Female Genital Mutilation, II

PART 3 OF 4

i apologize if a query of this sort has been answered recently.  it would
be a great help to me if folks could recommend RECENT anthologies on
female genital mutilation.  the books i have listed in my bibliography
were all published in the late 80's and early 90's.  also, i am looking
for a few good readings on clitorectomies performed during the the
Victorian period.  i greatly appreciate any recommendations members of the
list would make.

Jo Trigilio
Assistant Professor
Philosophy/Gender Studies
Bentley College

In response to the query for recent refs on fgm --

James, Stephen A. 1994. "Reconciling Human Rights and Cultural Relativism:
The Case of Female Circumcision." Bioethics 8 (Nov. 1):1-26.
Mackie, Gerry. 1996. "Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention
Account." American Sociological Review 61:999-1017.
Robertson, Claire. 1996. "Grassroots in Kenya: Women, Genital Mutilation,
and Collective Action, 1920-1990." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and
Society 21:615-41.
van der Kwaak, Anke. 1992. "Female Circumcision and Gender Identity: A
Questionable Alliance?" Social Science and Medicine 35:777-87.
Walker, Alice. 1992. Possessing the Secret of Joy. New York: Harcourt,
Brace, Jovanovich.
Winter, Bronwyn. 1994. "Women, The Law, and Cultural Relativism in France:
The Case of Excision." Signs 19:939-974.

****************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.            Ph/Fax -- 212-689-2155
319 East 24 Street               judith.lorber   AT   verizon.net
Apt 27E
New York, NY 10010
Facts are theory laden; theories are value laden;
values are history laden.   -- Donna J. Haraway
****************************************************************

The recently published book, Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide
to Laws and Policies Worldwide by Anika Rahman and Nahid Toubia,
(Zed Books, 2000) may be helpful.

Beti Ellerson
Department of Art
Howard University
Washington, DC USA

bellerson   AT   fac.howard.edu

I'm completing a 25-page review of three excellent anthologies -- all in
German -- on FGM. (The review is for Feminist Europa. Review of
Books which covers feminist literature not published in English). The
review is so long precisely because I want to give those unable to
read the original enough material to work with. I'd be glad to email-
attach a copy to anyone interested.

May I also use this opportunity to recommend my recent articles:

Levin, Tobe. "Ill at Ease with Mariam, Gloria Naylor's Infibulated
Jew." in _Holding Their Own.Perspectives on the Multi-Ethnic
Literatures of the United States._ Eds. Dorothea Fischer-Hornung and
Heike Raphael-Hernandez. Tuebingen: Stauffenburg, 2000. 51-66

Levin, Tobe. "Alice Walker: Matron of FORWARD." Black Imagination and the
 Middle Passage. Eds. Maria Diedrich, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and
Carl Pedersen. NY: Oxford, 1999. 240-254.

Levin, Tobe with Ulrike Brown. "Internationale Initiativen gegen genitale
 Verstuemmelung."
Petra Schnuell & terre des femmes, eds. Weibliche Genitalverstuemmelung. Eine
fundamentale Menschenrechtsverletzung. Terre des femmes: Tuebingen, 1999.

Levin, Tobe. "Abolition Efforts in the African Diaspora: Two Conferences on
 Female Genital Mutilation in Europe." Women's Studies Quarterly 1999, 1 & 2.
 "Teaching About Violence Against Women." NY: The Feminist Press.109-116;

Tobe Levin
Levin   AT   em.uni-frankfurt.de
Chair of FORWARD-Germany and secretary of the new
European Network on FGM (founded 29 November 2000 in Brussels)

Regarding the request of Jo Trigilio

"I am looking for a few good readings on clitorectomies performed during the
Victorian period..."

I would like to suggest the following article:

Frederick Hodges. "A Short History of the Institutionalization of
Involuntary Sexual Mutilation in the United States." Sexual Mutilations: A
Human Tragedy, eds. George C. Denniston and Marilyn Fayre Milos, 17-40. New
York; London: Plenum Press, 1997.

You also might want to take a look at these articles:

Caroll Smith-Rosenberg and Charles Rosenberg. "The Female Animal: Medical
and Biological Views fo Woman and her Role in Nineteenth-Century America."
History of Women in the United States, ed. Nancy F. Cott. Vol. 11 (Women's
Bodies: Health and Childbirth). Munich: K.G. Saur, 1993.

