On Pandagon, Amanda relates what she calls some good news: Egypt has outlawed FGM.
From the article:
Officially the practice, which affects both Muslim and Christian women in Egypt and goes back to the time of the pharoahs, was banned in 1997 but doctors were allowed to operate “in exceptional cases”.
On Thursday, Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali decided to ban every doctor and member of the medical profession, in public or private establishments, from carrying out a clitoridectomy, a ministry press official told AFP.
On the Pandagon thread, a commenter called Dan writes: “Obviously, banning FGM is always a step in the right direction…”
I am not convinced that this is obvious. Nor am I necessarily convinced that this outcome is good news.
Some Background
One thing that one learns in the study of anthropology is that culture is a holistic entity. That means that you can’t split it up into tiny bits and interact with those bits piece by piece. You can’t hold up — say — dowry burnings and say “this is what dowry burning is, this is what it means” outside the context of the rest of the culture, anymore than you could hold up “I Love Lucy” to people who didn’t understand Western gender roles or Western materialism or a Western sense of humor and expect them to understand it.
Female genital surgeries (FGS) are the same way; they exist within a cultural context that gives them meaning. The cultural contexts are different, so the meanings are different.
Let me take a brief digression to deal with the issue of terminology. I’m going to call the procedures FGS, which is the term that an anthropologist friend of mine favors when he teaches Intro to Anth. FGS is not a perfect term. However, it is an attempt to ameliorate some of the problems with other terms. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a term that many African women, and others, object to as stifling conversation because the term itself is alienating and inflammatory. Female circumcision is inaccurate, and leads to a false equivalency between male and female circumcision since it creates an ersatz linguistic link between the two procedures.* FGS is an attempt at a middle ground.
Female genital surgeries exist in many different forms, in many different cultural contexts. Here are some of the physical manifestations of the surgery:
- Nicking of the clitoris or removing the tip of the clitoris – relatively unusual
- Clitorodectomy – the most common form of FGS, involving removal of the clitoris. Often practiced along with the removal of the labia minora. May or may not be accompanied by a procedure intended to kill the clitoral nerve, such as pressing hot needles into the affected area.
- Infibulation – the removal of the clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora. The inner walls of the vagina are scraped and then sewn together, leaving a hole as small as a woman’s pinky finger. This procedure can make menstruation and urination very difficult and lead to an increased probability of health complications like uterine prolapse. Tough, inelastic scar tissue is unyielding, making birth a dangerous process. Infibulated women must be cut open for sex and birth, and are often resewn afterward.
FGS are also done for a variety of reasons. Each culture that practices FGS will be practicing its own variation — in terms of what the surgery consists of, and why it is done. For this reason, it’s very difficult to talk about FGS as a monolith. And there’s a good reason for that. FGS are not a monolith.
For instance, it’s not uncommon to encounter feminists arguing that FGM is done to eliminate female sexual pleasure, or to prevent women from cheating. FGS are not done solely for either of these reasons, although they are some of the reasons stated by some cultures.
For the Kikuyu in Kenya, who practice clitorodectomy, FGS is practiced as a rite of passage in order to create a more visible separation between men and women. The clitoris, or masculine part, is removed to make the woman more womanly (conversely, the foreskin which is seen as being like the labia, is removed to make men more manly). Therefore, any attempts to eliminate FGS among the Kikuyu will have to react to these cultural motivations.
It would be inappropriate for the same solutions to be attempted among the Kikuyu as would be used in infibulation-practicing East African countries like Ethiopia and Somalia, countries that are very patriarchal and have clear interests in establishing inheritance laws. Unlike the FGS practiced by the Kikuyu, Ethiopian and Somalian infibulation appears to arise from an interest in protecting paternity rights (Carolyn Martin Shaw). They want to make sure that inheritance goes to genetic sons. Women – often upper-class women – bear the brunt of this (as they did in Europe with chastity belts, in the middle east with seclusion, in China with footbinding) because the patriarchy (supported by both men and women) views them as vessels for heirs. Reducing their ability to become pregnant by men who are not their husbands makes it more likely that inheritance will go to genetic heirs. Cultural practices grow around this desire. Later, these practices are fetishized.
Clitorodectomy and infibulation are both practiced by some cultures that believe the touch of a woman’s uncircumcized genitals will sap a man of his ability to hold an erection, cause hydrocephally, and/or kill any infant the woman bears. This myth is enduring. You may think that decades of interaction with white women who are uncircumcized and yet able to bear children would have shaken the myth, but this is often not the case. White women often choose not to bear children or to bear very few children, which means that white women are often seen as infertile. Thus it is possible for African women from FGS-practicing cultures to interact with uncircumcized white women and still believe that circumcision is necessary for fertility.
