Genital Cutting and Gender

The topic of female genital mutilation/excision has been discussed many times on
WMST-L.  Some of those discussions can be found in the WMST-L File Collection.
The present file originated from a professor's request for resources that
address both FGE and male circumcision together.  The file includes many but not
all of the responses.  Some were omitted because they were off-topic or were
needlessly inflammatory.  For additional WMST-L files available on the Web, see
the WMST-L File Collection.

Hello all,
I'm wondering if anyone could point me to good
discussions of circumcision that address both FGE and
male circumcision, not to argue that one is worse, but
rather to analyze in a broader way the practice of
circumcision overall.  I'm also interested in feminist
writings on male circumcision (I already have Michael
Kimmel's wonderful piece from Tikkun - "The Unkindest
Cut," I think it's called).

(I'm teaching a new sexuality class next year, and I
want to include a unit on circumcision.)

Thanks in advance,
Jessica

Jessica Nathanson
Director, Women's Resource Center
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
nathanso  AT   augsburg.edu

 
Jessica -
Try Marilyn Milos's organization's web site _www.nocirc.org_ 
(http://www.nocirc.org)  for a vast assortment of  resources. Also 
 
_http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/boyle6/_ 
(http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/boyle6/)  for  it's references. 
 
Monica
 
Monica D. Lange, Ph.D.
Department of Women's Studies
California State University Long Beach
paradoxmdl  AT   aol.com
 

Re Jessica's request -- 

In Lorber and Moore, Gender and the social Construction of Illness
2nd ed (2002, Altamira Press) we have a chapter discussing the
sociology and politics of genital surgeries. It's chapter 6,
Genital Surgeries, Gendering Bodies. It covers female and male
circumcision and intersex genital surgery, too. 
Judith

Judith Lorber, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Brooklyn College and Graduate School, CUNY
jlorber  AT   rcn.com

BBC news has a story on line saying latest study shows male circumcision
does not affect sexual pleasure for men.
That's rather different than FGM.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7174929.stm

Katha Pollitt
katha.pollitt  AT   gmail.com
Just Out from Random House: "Learning to Drive and Other Life Stories"

I'm rather surprised that people on this list would use the word
"circumcision" to refer to FGM. Even the subject line was changed from
the original (which I'm using for my response) to just "circumcision"
to refer to both male and female "operations."

I would think I'd be preaching to the choir, but maybe not, so: male
circumcision (trimming of foreskin of penis) is NOT analogous to what
is done in FGM, which may aim at taking a snip off the clitoris (like
that's not bad enough?)  but often extends (either intentionally or by
"accident") to excision of entire clitoris and often includes other
procedures I won't go into here. The analogous procedure in a male
would be, at the very least, cutting off the head of the penis.

The effect of circumcision on males is controversial and the medical
benefit-risk ratio is not agreed upon, but the effects are clearly
less severe than that of FGM. The effects of FGM--medical, physical,
emotional, sexual--are all bad, or, to use a more acceptible scholarly
term, negative. Can we stop using the same word to describe both?
PLEASE.

Judith
http://www.judithlaura.com/

I second that. I'm in fact shocked rather than surprised - I thought
it was pretty much only defenders of FGM or the terminally nanve who
talked about female circumcision.

I don't mind describing the other procedures that Judith mentions. The
most complete form of FGM (and it's not rare) involves, along with
excision of the entire clitoris, cutting off the labia minora and
sewing together the vaginal opening leaving only a tiny hole for
urination. This tends to cause discomfort and inconvenience during
childbirth (that's heavily ironic understatement).

The WHO has a useful fact
sheet<http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/>.

------------------------------
Ophelia Benson, Editor 
Butterflies and Wheels
www.butterfliesandwheels.com<http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/>
------------------------------

Let us also not forget the "home-grown" US version of FGM: 
Intersex Genital Mutilation (IGM). Every day in the US hundreds 
of babies are having their genitals surgically operated on to 
tranform them into societal constructs of standard male and 
female. Some folks have later surgeries and are given hormonal 
therapies. Some of these procedures result in diminished sexual 
capacity and even the loss of the ability to have orgasm. I find 
it problematic that Western feminists often want to point the 
finger out at the developing world for FGM but not interrogate 
our own brutal practices right here in the US. It is my 
understanding that some of the most vocal critics of FGM have 
been silent about what is done to intersex infants.  

