Female Genital Mutilation, II

PART 4 OF 4

I'm teaching a Women's biography and autobiography class in which we are
reading "Do they hear you when you cry" that discusses FGM. I would like to do
some "awareness activities" with my class to help them understand more about
FGM and cultural sensitivity. Does anyone have any suggestions for more
activity oriented approaches to this subject? Thanks - Kerrie

Kerrie Kauer
Women's Studies Graduate Associate
Doctoral Candidate, Sport Psychology/Cultural Studies
310 Jessie Harris Building
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 32919
kkauer AT utk.edu

I'm thousands of miles away from my office conducting research in the
Middle East, so I'm not sure whether this is the book: Stanlie
M. James and Claire C. Robertson, eds., Genital Cutting and
Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics.  If it is the book
I have in mind, it has a chapter on the "eeww factor."  The book
doesn't have an activity-oriented article as such, but I liked its
grounded and sensible approach to a difficult subject.

Nancy Jabbra, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, njabbra AT lmu.edu.

The single most useful article I've found on dealing with cultural
sensitivities around FGC is Isabelle Gunning's "Arrogant Perception,
'World'-Traveling, and Multicultural Feminism:  The Case of Female
Genital Surgeries".  It's available in _Critical Race Feminism_ in
condensed form, but I've wound up going back to the original
publication, which I find students can handle fine.  Columbia Human
Rights Law Review 189 (1992).  Gunning offers a several-step method for
approaching cultural criticism and culture change as western outsiders
that is easily translateable into classroom exercises.  I think it's
also critical to make sure students learn about insider movements to end
the practice--I keep going back to the movement(s) in Senegal, an
extraordinary story.  You can find an account of this movement in Molly
Melching's article in _Eye to Eye_.  There's also some info readily
findable on the Web if you search on TOSTAN or Melching.

Janet Gray
gray AT tcnj.edu

Thanks for all your ideas for activities/readings/etc. on FGM. I've done a few
things that I beleive really worked. I used two poems, one from an FGM(O)
survivor and one from an anorexic woman. The class compared the similarities
between the two and then we discussed the social/economic/physical/and
psychological similarities. This definitely got them thinking!! Thanks for all
your suggestions, I plan to use more of them in the future. We also did a
reading by Stanlie James, "Shading the Other" that proved very insightful.

Kerrie

Kerrie Kauer
Women's Studies Graduate Associate
Doctoral Candidate, Sport Psychology/Cultural Studies
310 Jessie Harris Building
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 32919
kkauer AT utk.edu