The point of all this is: FGS is not something that exists in isolation. It exists for particular reasons. You don’t get rid of those reasons by changing the law. All you do is create a situation in which the reasons still exist (need for a rite of passage, to ensure paternity, to ensure fertility), but the traditional method of meeting those needs has been outlawed.
Laws Against FGS Analogized to Laws Against Rape
On a Feministe thread about the ban, Jill writes in defense of the law. “I don’t think anyone is saying FGM is going to disappear,” she writes, acknowledging that the ban will not be a cure. She goes on to say, “But it is important that they’ve outlawed it, since that reflects a profound social shift, and it allows people to be prosecuted for it… Rape laws don’t get rid of rape, but I’d rather have them than not.”
I think Jill is erring in comparing FGS to rape. FGS is a culturally sanctioned, overt part of how the society functions. Rape is at best a covert part of our cultural function. While it holds up patriarchy by limiting women’s movements, it also subverts patriarchy because it is a threat to paternal property. FGS is not like that.
In my opinion, a better analogy would be to compare FGS to – say — capture marriage as its practiced in Nepal, in which a young man kidnaps a young woman and marries her by force. To western eyes, these marriages look superficially abhorrent (and they’re certainly not 100% good). But we’re missing the subtleties of the capture marriages. These marriages are often arranged before hand and approved by both families as a way of allowing a young couple to marry when they do not have the financial resources to put on a huge wedding. In many (I think most) capture marriages, the woman is not actually in danger, or experiencing surprise; she feigns both ritualistically. However, the bride is not always told of the capture marriage beforehand. Capture marriages are a culturally sanctioned process which serves particular culturally sanctioned purposes (allowing a way for the children of families who have fallen on hard times to marry), and which puts the interest of families above the interests of the woman.
It would be possible to make laws against capture marriage, in ostensible defense of the woman’s independence. However, the kinds of laws that tend to get enacted in situations like these are made with a western gaze. We see the surface effect of a capture marriage and apply it to known situations — the biblical Sabine women of Roman mythology, for instance. We aren’t looking at the reasons why capture marriages exist, or how they are rooted in the culture. Addressing the symptom by making capture marriages illegal may actually make the situation worse for women.
And this is what we have seen, time and time again, with regard to legal remedy for FGS.
A Brief Overview of Some Historical Consequences of Outlawing FGS
Missionaries who got down to Africa really didn’t like FGS. Well, I don’t either. Many of them did what seems like the logical thing to do when you are in ostensible control of a group of people who are doing something that you think is a major violation of human rights, moral decency, and God’s law. They decided to ban it.
Early bans had a number of consequences (not all of which occurred in all places).
- Circumcision began to be performed on younger and younger girls. Because it was less likely that missionaries or western colonial agents would be messing in the lives of infant or very young girls, and because infants and very young girls would be less likely to understand what was going on well enough to discuss it with missionaries or western colonial agents, it made sense to do it on younger girls. (Here, again, we reach the problem with discussing FGS as a monolith. Some cultures started out performing FGS on younger girls. But many didn’t, and many of those started performing the surgeries on younger and younger girls.)
Why is this a problem for women? Among other things, it decreases the likelihood of sexual function. Among the Kikuyu of Kenya, circumcision rituals were proceded with kinds of genital stimulation and body play that appear to have been intended to teach women how to orgasm once they had been cut. Adolescent girls and boys would wrap their bodies in tight strips of leather and rub up on one another. This kind of all-body stimulation is likely to have been instructive in helping women adjust to the altered physical sensations of a circumcized body. When circumcisions are done at a younger age, these kinds of rituals are likely to decline or disappear altogether.
Women are also much more likely to acheive sexual pleasure after circumcision if they have orgasmed before circumcision. This is, obviously, more likely to be the case in girls who are adolescents than girls who are toddlers or infants.
Circumcisions and younger ages also contribute to:
- The destruction of social practices that surround circumcision, such as coming of age rituals, that provide context and meaning to the procedure. These contexts may not have anything to do with sexual pleasure (which is why I’m making this its own category), but are likely to have to do with community building and the function of a healthy culture. Destroying these rituals, but KEEPING the circumcision, is the opposite of good. The better option, of course, is to figure out how to keep the rituals while changing their object (as some activists have worked on doing).
- Circumcision was often driven underground, to be done in private, furtive spaces, which makes it difficult for the procedures to be done in clean, healthy ways that minimize risk to the girls.
Perhaps the most important effect of banning FGS is that it created a dichotomy, the effects of which activists are still dealing with today. It underlined the idea that female genital surgeries are African, and not practicing female genital surgeries is American. Not to practice female genital surgery is to capitulate to colonialists. To practice FGS is to be genuinely African.