Ann Douglas Wood. "'The Fashionable Diseases': Women's Complaints and Their
Treatment in Nineteenth-Century America." (also in Cott, vol. 11)


Regarding recent works on female genital mutilation, I suggest the
following:

Stanlie James. "Shades of Othering: Reflections on Female Circumcision/
Genital Mutilation." Signs 23, no. 4 (1998): 1031-48.

Nahid Toubia. Female Genital Mutilation. A Call for Global Action. New York:
RAINBO, 1995.

I have compiled an extensive bibliography on FGM including books and
articles on specific countries, African feminist perspectives and the
representation of FGM/ female circumcision in African women's writings
(autobiography and fiction). Let me know if you need further suggestions.

Best regards,
Daniela Hrzan
dani_hrzan   AT   hotmail.com

While we're not far from sharing FGM resources, I thought I'd
mention a work by Elfriede Jelinek, presently Austria's best and most
notorious writer, where a self-mutilation occurs -- _Die
Klavierspielerin_ (available in English from Serpent's Tail), and my article, 
as well as a resource in Spanish people might miss:

Levin, Tobe. "_Die Klavierspielerin_ [The Piano Player]: on Mutilation and
 Somatophobia"
in Allyson Fiddler, ed _ 'Other' Austrians. Post-1945 Austrian Women's
Writing._  Bern: Peter Lang, 1998. 225-234. [Article benefits from
bi-lingual reader but can make sense only in English.]

Levin, Tobe. "Dos millonnes cada ano  durante cuantos anos mas? Hacia
la abolicion de la mutilacion genital femenina." in _La Construccion
cultural de lo Femenino_. Eds. Amparo Gomez Rodriguez and Justine
Tally. La Laguna: Universidad de la Laguna, 1998. 75-104.

[I've not even tried to put in the accents as I've noticed they often distort
the whole thing!]

In sisterhood,  Tobe Levin

For Alexander's student I recommend the section on FGM in

Henry J. Steiner and Philip Alston._ International Human Rights in
Context. Law Politics Morals._ Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.

If s/he reads German, I recommend Petra Schnuell and Terre des Femmes,
ed. _Weibliche Genitalverstuemmelung. Eine Fundamentale
Menschenrechtsverletzung_. [FGM. A fundamental human rights abuse]
Tuebingen: terre des femmes, 1999.

I have a long review of the above in Englisch  in _Feminist Europa. Review of
Books_. Vol. 1, No. 1, 2001 available free of charge from
info   AT   stiftung-frauenforschung.de

And thanks, Joan, for bringing the WMST-files on FGM to  our attention.

Best regards, Tobe Levin

Some of the new pieces have a non-Western perspective  --

Abusharaf, Rogata Mustafa. 2001. "Virtuous Cuts: Female Genital Mutilation
in an African Ontology." Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural
Studies 12:112-40.
Bashir, L. Miller. 1997. "Female Genital Mutilation: Balancing Intolerance
of the Practice with Tolerance of Culture." Journal of Women's Health 6:11-14.
Gruenbaum, Ellen. 2000. The Female Circumcision Controversy : An
Anthropological Perspective. University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hernlund, Ylva and Bettina Shell-Duncan (eds.). 2000. Female "Circumcision"
in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change. Boulder, CO: Lynn Reinner.
James, Stephen A. 1994. "Reconciling Human Rights and Cultural Relativism:
The Case of Female Circumcision." Bioethics 8 (Nov. 1):1-26.
_____. 1998. "Shades of Othering: Reflections on Female
Circumcision/Genital Mutilation." Signs 23:1031-48.
Leonard, Lori. 2000. "Interpreting Female Genital Cutting: Moving Beyond
the Impasse." Annual Review of Sex Research 11:158-91.
Leonard, L. 2000b. "'We Did It for Pleasure Only:' Hearing Alternative
Tales of Female Circumcision." Qualitative Inquiry 6:212-28.
Obermeyer, Carla Mahklouf. 1999. "Female Genital Surgeries: The Known, the
Unknown, and the Unknowable," Medical Anthropology Quarterly 13:79-106.
Shweder, Richard A. 2000. "What About "Female Genital Mutilation"? And Why
Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place." Daedalus 129 (Fall):209-232.
Williams, Lindy and Teresa Sobieszyzyk.1997. "Attitudes Surrounding the
Continuation of Female Circumcision in the Sudan: Passing the Tradition to
the Next Generation." Journal of Marriage and the Family 59: 966-81.
Wilson, Andrew. 1996. "Plastic Surgery for Sexual Pleasure." Cosmopolitan
(Britain), December, 45-48.
Winter, Bronwyn. 1994. "Women, The Law, and Cultural Relativism in France:
The Case of Excision." Signs 19:939-74.



