Hello Mark,
> the acceptance of male circumcision, which is also a form of
> mutilation,
I totally agree. I think there have to be very compelling reasons for any
form of surgical intervention. As you imply the word 'circumcision' is one
that everyone understands or thinks they understand as removal of an
inconsequential piece of skin. Hardly worth worrying about.
135 million girls/women alive today are estimated (by Amnesty) to have been
subjected to some form of genital mutilation (the majority in receipt of a
full clitoris removal). About 7,000 women in the UK are considered at risk
but no-one has any real stats for 'developed' countries.
> the same league as to consequences. Problem is, the societies that
> practice it do see it as analogous to the circumcision of boys, and a
> perfectly normal thing to do.
I agree that it is seen as normal. I don't believe it is seen as analogous
to the circumcision of boys. I really don't. The mutilation of women is, I
believe, bound up in fear of women's sexuality. It is, for instance, normal
for Sudanese husbands to cut open their wives labia prior to penetration
(stitched sometime in babyhood or childhood) on their wedding night (sorry,
you have already mentioned this).
> Some cultures
> limit themselves to removing the hood of the clitoris, which is
> closer to what happens in male circumcision.
This is a tiny minority. And I cannot see it as even coming close to male
circumcision.
> Why the press in Britain and the US refer to these things as
> circumcision is beyond me. Maybe as you suggest, Joanna, it's
> cultural relativism pushed to an extreme, though the British tabloid
> press isn't usually that sensitive. Mutilation would be more accurate.
I suspect 'circumcision' is used because the idea then becomes more
palatable. It becomes easier to ignore the violence towards females that
goes on every day as a matter of routine. Ritualised rape of babies/young
girls as a cure for AIDS or to reverse a run of bad luck are other forms of
violence that don't often get discussed in the press. They are commonplace
in parts of Africa/Asia and therefore must also be happening in my own/your
countries too.
> I'm not suggesting an answer: I'd probably rescue the girls and devil
> take the consequences.
135 million already mutilated. That probably makes for about 20 million
pending...
> The Australian anthropologist Kenneth Read describes in The High
> Valley (one of the essential anthropology texts, and a great book by
> any standards. Is Read read in Australia? A national treasure) a
> signal moment of cultural change in a village in the mountains of
> Papua. It had been the custom forever for girls to be married at
> eight or nine to adult men. The practice had fallen very recently
> into abeyance as a result of changes in the economy of the village
> with the intrusion of foreign influence. Read witnessed what was
> probably the last such marriage. The women were furious, and tried to
> stop it, but the girl's father pushed it through. This is a famously
> macho society. At the end of the wedding there was the usual male
> procession (I may be mixing up the details--I've read the book
> several times, but not for over a decade) from the girl's native
> hamlet to her husband's. As it passed through a narrow gorge the
> women attacked the men, throwing at them anything they could get
> their hands on. No one had ever heard of such a thing happening before.
You're an optimist aren't you?
Tina
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