I absolutely agree that male circumcision is not at all 
analagous to FGM. Stopping FGM takes precendence over male 
circumcision because it much more brutal and life-threatening. 
But I DO believe that ultimately FGM, IGM and male circumcision 
are all practices which should be halted immediately. Stop 
cutting up infants' genitalia regardless of designated sex!

Joelle Ruby Ryan
joeller  AT   bgsu.edu 

Yes, absolutely - I'm going to include IGM when I
teach this topic.
Jessica

Jessica Nathanson
Director, Women's Resource Center
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
nathanso  AT   augsburg.edu

quoting Ophelia Benson :
 
> I second that. I'm in fact shocked rather than surprised - I thought it was
> pretty much only defenders of FGM or the terminally nanve who talked about
> female circumcision.
 

I share the outrage expressed by a number of listmembers at establishment -
intentional or by ellipsis - of any sort of equivalence between male
circumsion and FGM, or any other arguments that appear to discount the
grevious harm done to women

without going into the 'secondary' health implications, there is the
fundamental attack on women's sexuality which is equivalent, as one
listmember wrote and as i wrote in 1994 [in Signs], to cutting off the penis
or at least the head thereof.

NB i wrote above 'either intentional or by ellipsis' as i am not sure -
without fuller discussion - that those using the 'female circumsion'
vocabulary and writing about FGM and male circumsion in the same post in
this particular WMST-L thread are intending to put such arguments.  so the
comments that follow are not necessarily directed at these people.

unfortunately, however - and i find this both monstrous and very depressing
- academe is still rife with
a) FGM defenses on cultural relativist grounds
b) 'men too' arguments about male circumcision in response to strong
feminist critiques of FGM
 
For a relatively recent example of (a), i am pretty sure there is an article
along those lines in women's studies international forum vol. 29 2006, can't
remember which issue number but it was posted online in july of that year -
it's the proceedings of a workshop on islam, gender and human rights.  yes,
that's right, an FGM defense found its way into this workshop.  there's an
aritcle by me in the same issue.  my article is not on FGM but i do mention
in passing (because i knew there would be this other article) that FGM is
not an islamic practise even if in some places it is practised it is
erroneously justified on islamic grounds.

an example of (b) can be found international feminist journal of politics
6(2), 2004, in response to an article i co-wrote and was published in the
same journal in IFJP 4(1), 2002.  our rejoinder is in 6(2) as well.

NB the FGM defenders in academe are usually women and usually white, and
often make these arguments in the name of 'feminism', which makes the
cultural relativism of it even more odious, and to my mind racist: "'if this
were to happen to white women we'd be outraged but it's ok to do it to
african /indonesian etc women because it's 'their' culture."
which apart from the racism, shows singular contempt for all the feminists
who have been campaigning for decades against FGM in 'their' cultures.

i will stop here or i will start snorting and breathing fire, this sort of
stuff makes me so angry.

bronwyn

***********************************************************
Dr Bronwyn Winter
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Matters
Program Director, International and Comparative Literary Studies
Faculty of Arts

Senior Lecturer, Dept of French Studies
School of Languages and Cultures
University of Sydney  NSW  2006  Australia
Email bronwyn.winter  AT   usyd.edu.au

***********************************************************

I don't think anyone has suggested that FGE and male
circumcision are the same thing, have they?  And
Katha's post was in fact about male circumcision, so
the subject line made sense.

If it is my original post that is causing the
distress, please note that I was not making any
comparative statement about FGE or male circumcision. 
I have plenty of information about FGE.  What I am
looking for at the moment, however, are resources that
study FGE and male circumcision together, in depth,
and that's what I was trying to convey in my query.

Jessica

Jessica Nathanson
Director, Women's Resource Center
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
nathanso  AT   augsburg.edu

> What does the "E" in FGE stand for? I've always heard FGM used.

Excision, as in cutting off. I prefer to use this term and see that it is
increasingly being  used by Africans who oppose it.

The common equationalist terminology of "circumcision" (cutting around) for
what females undergo is seriously misleading, all the more so since many
people don't know what is involved.

And yes, we need to stop genital excisions and other invasive surgeries
inflicted on intersex or sexually anomalous babies in "Western" hospitals
all the time. Most people aren't even aware that this is going on, though if
they were many would support it.