***************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.            Ph/Fax -- 212-689-2155
319 East 24 Street              judith.lorber   AT   verizon.net
Apt 27E
New York, NY 10010

"Unless the past and future were made part of the present by memory
and intention, there was, in human terms, no road, nowhere to go."
Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed
****************************************************************

More recommendations:

Both of Adrien Katherine Wing's compilations of critical race feminism
essays have provocative & helpful pairs of articles.  Isabelle R.
Gunning, "Arrogant Perception, World-Traveling, and Multicultural
Feminism:  The Case of Female Genital Surgeries" and Hope Lewis,
"Between Irua and 'Female Genital Mutilation': Feminist Human Rights
Discourse and the Cultural Divide" (pp. 352-371) from _Critical Race
Feminism:  A Reader_; Leslye Amede Obiora, "Bridges and Barricades:
Rethinking Polemics and Intransigence in the Campaign Against Female
Circumcision" and Isabelle R. Gunning, "Uneasy Alliances and Solid
Sisterhood: A Response to Professor Obiora's 'Bridges and Barricades'"
(pp. 260-284), from _Global Critical Race Feminism:  An International
Reader_, 2000.

I'm also looking forward to seeing the section of a new book from Zed
that addresses FGC/FGM.  It's Susan Perry and Celeste Schenck, eds.,
_Eye to Eye - Women Practising Development across Cultures_.  Chapter 5.
"What's in a Name? (Re)Contextualizing Female Genital Mutilation
Abandoning Female Genital Cutting in Africa" - Molly Melching.
"If Female Circumcision Did Not Exist, Western Feminism Would Have
Invented It" - Obioma Nnaemeka.  "Female Genital Mutilation in France:
A Crime Punishable by Law" - Linda Weil-Curiel.  I don't know
Weil-Curiel's work, but Melching has been involved in a successful
eradication program--where whole villages in Senegal have publicly
announced ending the practice; and Nnaemeka is a leading diaspora
scholar.

Janet Gray
gray   AT   tcnj.edu

 Greetings, all!

 It's been a while since I have posted to the list, but I continue to engage
 with the interesting and useful contents daily.  Now here I am with an
 inquiry.

 I know that recently someone posted a request for resources on female
 genital cutting and, in the midst of some resources posted to the list, Joan
 correctly referred us to the WMST-file.  However, I have a slightly
 different inquiry about the same subject, so I hope you will indulge me, and
 then, of course, please feel free to reply off-line.  If others are
 interested, I will be glad to forward them the recommendations I collect.

 During the spring semester, I will be completing a major work for my
 graduate studies in Human Rights Studies, with a concentration in Women and
 Rights, at Columbia University.  Citing from my thesis proposal, I intend,
 through this project,  "to consider the ethical dilemmas and complex
 political contexts in which human rights initiatives take place by focusing
 on the practice of female genital cutting (FGC).  In order to engage
 meaningfully with the challenges posed by questions of culture and
 tradition, the paper will examine the history and practice of female genital
 cutting (FGC) and compare and contrast it to the western practice of
 piercing infant girlsÆ ears.    Examining a list of ways in which the two
 practices are marked similarly, the project expects to produce a useful
 analysis of the arguments around cultural legitimacy and cultural
 relativism, endeavoring in the end, through the framework it engages, to
 create a mechanism through which stronger cross-cultural, international
 coalitions can be formed to address womenÆs human rights concerns.

 Identifying female genital cutting (FGC) as an international human rights
 concern, specifically making a claim that it violates womenÆs right to
 bodily integrity, the paper will lay out its main argument, i.e. that the
 practice of female genital cutting (FGC), despite its offensiveness to oneÆs
 own sensibilities, is deeply rooted in culture and tradition, and that in
 order for cross-cultural coalitions to work most effectively, such
 coalitions must be founded on an in-depth of understanding of the way that
 culture attempts to legitimize behaviors, practices, and acts that violate
 fundamental universal human rights.  In other words, the paper asks the
 reader to develop an understanding of how culture legitimizes a practice, in
 this case female genital cutting (FGC), in order to then work to end the
 systematic violation of womenÆs human rights, namely the rights to health,
 autonomy, and bodily integrity.  Particularly for white western women, the
 comparison and contrast intends to provide a productive tool for
 acknowledging the complexities of working against practices historically
 embedded in claims of culture and tradition.

 The paper through all its analysis will negotiate the complexities of
 marking female genital cutting (FGC) as an international human rights
 concern with the ethical and political concerns of building cross-cultural,
 international coalitions that address such dynamic and complicated issues in
 meaningful, effective, and empowering ways."