When Western feminists insist on framing the discourse about FGS on our terms, we make this problem worse. When we emphasize statements like, “African women are being denied sexual pleasure,” as if it were the worst part of the situation, we grind home this dichotomy.
It has been repeatedly proven to be much more effective to talk about FGS in terms of women’s and children’s health. FGS kills women and children. According to a study linked by Feministe last year, women who’ve undergone infibulation are 50% more likely to die or to lose their infants than women who have not. Women who’ve undergone clitorodectomy are 15% more likely to die or to lose their infants in childbirth than women who have not.
This is the kind of information that tends to persuade women, because it is culturally situated. It addresses what they are worried about. Sexual pleasure tends to be coded as decadent and western. It is therefore not only not of concern, but can be specifically opposed. It’s therefore not always useful to talk to African women about it. Our insistence on framing the narrative in our terms can damage African women’s actual lives.
Because while sexual pleasure is a big deal, in my personal opinion, poor childbirth outcomes are probably a bigger deal. Spreading HIV through the use of dirty razor blades is a bigger deal. Injury and lameness are bigger deals. Uterine prolapse is a bigger deal. Death is a bigger deal.
There are real world harms to the ways in which westerners have typically framed debates about FGS. The dichotomy I mentioned earlier, where FGS is coded as genuine, African, and anti-colonial, gained teeth during the pan-African movement. Since that time, in some places, FGS has become a marker of cultural superiority. Cultures that did not practice FGM have taken it up, in order to emulate other cultures that are considered more prestigious. And other cultures that did not practice FGM have taken it up, specifically in order to show that they are African and anti-colonial. Our attempts to legally ban FGS have not lessened cultural attachment. They’ve increased it.
The Egyptian Ban, in Particular
FGS has been effectively banned in Egyptian hostpitals for some time. The original ban was put into place in 1997, although it left a loophole for “exceptional cases” in which surgeons were allowed to operate.
As of 2000, 97% of Egyptian women were circumcized.
What do we know about those procedures? Almost all of them were performed without the benefit of hospital medical care.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to calculate the number of girls’ deaths that are caused by female genital surgeries. However, the procedure is risky. Clitorodectomy involves surgery near nerves and arteries. There are manifold risks to health, including bleeding out, cutting major tissue, and passing AIDS through non-sterilized equipment.
There are two ways to control those health risks. One is to provide adequate medical care. The other is to eliminate female genital surgeries.
Certainly, the second is preferable. But in the past 10 years of the ban on female genital surgeries, the number of circumcisions does not appear to have moved. A survey in 1995 shows the same rate of 97% that the 2000 study shows. In fact, the rate showed to be constant in 1997, 2000, and 2003. The ban has not had ANY effect on the practice of female genital surgeries. It has only made it unlikely that gilrs will receive adequate medical care — and soon it will be impossible for girls to receive it.
If these figures are accurate, supporting this ban seems insane. Our stated goal is to improve the lives of women. This ban does not improve the lives of women. It makes female genital surgeries, which are going to be carried out with or without the ban, more medically risky.
I am reminded of pro-life advocate’s devotion to the idea of outlawing abortion, ostensibly to prevent abortion, even when they are unwilling to take other measures that would actually prevent abortions, such as funding government-provided birth control. Are we actually dedicated to the idea of improving women’s health, safety, and quality of life? Or are we more attached to the symbollic ban of something we don’t like, placing the idea of women’s sexual pleasure above the possibility that fewer girls — who are going to be cut anyway — will die, be maimed, or infected with HIV?
Solutions that Actually Work
There are solutions that actually work to reduce the incidence of FGS. Some activists are working on finding ritual substitutes for genital cutting that can stand in for the procedure, allowing the ritual function to continue without the surgery.
By far the most successful direct method has been educating women. Educated women are less likely to have their daughters circumcized, even in Egypt (this has some breakdowns by class). Educating women specifically about health is likely to dispell some of the myths that have grown up around circumcision, by showing that uncircumcized women are clean, and fertile, and can have children who do not suffer from hydrocephaly or death. It can also show the dangers of FGS, including the horrific child birth statistics listed above.
However, none of these methods are likely to be permanently effective until women in Africa have economic self-determination. They need to have enough money to be able to make their own decisions about FGS.
One chilling thing that has happened in the past is that activists have been able to convince families that FGS is a damaging practice. The families agree not to circumcize their girls — and then the girls discover that there is no room for them in their society. Such girls have often agreed to be circumcized so that they will have a place in their cultures.
Women who are economically dependent can not make independent decisions about FGS. Money and education will allow them the power to choose.