Max
-- 
Max Dashu
Suppressed Histories Archives
http://www.suppressedhistories.net
Real Women, Global Vision

Why FGE though? That's not the standard term. (Google fgm and you get
2.6 million hits, starting with some very graphic images; Google fge
and you get a few hundred thousand about a lot of random things, none
of them about genital surgery.) What's wrong with FGM? Why renamed it?
When did it get renamed, by whom, why? Who shied away from the word
'mutilation'? What next, footbinding renamed orthopedics?

------------------------------
Ophelia Benson, Editor 
Butterflies and Wheels
www.butterfliesandwheels.com<http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/>
------------------------------

I think it has much to do with wanting to acknowledge women's agency
in these experiences -- that some women have chosen to have these
procedures done and we as activists/theorists can't always project our
completely negative label onto it. This agency exists in the currently
popular Western cosmetic labia surgery - which although statistically
done in much safer situations, is an excision and definitely
considered the opposite of mutilation by all the women who choose to
have it done here in the United States.  Either way, it is an altering
of women's bodies to fit a cultural mode of sexuality that deems us as
problematic from the get-go.  


Carey E. McDougall
careymcdougall  AT   yahoo.com
Assistant Professor of Art
Kent State University Stark Campus
Fine Arts
6000 Frank Avenue NW
Canton, OH  44720

I myself have been very much influenced by the slim volume _Genital
Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing US Polemics_,
eds. Stanlie James and Claire Robertson.  This collection of essays
problematizes the "M" for mutilation (which I thought was a critique
by now well-entrenched in Women's Studies) as much as an "E" for
excision, given regional differences in the types of procedures
performed, and "circumcision" is rejected for the very reasons already
named - this is not exactly what occurs (one of the editors suggests
"S" for sugeries; another option is "C" for cutting).  The book does a
very nice job of pointing out that while no one is turning cartwheels
about female genital surgeries, and that African women themselves have
taken steps to end such practices, this is a far cry from the
explicitly colonialist and ethnocentric outrage voiced by Western
feminists about practices in "other" countries, as performed precisely
on cue on this listserv, according to a script that seems not to have
changed in 20 years.
 
Jessica is right to point out she was neither endorsing female genital
surgeries nor declaring them comparable to the circumcision of boys;
moreover, discussion of female genital surgeries and potential
analogues or comparisons with male circumcision should be possible
without the accompanying ethnocentric outpouring of feminist outrage.
The notion that female genital surgeries are uniquely violating,
singularly oppressive to women, primarily about the control of women's
sexuality, a sign of women's unique powerlessness and violation in
Muslim cultures, or the most pressing problem facing the women who
undergo it has been *exhaustively documented* as reflective of Western
feminist priorities, a fundamentally imperialist feminist analysis
that operates on the basis of Western feminist conceptions of gender,
sexual hierarchy, and the oppression of women.  These are neither
necessarily generalizable nor usefully relied upon to generate
transnational sisterhood (another notion I thought Women's Studies had
sufficiently left behind).  The result is the characterization of
non-Western women as uniquely victimized, exploited, and damaged by
"their" men or their barbaric "culture" (we have the same tired
debates about the veil, too).  Chandra Mohanty, anyone?
 
Heike
heike.schotten  AT   umb.edu

can there be a real equivalence between a procedure that may entail
clitoridectomy or infibulation, often against a girl's will, and a woman's
choice to cover or not?

The comparison was regarding the character and terms of the debate
within Western feminism, which are similarly ethnocentric and
imperialist whether with regard to female genital surgeries or to
veiling.  I was not drawing an analogy between the practices
themselves (which are not themselves singular to begin with, much less
"analogous" to one another).
 
Heike Schotten 

i understand that the comparison was made to highlight aspects of the
character of the debate within western feminism. but the point i was
trying to make was this: you may well be correct in that fge/m is not
the most pressing difficulty facing non-western women who undergo it,
and most reasonable people are in agreement that where the choice is
made to wear the veil, it is not inherently oppressive. but when you
speak of those two issues in the same breath as evidence of the
ethnocentrism of white feminism, when one of those issues is in
reference to an often savage, brutally barbaric and harmful procedure
which girls sometimes do not survive, i feel there may be a problem
with perspective.

