practice- take a look at how some DU'ers react every time a new study gets published that replicates findings that circumcision rather dramatically decreases the likelihood of becoming infected with AIDS.

Reading some of the statements from the anti-circumcision crowd would just floor you. It's almost like a religious thing.

Note: together, the two bodies of research look contradictory, but for various biological reasons, they are not.

[msongs]

14. where is your outrage over genital mutilation of boys???

for some reason it is ok for mothers to rip apart the genitals of boys.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[depakid]

15. You might want to have a look at this-

Research: Male Circumcision and HIV Prevention

http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/aids/TechAreas/research/mcfactsheet.html

[barb162]

17. If you're talking circumcision, it is not the equal of

what happens with women in FGM. After circumcision men still have sexual pleasure.

[BlueIris]

19. I'm really sorry to kick this thread, but thank you.

I'm not sure why confused people still keep referring to female genital mutilation as female "circumcision," as FGM in many cases involves the removal of much of a woman's external genitalia, including the clitoris. I'd post a link to the articles I've read about it to substantiate this...but I don't have the heart.

[Psephos]

20. No offense, but that post clearly identifies you as a woman n/t

[smirkymonkey]

26. Why should being identified as a woman be offensive?

:eyes:

[Psephos]

32. Ahh, a semanticist.

I was trying to assure those who always scan for nonexistent offenses that I was offering none. Determined people have a way of detecting meanings that were neither thought nor expressed.

Meanwhile, my point was that anyone who thinks male circumcision does not lessen male sexual pleasure is probably not speaking from the standpoint of penis ownership.

My opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

Peace.

[nodehopper]

30. what does that comment even mean?

[burrowowl]

23. Since circumcision

doen't involve the removal of the glans, female so-called circumcison removes the entire CLITORIS and oftens does great damage to the uretha, plus the Labia Major are sown together and ripped open with a knife at marriage, is the scrotum of a boy ripped apart with circumcision, I don't think so!

[UncleSepp]

25. It doesn't remove the entire clitoris

It removes the visible head of the clitoris. It's still horrible.

I just thought I'd point out that the clitoris is actually much larger than originally understood, comparable in its entirety to the size of an average penis, but most of it is inside the body. I was pretty stunned to read about how extensive the whole system really is. Since I've been researching having some remodeling done in the basement ;-) I've learned a lot more about the female urogenital system. You'd think these things would come with owner's manuals, eh?

A comparable circumcision of a female would be the removal of the clitoral hood, and exposure of the glans of the clitoris to constant stimulation. The skin would become toughened, much like what happens with the glans penis after circumcision. Let's hope nobody starts thinking that's a good, hygenic idea.

Ever wonder why there's no argument that girls ought to be circumcised to keep their clitorises clean? Why isn't girl smegma considered a health hazard, when girls are more susceptible to urethral infections? Who even teaches girls to pull back the hood and clean? Why is it that in a culture that glorifies men's pursuit of sex with women, women and men alike seem to understand so little of the parts men seem to appreciate most?

(I'm babbling and ranting because I've been drinking brandy and taking codeine to get rid of a toothache, not because I'm mad or arguing. Speaking of which, my glass is looking dry...)

:toast:

[nodehopper]

31. Depending on where

FGM ranges from removal of a part of the clitoris to full excision of the clitoris to full removal of most of the outside of female genitals.

[UncleSepp]

24. Why do you assume that the outrage doesn't exist?

There are plenty of people who do not believe that it is OK, advocates and activists, and it appears their numbers are increasing.

Others on this thread have already pointed out the important differences between female "circumcision" and male circumcision. Female genital mutilation practices do vary, but in general remove much more of the girl's ability to feel sexual pleasure and in general are also much riskier to the girl's life and health. The two practices are not physically equivalent, and are not done for the same overt reasons.

Why not start a thread about circumcision of boys? There have been others in the past, with lively discussion. If this is an issue you strongly believe in, then blow your horn a bit and make some noise. Just do it where appropriate. Doing it in this thread may appear to others as if you begrudge the concern shown toward girls, and set up an adversarial relationship where none needs to exist.

[eyeontheprize]

27. Flip side of the boys issue:

My son was not circumcised at birth, now 16 years later he wants it done, presumably for cosmetic and social reasons. I doubt he'll able to have the surgery since everything is functioning properly. It isn't a locker room issue, the message that circumcised is better is told everywhere from Seinfeld to Sex in the City.

Truthfully, I wish we had had it done when he was an infant. It just isn't a big enough deal to buck the trend. Circumcised men can function normally and achieve orgasm, unlike the victims of FGM.

[nodehopper]

29. While I am against male circumcision

it is NOT equivalent to female circumcision.

Male circumcision is a procedure that is performed on an unconsenting child, and is thus deeply problematic, but the worst thing that happens as a result of the removal of the foreskin is decreased sensitivity. Orgasm or sexual activity is not impeded by it, nor are any normal functions performed by the penis.

Female circumcision ranges from excising the clitoris to cutting off and scraping away all labia majora and minora, and then re-sowing the woman up, leaving an opening tiny enough that urinating takes up to 30 minutes and menstural blood festers, creating infections. Sexual intercourse is painful, normal functions are basically impossible and childbirth often results in deformed children or death.

You cannot compare the two.