A woman’s body is not a cultural artifact. Period.
Fine. But ultimatims lead to increased rate of circumcision and all the other problems I’ve discussed. If you want to create successful activism that is not damaging to women’s actual lives and bodies, you’re going to have to be culturally sensitive about it.
I agree with Q Grrl.
I can’t hang with cultural relativism, and although I do think it’s important to make arguments (which I think is your main point anyhow) in a cultural context, in terms of judging the moral rightness or wrongness of an action or a practice, I think objective standards are not only reasonable but necessary.
Now, maybe our standards are wrong, and that’s worth examining, but I have little patience for the idea that it’s not okay to point out a practice of another culture as wrong.
And certainly, if we are to have any objective standards at all, FGS is dead wrong.
—Myca
Where is there cultural relativism in this post?
Sorry, let me modify that. Insomuch as we’re defining cultural relativism by the absolutist standard held by someone like Margaret Mead — a standard which obviates judgment — where is that? It’s over FGM that I broke with absolutist cultural relativism, so I’m not sure where you’re reading it. Perhaps I can clarify.
No, no, not at all. I wasn’t excoriating you for cultural relativism at all, it’s just that I’ve heard the cultural relativist arguments about FGS so many times that your post (which talked about cultural framing of arguments and solutions rather than taking an outsider’s view) set me off.
Sorry about that. Totally NOT considering you a cultural relativist.
—Myca
Oh! Gotcha.
I’ll save my full thoughts on cultural relativism (and why I reject it — although I note that Mead-type relativism is not in current favor with anthropologists, so true cultural relativists are mostly straw martyrs) for another post. Because I could go on for another 1,000 words at least. ;)
Great post!
Really random nitpick: the Sabine women are from Roman mythology, not the Bible.
I think this is a great post Mandolin. I’ve taken a few cultural anthropology courses, and FGS is where I parted ways with cultural relativism as well. But I am frustrated with the way most Western feminists approach this issue, and I think there are African women activists (I’m not sure whether they would self-identify as feminists or not) who have been making this argument for years – seemingly without being heard at all.
I also find the backlash against cultural relativism as an idea interesting, because so many of the people arguing against it are relativists to some degree. It is possible to believe that FGS is wrong without abandoning the idea that the way we experience the world is mediated by our own cultural context – i.e., the meaning of FGS to me is different from the meaning of FGS to an Egyptian woman, but I still think it’s wrong. Relativism in action.
Hi Sam,
Thanks for the catch! Fixed.
Hi Debbie,
You make a good point. Unfortunately, it’s not a term that shades very well, to express the difference between “I would not give a snake bite kit to a snake bite victim if he were from a culture I was studying” and “I acknowledge I am not objective, but here are the reasons why I believe what I believe.”
This is a really outstanding post. You’ve done a great job explicating the complexity, and cross-cultural diversity, of the practice, and the difficulties of addressing it in a superficial or culturally ignorant manner. You should consider submitting this for print publication somewhere.
As for “cultural relativism”, however, I think most anthropologists regard that as a value-neutral perspective. The point to cultural relativism is that one must understand practices in cultural context, and that one finds, when one does so, that they usually have some sort of rational relationship to the history or values of that culture. But merely understanding that cultures adopt their practices for a reason does not mean endorsing those practices as optimal, good for everyone in the culture, or morally justified. In fact, the cultural background to many practices often reveals that they are imposed by the dominant sub-groups within the culture for their own benefit, to the detriment of those who are affected by the practice – exactly as you describe for FGS. Recognizing those inter-cultural conflicts, as they impact cultural practices, is part of cultural relativism as well.
Assuming that practices are morally justified by their context is what is termed “moral relativism” – a perspective rejected by both moral philosophers and anthropologists. Cultural relativism assumes that practices are shaped by their cultures, but also recognizes that they impact different members of cultures differently, and that those cultures have internal inequities and conflicts on which those practices impinge, with good and bad consequences.
I saw your post as being a thoroughgoing example of cultural relativism, and that that was its great strength. Your analysis of FGS as a response to cultural needs and values, and your explanation of it as being practiced in different ways in different cultural contexts, is exactly how cultural relativism works. But as you also recognize, that knowledge does not preclude taking a stance on whether those practices are justified; that stance, however, requires a perspective informed by, but outside of, cultural relativism. You shouldn’t deny being a cultural relativist; it’s good that you are one. What I think you are denying is being a moral relativist – which is also to the good.
I took several anthropology classes as an undergraduate, all from strongly feminist professors, and all were explicit advocates of cultural relativism, but all insisted that cultural practices, once understood in a relativistic way, were very much open to moral criticism. In fact, I once asked an anthropologist I knew how she reconciled feminsim with cultural relativism and she nonchalantly said “Because of women’s rights to determine their own lives.” Her name was Carolyn Clark – now known as . . . Carolyn Martin Shaw.