In case anyone is interested, there are many sources of information
regarding the prevalence of FGM.  Here's one (UNICEF):

http://www.childinfo.org/areas/fgmc/tables.php


DP 

I will note that I was careful to add two citations to my response, the
James and Robertson volume, as well as Mohanty's famous essay (and now
body of work) on the problematic application of Western feminist
concepts, frameworks, and analyses to non-Western locations.  If anyone
cares to look in-depth at either of these citations (which are only two
sources in what is, as I also noted, a substantial literature on this
subject), they will find advocated there no such thing as either
"cultural relativism" or the slandering of Western feminism as a purely
a imperialist project.  Both of these sources and collection of authors
are very careful to make nuanced, complicated claims about both Western
feminism and female genital surgeries, rather than the broad-brush
condemnations of the latter or caricatures of their critique of Western
feminism that have dominated the discussion on this list thus far.

Indeed, critique of problematic moves in Western feminism should be
allowable without it being equated with total dismissal of Western
feminism, just as the critique of female genital surgeries should be
allowable in a register other than self-righteous moralizing
condemnation that seeks to rank the relative measure of women's
oppression in the world, "modern industrialized countries" always
(unsurprisingly) coming out on top in this type of analysis (the
previous discussion on WMST-L of a student's remark "I'm lucky to be an
American!" proved very instructive for my thinking on this issue - is it
archived?).  As many within the literature on transnational feminisms
have also shown, the contest to prove some cultures or places or
religious communities as "more" oppressive toward women than others is
one of many longstanding ways of measuring savagery and barbarism more
generally, and was a common strategy used to justify colonialism (e.g.,
"just look at how they treat their women!").  However, because feminism
makes colonialist errors does not mean we must reject feminism; it means
we must educate ourselves to reject colonial feminist analyses, and
imperialist moves in our feminist practices.

Speaking personally, I thought I was quite careful to make specific and
nuanced claims which, in this previous email at least (see below), were
chopped up (another kind of "cutting"?) to suit the poster's polemical
purposes of caricaturing me as advocating for a nihilistic world wherein
nothing - not even hierarchy and women's oppression - means anything
anymore.  But again, neither I nor the authors I cited advocate
"cultural relativism", a term that has neither been defined nor
specified and, like its familiar cousin "moral relativism," is much more
often used rhetorically to smear opponents with whom one disagrees than
to delineate a specific theoretical argument or position.   

I am surprised by the responses to my original post, which I thought was
a fairly mundane (and even rather dated) argument in the feminist
literature; moreover, I am stunned at the level of anger and
defensiveness on this issue.  If such critiques are still this
threatening to the USAmerican feminist establishment, there is much to
be worried about.  It seems to me a more appropriate response to
positions about which we feel strongly, but which have nevertheless been
demonstrated by a substantial body of non-Western feminists and
feminists of color to be problematically racist or colonialist, is (at a
minimum) interest, curiosity, openness, (self-)reflection, and
thoughtfulness.  [Editor's note: some of the messages to which Heike refers
have not been included in this file.]

C. Heike Schotten
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science
University of Massachusetts-Boston
Boston, MA 02125-3393

[Others] have already addressed beautifully
some of the points I was going to make re. why I want
resources that look at FGE, IGM, and male circumcision
together.  All of the many distinctions between these
practices are things that we will be exploring in my
course.

As for the term FGE, itself (which, as Heike notes, is
not a new term in Women's Studies), I use it simply
because 1) my understanding is that this is the term
that African women, in general, use it, and 2) as I am
located in a community in which women have had FGE
performed on them and, regardless of how they feel
about this practice, have expressed anger at being
called " mutilated,"  I feel that the least I can do is
respect that.

The last time I posted about this issue a few years
back, one of the more well-known listmembers took it
upon herself to post my name and an excerpt of my
comment on another listserve as an example of someone
who didn't give a fig about this practice (the comment
she included actually said the opposite, but whatever -
so Heike, unfortunately, the kind of response you're
getting seems to be common when it comes to this
issue).  So let me just say clearly that I oppose FGE
and all the forms of genital cutting that we have been
discussing, and the fact that I oppose all of them
does not mean that I am ignorant of the differences
between them.

As always, it's troubling to me that we cannot discuss
this issue as scholars without putting words in each
others' mouths and assuming the worst of people.  I
have yet to hear even one person on this list support
FGE.  I'm quite sure that we are all in agreement on
this point, and the discussions about how to
understand it intellectually and how to teach it are
just that; they are not arguments in favor of FGE.