 I am already at work on identifying the key resources to use, and I know
 there already exists a host of resource on FGC/FGM.  What I am hoping is
 that you will recommend particular readings that you feel are critical to a
 work like the one in which I will engage, especially if you have done any
 extensive work in this same area.  What I think colleagues on this list will
 be able to suggest are readings that focus on the topic of ear piercing and
 on bodily autonomy and integrity, in general.    As noted, I have a host of
 resources already, but in my efforts to be as thorough as possible, I feel
 it is best to seek input from others on WMST-L.

 I thank you in advance for your feedback.  I will, of course, be glad to
 share the information I gather here and to share additional information on
 my project in return.

 Best,
 Lisa
 LBurke2   AT   njcu.edu

Lisa Burke asked about articles on FGM from a human rights
perspective. I'm responding as chair of FORWARD - Germany and
secretary of the European Network against FGM (office of Emma
Bonino, European Parliament)-- the latter just getting started, the
fomer now nearly three years old, a branch of 20-year old FORWARD
London.

Lisa, I've published the following for you to consider and, possibly,
argue with. I've always been inspired by a feminist vision of women's
human rights, so it's present in most of my work:

Levin, Tobe.
"Ill at Ease with Mariam, Gloria Naylor's Infibulated Jew."
_Holding Their Own: perspectives on the multi-ethnic literatures of
the United States._  Eds. Dorothea Fischer-Hornung and Heike
Raphael-Hernandez.
Tuebingen: Stauffenberg, 2000. 51-66.

Levin, Tobe. "Alice Walker: Matron of FORWARD."
_Black Imagination and the Middle Passage._ Eds. Maria Diedrich,
Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Carl Pedersen. NY: Oxford, 1999. 240-254.

Levin, Tobe
"Dos milliones cada ano durante cuantos anos mas? Hacia la abolicion de la
mutilacion genital femenina."
_ La Construccion cultural de lo Femenino._
Eds. Amparo  Gomez Rodriguez and Justine Tally. Tenerife:
Universidad de la Laguna. Centro de Estudios de la Mujer, 1999. 75-104.

Levin, Tobe.
"Internationale Initiativen gegen genitale Verstuemmelung" (with Ulrike Brown).
_Weibliche Genitalverstuemmelung. Eine fundamentale
Menschenrechtsverletzung._  Eds. Petra Schnuell & terre des femmes. Terre des femmes: Tuebingen, 1999.

Levin, Tobe.
"Abolition Efforts in the African Diaspora:
Two Conferences on Female Genital Mutilation in Europe."
_Women's Studies Quarterly_ 1999, 1 & 2. "Teaching About Violence Against Women."
NY: The Feminist Press. 109-116.

Levin, Tobe.
"Die Klavierspielerin: On Mutilation and Somatophobia."
_ 'Other' Austrians. Post-1945 Austrian Women's Writing._
Ed. Allyson Fiddler. Proceedings of the Conference, Post 1945
Austrian Women's Writing, University of Nottingham, From 18-20 April 1996.
Berne: Peter Lang, 1998. 225-234.

Levin, Tobe.
"Women as Scapegoats of Culture and Cult: An Activist's
View of Female Circumcision in Thiong'o's _The River Between._"
_Ngambika. Studies  of Women in African Literature._
Ed. Carole Boyce Davies and Anne Adams Graves.
Trenton, NJ: Africa World P., 1985. 205-221.

plus a good many reviews, many of publications in German-
most recently in _Feminist Europa. Review of Books_ (One of the books
reviewed is titled FGM: A Human Rights Abuse [in German]).

Best regards, Tobe Levin

Lisa Burke -- your thesis on female genital cutting is a good and serious
one and the human rights issues surrounding it can be pursued with many
resources that you are already aware of, I am sure, in addition to those
sent from this list. But why trivialize ritual female genital surgeries
with a comparison to the practice of piercing infant girls' ears (which is
hardly confined to Western cultures)?

Female genital cutting is not anywhere in the same bodily, cultural, or
social frame as ear piercing. If it were, in its bodily variations, it
would be equivalent to cutting off part of a an ear, the whole ear, and
puncturing the eardrum, rendering the person partially deaf. Its rationale
would be that whole ears, or ears that stick out, are ugly, and that women
who could hear well would not be faithful after marriage. As a cultural
equivalent, ear piercing would be mandatory for a girl to be considered a
properly feminine woman and to be marriageable. Socially, girls' ear
piercing would be marked with a communal celebration, with gifts and
feasting, to confer social worth and compensate for the pain they went
through.