I really like the way you formulate the problem in terms of strategies and of viewing female genital operations within specific cultural contexts. It ties in very well with the arguments of some African feminist groups, asking western feminists to step out so they can get beyond the formulation of “African culture” vs. “western feminism.” It’s important to keep in mind that western feminists have been involved with attempts to ban genital operations for a long time–it wasn’t just missionaries and (male) colonial officials.
You didn’t mention one of the other complicating factors to bans on genital operations, that there are often quite complex gender politics there as well. There have been cases where older men have wanted to ban excision as a way of contesting the power of older women (who controlled female initiation) and of exerting power over younger men (who would find it harder to get married, since they could only marry an initiated woman). The irony is that even banning excision can work to deepen patriarchy.
Especially for outsiders, the best way to cut the actual incidence of genital operations is to support education and also support women’s economic opportunities. If women are able to live independently, they can more easily assert themselves against pressures for excision. Most people can agree on education, economic opportunity, and maternal health as worthy goals, and working for those is less likely to be perceived as western imperialism.
It’s hardly relativism (in the strawman sense usually used) to say that criticism of and proposals for other cultures ought to take into account what their consequences would be for the people affected by them, and what the history of outside interference actually is.
Anyway, I’m grateful for the way your formulation….
I agree that it’s helpful to be culturally sensitive about FGM in order to eradicate it in other places, just as it is important to be culturally sensitive in order to raise the status of women generally. However, I don’t think I need to be culturally sensitive to the practice as it might occur in the U.S. So long as FGM is practiced on underage girls or women who have been coerced, it is like rape. In fact, it might even meet the definition of rape under some statutes. No deference required.
Soooooo, what then? Patiently wait around while untold numbers of girls are mutilated and die until cultural beliefs are changed?
Does that *ever* work? Because so far as I can see, cultural beliefs take generations to change and thats just not good enough when lives are at stake.
We’re back to asking nicely to be allowed to have soveirgnty over our bodies?
Hi Pheeno,
I’m going to object a bit to your phrasing. It’s not a matter of asking for “our bodily sovereignty.” Both you and I have bodily soverignty in terms of this (I think I can say that for sure, having read a little bit about your past… If I’m wrong, please forgive me).
The way this is phrased clouds the issue. We aren’t asking an unknown “them” for bodily soverignty. The first task isn’t just talking to men; it’s convincing the women who are themselves circumcized, who are going to circumcize their daughters, or who are about to be circumcized (if they come from a culture where this is done in young adulthood). We’re asking us; or we’re asking them; or they’re talking to each other.
In any case, providing educational and economic opportunities is not the same as asking nicely. Making available information about the severe health and reproductive consequences of FGS is not the same as asking nicely.
There is direct, on-the-ground activism that deals with giving women information about their own reproductive systems. There is also direct, on-the-ground activism which involves creating culturally sensitive substitutes for the rituals, although these are different from place to place, and they dno’t always work — it’s a more tenuous field of progress. None of these people ar ejust asking nicely, though. They’re working, very hard.
And yeah, it’s probably going to take generations. If there were a way to actually ban FGS and have that be effective, I’m sure we’d all support such a science fictional possibility. (Although we’d be coercing a very large number African women with that support, and that would probably create its own problems.) However, bans are ineffective and even damaging. They aren’t a good alternative to “asking nicely.”
“in order to raise the status of women generally. However, I don’t think I need to be culturally sensitive to the practice as it might occur in the U.S. So long as FGM is practiced on underage girls or women who have been coerced, it is like rape. In fact, it might even meet the definition of rape under some statutes. No deference required.”
I think there’s a problem in assuming that understanding why people do things, and trying to respond to them within that framework, is deference. It isn’t. It just increases the likelihood that the changes you propose will actually be effective.
Like you, I support straightforward bans on FGS in the United States. They have to be accompanied with training medical professionals to understand that they will be seeing modified immigrant women. Both medical professionals and educators have to be taught to recognize the indicators that suggest girls are about to be circumcized, which usually happens in one of two ways: 1) families get together and bring someone from their home culture to perform the surgery, 2) families send the girls on trips to the home culture to be circumcized. Before this happens, the girls may talk about the upcoming circumcision in certain typical ways, such as discussing how they are going to “become women” or become like their mothers.
I also, personally, think the law is best aimed at prevention rather than punishment.
Kevin,
I also studied with Carolyn. Isn’t she wonderful?