Jessica

Jessica Nathanson
Director, Women's Resource Center
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
nathanso  AT   augsburg.edu

Genital surgery may have similar outcomes, but the reasons for
the surgery justify separate politics. Ritual surgery is done
on young girls, often without their consent, to control their
sexuality and make them properly " feminine."  Subordinate social
status and lack of civil rights are as much a political issue
as the genital surgery. Ritual surgery on male infants or adolescent
boys as part of religious ceremonies is also done without their
consent, but makes the boy part of a superior group within Judaism
and Islam. In Africa, ritual surgery on male adolescents is part
of an eagerly undergone initiation which includes weeks away
from home to learn men's roles and behavior as well as to have
the culminating removal of the foreskin, marking the boy a man.
[And has been been shown to be markedly effective against HIV
transmission.] In the United States, circumcision of newborn
boys in hospitals is a medical procedure, with debates over its
health benefits and risks and its effects on sexual sensation.
Genital surgery on intersex children has elements of female ritual
surgery in its imposition on children and goal of bodily gendering,
but like routine removal of foreskins in Western hospitals, it
is a debatable medical procedure. [But with markedly different
psychological and physiological consequences.]

What unites these types of genital surgeries is that they are
all culturally constructed gendering practices. The most recent
joint efforts against them are in the name of human rights and
the rights of children, for "genital integrity."  To be successful,
the coalition movements against genital surgery will need to
address cultural conflicts and the gender questions embedded
in those conflicts - questions of gender identity, how gendered
bodies should look, and genitals as gender markers. (p. 105,
Lorber and Moore, Gender and the social construction of illness,
2nd ed., additions in brackets) 
 

Judith Lorber, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Brooklyn College and Graduate School, CUNY
jlorber  AT   rcn.com

>>mistaken (to put it politely) to say that opposition to FGM is a
'fundamentally imperialist feminist analysis.'<<

Opposition to FGM is not "imperialist."  Most who object to the cultural
imperialist rhetoric around this subject are opposed to the practice,
and some have spent a lifetime actively working on it.  What's cultural
imperialism are the presumptions that are commonly made about the
meanings of the practice, which are made without a full attempt to
understand the cultural context, and are often wrong -- and the levels
of outrage, the dismissal of the whole cultural nexus in stereotypic
terms -- and the accusation that anyone who questions these assumptions
is arguing in favor of FGM (or FGE).

For example (trying to keep it brief):  I did my dissertation research
in a context where FGE was historically customary, but being gradually
dropped out of the cultural repetoire.  The culture was certainly
patriarchal, but*not* obsessed with control of female sexuality -- in
fact, far from it by Euro-American standards.  Even though muting
women's sexual pleasure is a byproduct of the practice of FGE, it makes
little sense to conclude that in this context denying women sexual
pleasure was the point of the practice.  Sexual pleasure for women was
actually highly valued.  Which of course is not to say that there might
not be other cultural contexts where that is the point.  Parents who
choose this for their children believe that they are making a choice
that is on balance good -- they do not think they are harming or
mutilating their kids, even though we may see it that way.  But then,
some of our cultural practices are also shocking to them, although we
understand those same practices as perhaps regrettable but necessary.

One problem with the Western discourse on this topic, featuring words
like "barbarism" and "mutilation," is the emergence of a backlash
mentality, in which peoples who were gradually letting go of these
customs leap to their defense when they are under attack from outside. 

To give full coverage to all the issues involved here would require
writing a treatise.  Reading some of the references that Heike already
provided will give the gist.

>>some feminists think female misery in distant countries matters and
that scholars who try to minimize it on tortuously self-righteous
grounds<<

Is it not possible to read Heike's references and see whether you
continue to believe that these articles represent the views of those who
are indifferent to female misery in distant places?  Please try to
stretch your mind to encompass another point of view, based on
first-hand encounters with the practice you (and usually those who hold
that point of view also) decry, instead of being hostile and dismissive.

  -- Gina Oboler <roboler  AT   ursinus.edu> 

Thanks to all who sent me links and resources, and
here they are.  I apologize if I've inadvertently
omitted anyone's suggestion!
Jessica

A good book for introductory lectures on this matter
(about boys and girls): George C. Denniston and
Marilyn Fayre Milos,eds., Sexual mutilations. A human
tragedy. Plenum Press, 1997.