A Western equivalent to ritual female genital surgeries with similar human
rights and bodily integrity issues that would make a better comparison is
surgeries done on infants born with anomalous genitalia -- broadly
categorized as "intersexed."
Sources for reading --
Chase, Cheryl. 1999. "Rethinking treatment for ambiguous genitalia."
Pediatric Nursing 25 (4):451-5.
Chase, Cheryl. 2000. "Genital Surgery on Children Below the Age of Consent:
Intersex Genital Mutilation." Pp. 452-58 in Psychological Perspectives on
Human Sexuality, edited by L. Szuchman and F. Muscarella. New York: John
Wiley and Sons.
Dreger. Alice Domurat (ed.). 1999. Intersexuality in the Age of Ethics.
Hagerstown MD: University Publishing Group.
Dreger, Alice Domurat. 1998. Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of
Sex. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kessler, Suzanne J. 1990. "The Medical Construction of Gender: Case
Management of Intersexed Infants." Signs: 16:3-26.
_____. 1998. Lessons from the Intersexed. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers
University Press.
Kipnis, Kenneth and Milton Diamond. 1998. "Pediatric Ethics and the
Surgical Assignment of Sex." Journal of Clinical Ethics: Special Issue on
Intersex 9:398-410.
Nelson, James L. 1998. "The Silence of the Bioethicists: Ethical and
Political Aspects of Managing Gender Dysphoria." Journal of Clinical
Ethics: Special Issue on Intersex 9:213-30.
Nussbaum, Emily. 1999. "The Sex That Dare Not Speak Its Name." Lingua
Franca May/June, 42-51.
Preves, Sharon E. 1998. "For the Sake of the Children: Destigmatizing
Intersexuality." Journal of Clinical Ethics: Special Issue on Intersex,
9:411-20.
Zucker, Kenneth J. 1999. "Intersexuality and Gender Identity
Differentiation." Annual Review of Sex Research 10:1-69.

>During the spring semester, I will be completing a major work for my
>graduate studies in Human Rights Studies, with a concentration in Women and
>Rights, at Columbia University.  Citing from my thesis proposal, I intend,
>through this project,  "to consider the ethical dilemmas and complex
>political contexts in which human rights initiatives take place by focusing
>on the practice of female genital cutting (FGC).  In order to engage
>meaningfully with the challenges posed by questions of culture and
>tradition, the paper will examine the history and practice of female genital
>cutting (FGC) and compare and contrast it to the western practice of
>piercing infant girls' ears.    Examining a list of ways in which the two
>practices are marked similarly, the project expects to produce a useful
>analysis of the arguments around cultural legitimacy and cultural
>relativism, endeavoring in the end, through the framework it engages, to
>create a mechanism through which stronger cross-cultural, international
>coalitions can be formed to address women's human rights concerns.


***************************************************************
Judith Lorber, Ph.D.            Ph/Fax -- 212-689-2155
319 East 24 Street              judith.lorber   AT   verizon.net
Apt 27E
New York, NY 10010

"Unless the past and future were made part of the present by memory
and intention, there was, in human terms, no road, nowhere to go."
Ursula LeGuin, The Dispossessed
****************************************************************

Judith:

I'm glad that you stated the reasons for a comparison of female genital
cutting and ear piercing the way you did. When I read the proposal, I
too thought that ear piercing in no way compares to genital cutting. I
remember about three years ago, in Redbook, there was an article about
a woman who had been operated on as a small child and how the
reassignment affected her life. If I can find the citation, I'll send
the list another e-mail.
        Also, female clitoridectomy was done in the U.S. as a treatment
for masturbation. The "technique" was recommended by a British surgeon
named Baker-Brown and adopted here for "hysteria" as well.

Lana Thompson, M.A.
Vesalius   AT   worldnet.att.net

Also, if you want to set a context for cultural meanings of practices like
ear piercing, you may want to consult the work on the use of ear piercing
and earrings to mark Jewish women in some areas and periods in early modern
Europe (and thus earrings were not worn by Gentile women in the same time
and place) - there's an article called 'Earrings for Circumcision' (I
believe) which outlines this.

Cheers,
JenTa
___________________________
j.l. tallentire gilley
PhD student, History
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada
jltallen   AT   interchange.ubc.ca

Co-editor, thirdspace
www.thirdspace.ca
___________________________

"Pursuing social justice does not mean pursuing uniformity."
                -Robert Connell, _Masculinities_