Kevin and Yusifu,
Thank you for your comments. I’m pretty sure we’re all on the same page, so I’m not going to try to clarify too much here. Maybe someday soon I’ll make a thread particularly about my views on cultural relativism, particularly as it’s been historically used in anthropology. :)
FGS is a culturally sanctioned, overt part of how the society functions. Rape is at best a covert part of our cultural function.
I don’t find this statement entirely accurate. “Rape” by that name is a covert part of our culture. Forced intercourse is not always. The most obvious example is the marriage exception to rape laws. Traditionally, forcing one’s spouse to have sex wasn’t considered rape. I don’t know if this exception still exists in any “western” country or not, but it is/was clearly a part of the culture. And certainly any discussion of date rape quickly gets into the question of whether the act was “really” rape or not. I’m not sure where that leads the argument, though.
FGS has been effectively banned in Egyptian hostpitals for some time. The original ban was put into place in 1997, although it left a loophole for “exceptional cases” in which surgeons were allowed to operate.
This loophole probably should be left. Otherwise one could get into some difficult medical situations. For example, suppose a woman needed to be treated for localized vulvar cancer. Would resecting the cancer and some of the surrounding labia be considered an illegal FGS under an absolute ban?
As of 2000, 97% of Egyptian women were circumcized.
One obvious question is what percentage of Egyptian girls under the age of 3 (ie who were born after the ban) are circumcized. But it may be that the ban was completely ineffective. Certainly bans on abortion tend to be ineffective. Which leads me to the possibly thread derailing question of whether illegalizing something ever reduces its incidence. And if so why does it work sometimes and not others? Anyone have any ideas or reading material on the subject. If it isn’t too far off the subject of the post.
This is not an either/or situation. It’s a both/and. Having laws which make it clear that particular actions are wrong and having activists working to change the attitudes that lead to those actions is a very potent combination. Is there someone here that thinks that the Jim Crow laws would have disappeared without the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Would women be going to med and law school in large numbers without that Act and Title IX? If you aren’t old enough to know what it was like before those laws were passed, you may not be able to appreciate impact having legal sanctions had on changing people’s attitudes.
BTW, I do think it’s important that the laws not lead to imprisonment as that serves no purpose other than retribution and causes a lot of harm. If I were writing this kind of law, the penalty would be fines or paid community service where the money would be held in trust for the girl who had gone through the FGS.
Andi,
Your comments make sense in the American context, but I’m not following how they would work in the Egyptian context.
Dianne,
I hear what you’re saying about rape. I was defaulting to stranger rape, and I shouldn’t have.
Amp was good enough to find some information for me about the Egyptian ban which I had remembered from reading in 1997, but hadn’t been able to rediscover the sources for on my own. (Yay, Amp!) I don’t believe this ban was ever intended to reduce the incidence of FGM. I’ll put up the argument in the morning.
When I was an undergrad, I took a cross-culture anthropology class about women. One of the things we talked about was FGM and why and how it occurs. In some cases, women push for it, especially midwives who derive their livelyhood from doing the surgeries. Some urban families opt not to do it, only to have the maternal grandmother step in and make arrangements. Older women do gain power through FGM. But it’s at the physical expense of younger women. I think it’s important to understand why women participate and work within a culture, but I also think stopping this procedure is paramount. Yeah, some women who have had clitorectomies can still have orgasms. If you cut off penises, many men would still be able to have orgasms from prostrate stimulation. They could have rituals that teach them how to do it. Yet somehow I can’t imagine as forgiving a tone towards any tribe that had rituals where boys had their penises removed. Imagine it’s a woman-controlled tribe and this effect all boys. How would we react? Maybe that’s the kind of reaction we should have here.
I don’t know much about the specifics of this law and who pushed for it, but I do know that in America, changes in the law have lead to changes in attitudes. It may take a while, but cultural ideas around FGM might change. Certainly, as noted above, passing a law doesn’t prevent activists and others from also working against this practice. I think the marital rape example above is a good one. People in the US didn’t think the word “rape” could even possibly apply to contact between a married couple, but now the idea that women have bodily integrity, even when married, is common.
Finally, a nitpick. Footbinding in China effected everyone, not just the upperclasses. Women with mutilated feet still plowed fields and did all kinds of chores and work. It’s a misconception that only the (idle) upper classes were bound. If something is considered desireable by the upper classes, in many cultures, this will have a trickle-down effect where other people also find it desireable.
I’m not following why they wouldn’t — are you saying that Egyptians and other Africans are somehow less capable of responding to the cultural, psychological, and rational impact of making an action illegal and having activists work to change attitudes and outcomes? There’s no doubt that these efforts have to be appropriate to the society in which they take place and it may be true that the current laws aren’t the right way to go but it strikes me as a western exceptionalism to say flatly say that this kind of approach simply can’t work.