In Lorber and Moore, Gender and the social
Construction of Illness 2nd ed (2002, Altamira Press)
we have a chapter discussing the sociology and
politics of genital surgeries. It's chapter 6, Genital
Surgeries, Gendering Bodies. It covers female and male
circumcision and intersex genital surgery, too.

I think this is a really good, short piece that
students can readily understand.  I've taught it
before and highly recommend it--at least as a starting
point for the conversation about what drives male
circumcision in the U.S. and why it goes unquestioned:
http://bioethicsforum.org/20060310adreger.asp

I think the best way to deal with the question is in
the larger context of reproductive rituals.  I use
Paige and Paige's cross-cultural book THE POLITICS OF
REPRODUCTIVE RITUAL to address this.  What Paige and
Paige show brilliantly is that BOTH male and female
circumcision are more evident in patriarchal
societies.  There is not gender symmetry; both are
products of gender inequality.  That always startles
students...

On male circumcision, Michael Kimmel, "The Kindest
Uncut," Tikkun,
http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/kimmel1/

NOCIRC:
http://www.nocirc.org/

Nancy Ehrenreich with Mark Barr, "Intersex Surgery,
Female Genital Cutting, and the Selective Condemnation
of 'Cultural Practices.'"  Harvard Civil Rights-Civil
Liberties Law Review Vol. 40, 2005.  It examines the
arguments advanced in support of the anti-FGM
movement's resistance to include IS genital mutilation
in their efforts, and makes an excellent case that all
of the anti-FGM arguments apply in equal measure to
the nonconsensual genital modification of intersexed
infants:  

http://www.noharmm.org/muted1.htm#_Toc212622378  
Please note that I have not read it, but thought I'd
pass it along since it has links to other articles
that seem to compare female-male cuttings.

And although you said you have plenty of FGcutting
resources, thought I'd also pass along the link to an
organization that I have a lot of respect for, RAINBO.
 They have expanded their publications since the last 
time (almost 10 years ago) that I did research on this
subject.
 http://www.rainbo.org/publications.html

Try Marilyn Milos's organization's web site
_www.nocirc.org_ for a vast assortment of  resources.
Also http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/boyle6/ for 
its references

BBC news has a story on line saying latest study shows
male circumcision does not affect sexual pleasure for
men.  That's rather different than FGM.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7174929.stm


Jessica Nathanson
Director, Women's Resource Center
Augsburg College
Minneapolis, MN
nathanso  AT   augsburg.edu

Hello everyone, I was really planning to stay completely out of this discussion
and thought this would have already ended about a week ago. Since this
discussion is still going strong (because of, once again, this divide between
feminist thinking on the subject), I just want to ask why this issue is getting
so much attention when, if you poll a large number of women on the African
continent, I have the sneaking suspicion that FGS would not top the list of
priorities with regards to the struggles they face as "Global South" women.
(This isn't to say FGS would not be listed as an issue of concern, but would
this be the main issue?)

I've been wondering about feminist discourse of late and whether or not we can
truly transcend our "vagina" politics (monologues or dialogues) to create
complex perspectives about women's experiences and struggles for social change
and social justice.

If we continue to get stuck viewing all women's struggles as only existing
between her legs, we are going to miss viewing these issues through a wider lens
and to assess our body politics within the larger political arena of
neocolonialism, global poverty, etc.

One thing I know, without knowing the different ways in which FGS is practiced,
is that these practices do not exist in a vacuum.

One thing I also know is that I will not teach on the subject of FGS in my
Women's Studies classroom. I don't feel like reducing present-day African
woman's bodies to their genitalia - with the historical examples of Sara
Baartman, the "Hottentot Venus," and enslaved women, I think more than enough of
us have been contemplating and capitalizing on their vaginas for far too long.

Best,
Janell Hobson 
jhobson  AT  albany.edu
 
-- 
Janell Hobson 
Graduate Director 
Department of Women's Studies 
University at Albany, SUNY 
1400 Washington Ave. 
SS 341  
www.albany.edu/faculty/jhobson 

Janell,

I definitely agree that there has been enough orientalising attention
directed at African women (and women of the South generally) as it is;
however, I think there is a way of discussing the issue of nontherapeutic
FGC in the classroom without the often not-so-vaguely chauvinistic dynamics
that frequently accompany discussion of the subject:

As Nancy Ehrenreich notes (with citations) in her extensive article on the
subject of FGM and IGM, the very practises condemned by anti-FGM advocates
today were quite common in Western medicine more or less until the past
century. Clitoridectomy and similar procedures were amongst the standard
treatments for "hysteria". If I were teaching a course on the subject, I'd
start with Victorian-era gynaecology, and only afterwards move into the
modern FGM debate, thus providing the sort of context that will help to
eliminate the counterproductive chauvinistic overtones that plague the
Western discourse on the subject.

I have the Ehrenreich article as a PDF if you are interested.

Elise Hendrick
elise.hendrick  AT   gmail.com

In response to two posts, the medical research followed up on
the observation of lower HIV/AIDS rates in a broad belt of sub-Saharan
African countries where ritual male circumcision was a common
practice, compared with those countries where it was not. Others
noted the dangers of the practice itself. 

More from Gender and the Social Construction of Illness (p. 97-8)--
(pub 2002) 
For the past decade, there have been reports in epidemiological
and medical journals about the possible link between circumcision
and HIV transmission. When the AIDS epidemic burgeoned in Africa,
researchers noted that there was a lower incidence in areas where
male ritual genital surgeries were common than where men were
not circumcised (Caldwell and Caldwell 1996; Halperin and Bailey
1999). Two comprehensive reviews of 28 studies published up to
1999 on the effect of male circumcision where heterosexual transmission
is the predominant mode of  infection found a significantly reduced
risk of HIV infection in circumcised men - by at least half,
and more in particularly high-risk populations (O'Farrell and
Egger 2000; Weiss et al. 2000). These studies were done on populations
of men in sub-Saharan Africa....Unless there is funding for trained
circumcisers, antiseptics, and medication for any consequent
complications, the results could be disastrous (Ahmed et al.
1999). In South Africa, there have been reports of botched ritual
surgeries on adolescent boys done by unskilled or elderly traditional
surgeons, as well as HIV infections from unsterilized scalpels
(Cauvin 2001).  
Caldwell J.C. and P. Caldwell. 1996. "The African AIDS Epidemic"
Scientific American 274(3): 62¡3, 66¡68.
Halperin, D.T. and  R.C. Bailey. 1999. "Male Circumcision and
HIV Infection: 10 Years and Counting." Lancet 354: 1813-15.
O'Farrell, N, and M. Egger 2000. " Circumcision in Men and the
Prevention of HIV Infection: A Meta-analysis Revisited."  International
Journal of  Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS, 11: 137-42.
Weiss, H.A., M.A. Quigley and R.J. Hayes. 2000. " Male Circumcision
and Risk of HIV Infection in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic
Review and Meta-Analysis."  AIDS 14(Oct 20):2361-70. 
Ahmed, A., N.H. Mbibi, D. Dawam et al. 1999. " Complications of
Traditional Male Circumcision."  Annals of Tropical Pediatrics:
International Child Health 19:113-17. 
Cauvin, H.E. 2001. " How Rush to Manhood Scars Young Africans." 
NYT,  August 6

I am sure there are more recent refs but I do not have time to
follow this up.

Judith

Judith Lorber, Ph.D.
Professor Emerita
Brooklyn College and Graduate School, CUNY
jlorber  AT   rcn.com

Both Eileen and Jessica recommend reading "the literature documenting
African women's own voices on FGE."  This is exactly what I am looking for.  Can
I get  a list of sources preferably,  not exclusively though, online?  Thanks.

Shoshanna Mayer PhD
8 Vardia Haifa Israel
may34  AT   netvision.net.il

Nawal Al-Sadawi, the Hidden Face of Eve"

Katha Pollitt
katha.pollitt  AT   gmail.com

Thank you, Katha, I read The Hidden Face of Eve thirty years ago and it was
my first intruduction to FMG. Very impressive, too.  However, now I am
looking for more recent,  perhaps professional and/or personal material from
FGM-d women, especially of such who defend the custom.  For, if it continues
to exist so widely, some must find it very good.  So far I find only
condemnations.

Shoshanna Mayer PhD
8 Vardia Haifa Israel
may34  AT   netvision.net.il