AndiF,
Here in the U.S. we actually have a relatively good legal system (with a lot of problems, to be sure, bit still relatively good on a worldwide basis.) We also have a cultural ethic that involves following the law, at least to some degree. And finally, we tend to make at least some effort to enforce our laws. As a result, “using the law” to affect social change is, and has been, a significant and effective thing here.
Some cultures–and I don’t know if Egypt is one of them–have a different combination of legal systems and societal attitudes towards legal/illegal acts. In those countries, whether something is legal/illegal may be relatively unimportant in changing what people actually do.
I think perhaps people have mistaken the scope of the ban. It’s not (as I understand it) that parents will be punished for practicing FGM on their daughters. It’s only that it’s illegal for doctors to do it.
From the Yahoo article linked by Pandagon: “On Thursday, Health Minister Hatem al-Gabali decided to ban every doctor and member of the medical profession, in public or private establishments, from carrying out a clitoridectomy, a ministry press official told AFP.”
I think there are two seperate issues here:
1) Will a ban have negative consequences? I can see the arguments for this. Younger women being put forward for the proceedure, less chance of good medical assistane reaching those who need it, etc.
2) Is there something GOOD about FGM (my choice of term)? As a cultural practice does it offer women anything? For me the answer is no. Just no.
You talk about how kidnap brides are often a means to circumnavigate dowry-payment. But I can only read that and think we need to get away from dowry, away from the idea that women need to be married, we need to escape the whole thing.
So too with FGM. It may well tie in with other cultural beliefs but ultimately we need to look at the whole culture and reconstruct it in a way that does not require FGM.
I’m sure a ban risks short term complications both practically and culturally but ultimately it is a component of a right society, so it should be welcomed. Every step in the right direction is a good thing.
I have posted at greater length on the approach I would like to see taken: http://cruellablog.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-do-we-deal-with-fgm.html
Cruella,
We don’t apply your logic to other situations. Do you oppose affirmative action? In the ultimate society we’d like to see, there would be no need for it. Therefore, should we get rid of it now?
The point of talking about capture brides is not to say that the practice is good. What it isn’t is SIMPLE. Treating capture brides, or female genital mutilation — or anything outside of our own cultural context — as if it is the simple sound bite our culture makes of it is cultural imperialism. It’s ignorant, arrogant, and extremely likely to have negative consequences.
It’s important to deal with practices that exist in other cultures as they actually exist — in complex, interesting, intricate, and above all ambiguous ways. We have a tendency to deal with them not as they actually exist, but as if they are the abstractions our culture makes of them. This leads us, time and again, to make errors in judgment that hurt real people.
Les,
In this NPR article, a woman with bound feet mentions briefly that they were seen as a symbol of her class.
It’s a pretty glancing mention. Although I’ve seen more in-depth analyses, I don’t have any at my fingertips right now. If you want to throw a scholarly article reflecting your position at me, I’d be interested.
Which I think is a good thing, but why not have the laws go along in tandem with education?
IE, this is now illegal…and this is why it’s now illegal.
A) Because laws have so far had observable, damaging effects.
B) Again, I think you misinterpret the scope of this law. It is not illegal for a woman to seek her daughter’s circumcision by bringing her to a barber so that she can be cut with non-sterile instruments and no anasthesia, risking death and even more serious injury than the surgery necessarily entails.
Im not really addressing the specific law here. More like the idea of it, since obviously of you’re going to make something illegal you should include the more dangerous practices.
Laws have had damaging affects. So has not having the law and just having educational activism. How long has educational activism been around on this subject in these regions? Has it worked? If the answer is no (even if its just a little bit no) then something else needs to be included here. So far, the staus quo isnt helping much.
I think your argument suggests that if education isn’t working immediately, then we need to advocate for bans, because they can’t make things worse.
But, as Mandolin’s post points out, bans that come about because of western pressure can make things worse. First of all, bans can increase the death rate from FGS, because — whether it’s a total ban or just a ban on doctors — the practical effect is that FGS will be done by non-doctors and in non-sterile conditions.
Second of all, bans enacted under western pressure can cause the incidence of FGS, add people’s dedication to keeping it, to increase. As Rachel wrote:
I do think bans should come, in time — but there’s good reason for thinking that it’s not time yet.
Earlier, you wrote:
The problem with this, I think, is the same as the problem with arguments for invading Iraq a few years ago: “Are we just going to leave millions of Iraqis to suffer under a mass-murderer by Saddam? Because that’s just not good enough!” But it’s mistaken to think that we have the ability to change whatever we want about other cultures, if we’re just determined enough. Very often there is no quick, effective, harmless solution that the US is able to implement. Even in those cases when our motives are not imperialistic and wrong, we still have only limited power to make real improvements.
If there’s any alternative in which we can avoid untold numbers of girls being mutilated and dying, then obviously that is what we must favor. But I don’t see any sign that any such alternative exists; and there’s good reason to think that western pressure on the Egyptian and other governments to institute a ban makes things worse, leading to more mutilation and death.
Also, bear in mind that the “just ban it” method has been tried since the colonial take-over of Africa, whereas the “how about we make information available to women” method is really recent (the attempts I know of started in about the seventies).
So, while you’re attempting to frame the activism as the status quo, and the ban as the new measure, in fact it’s the other way around. The ban is the thing we’ve tried, and we’ve seen what happens: things get worse. Activism through education and economic opportunity is the new method of making things better.
Dianne wrote:
I think economics has a good answer to this; bans will work when demand for the item being banned is flexible, and when there are readily available, acceptable substitutes. As I wrote in a post about abortion bans:
It’s really fucking horrible, but until approaches like empowering women and education have a greater impact, I think the demand for FGS may be too high for bans to be effective.
That might be accurate if I included anything about immediately. Nothing works immediately. But after a few years, if something isnt working or very affective, then its not working and taking 10+ years to change beliefs is unacceptable when you look at the numbers of girls who will die in that time.
Changing cultural beliefs through other methods is a result of western pressure as well. So far it seems that change is being resisted on all fronts, be it through activism or bans.
So whats the answer, other than the bite the bullet and try to ride it out option, which is presently what we’re doing and isn’t working either.
It’s fine and well to say approach X wont work..but Im more interested in finding an approach that will and so far nothing is being offered as an alternative that hasnt already been attempted and thus far, has failed.
I just want to comment on the high quality of the article and discussion here. Very thoughtful stuff.
The situation’s not going to get noticeably better until there are educational and economic opportunities for women in Africa. FGS can not be effectively addressed until those two problems are addressed.
Yes, women and girls are dying. However, there is no solution that will work within ten years, any more than there is a way to eradicate rape or child abuse within the United States in that time.
I find that unacceptable. It’s just simply not good enough.
Hey –
I’d like to note that there’s a really thoughtful post about this very subject on Shrub.com here: http://blog.shrub.com/archives/dora/2007-05-11_600.
It talks mainly about how the discussion of FGS in the west is colored by centuries of imperialism and racism. It really helped give me some context to the arguments I was hearing about it.
Very interesting post, Mandolin, and very interesting discussion, especially between you and pheeno. Yes, as long as the practice of FGS continues, women and girls will die, and I was in favor of a complete worldwide ban before reading the post — but if the net effect of bans is that more women and girls will die, then we need to look for alternatives.
I just wanted to add my voice to the people saying this is a fantastic article. I majored in cultural anthropology and always harp on the importance of culture and its inflexibility (even compared to nature) and the complexities of it all. However, I didn’t know a lot of the information you’ve provided and now feel much more informed. Thank you!
Just another voice saying how fantastic this article and the discussion is.
You have encapsulated why I have felt so uncomfortable about the whole debate around FGS: I also think that it is a bad practice, but never thought it could be as simple as “the west” insisting on and applauding bans elsewhere. Thank you.
What’s up with your use of the term “circumcision”? After explaining why you shouldn’t use the term for this surgery on females, you then proceed to use it extensively!
Do you know what ended foot binding in China. The Party came and organized some flash “popular trials” and strung up a couple of people. This gets the message across like a charm. When a few FGM providers are strung up the practice will die immediately . If you want fast results with traditional cultures you have to break a few eggs .
Dylan,
I tend to switch to using it in situations where the text I’ve read used the term circumcision, which is often because I’m paraphrasing words that were spoken by women who are from affected cultures. I also flip into using FGM sometimes, often when I’m discussing articles that used the terminology. Writing here drains a lot of time; I’m not always as careful as I could be.
Balom,
I certainly hope there’s a tongue-in-cheek undercurrent to your comment.
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Great post, but there’s no such word as ‘Problematizing’.
It’s used in the social sciences:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/problematizing
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Communist China in the 1950s provides an example of effective drug prohibition when they completely stamped out the opium trade. However, the methods they used are presumably inappropriate in this case.
The example of foot binding in China is particularly relevant, though.
From http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/core9/phalsall/studpages/vento.html :
Apparently, the “natural-foot societies” did play a big role; if mothers are doing this to daughters so that the daughters will be able to find a husband (and thereby acquire needed economic support) then spreading the idea that mutilated genitals will be a bigger detriment than an advantage in the marriage market will fight it.
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