Genital Mutilation
Well, this is just going to be a quick post, because this topic has already been so widely covered. We spoke in class on Monday about female circumcision and its atrocities... I think Kasey and I were the only ones in the class with this "what?" look on our faces. I have spoken before in my posts about cultural differences what not, and I think this is just another example.
There are various types of female circumcision. It can be a removal of the labia, a removal of the clitoris, a stitching of the vaginal opening, or any combination of the three. It varies from culture to culture. I think that as westerners, when we hear about these things taking place, we see it to be a form of violence against women. And yes, the practice of female circumcision, in some cultures, is related to female oppression. The removal of the clitoris, in some cultures, is done to remove sexual temptation. However, in order to deal with this issue accurately, we must understand other cultural aspects that revolve around female circumcision. For instance, many of the cultures that practice this (and many cultures around the world, period) place a high value on female virginity. Our own culture is guilty of this idea, although perhaps to a lesser extent in recent years.
In conjunction with this idea, the economic success of individual families is many times highly dependent on their ability to "marry off" their daughters, as they are not financially prepared to take on a life long obligation to their female children. The stitching of the vaginal opening is symbolic of virginity, and those women who have not undergone this procedure are deemed unfit to marry, as it is possible that they have been sexually active. The stitching provides insurance that the woman is still a virgin.
In the instances where a woman has not been circumsized, she then cannot find a husband, and many times is not eligable for any kind of work that includes a decent income, due to the fact that she is female, and hence, her parents are left with the financial burden of caring for her for the rest of her life.
Personally, I do have one big beef with female circumcision as it stands, and that is that in many countries, it is performed not by medically trained physicians, but by midwives who have only apprenticed and use only local anesthetic (and in other instances, twigs and rocks are used as tools for the procedure). If a culture is intent on practicing female circumcision, I believe it should be a standardized practice, performed by individuals with extensive knowledge of the human anatomy. That is just my western opinion however.
And now, onto male circumcision and how it relates to this discussion. Our American opinions on male circumcision could be termed surprisingly simular to those attitudes applied to female circumcision in other cultures. Many people seem to think that men who are uncircumsized are unclean, despite the fact that this has many times been said to be a myth. Is this really so very different than, perhaps middle eastern ideas involving the "uncleanliness" of a woman who could POSSIBLY have had sex? I don't think its a far cry. We may not term uncircumsized men unsuitable for marriage, but we carry a simular belief in WHY we think men should be circumsized.
And there are cultures where men have a FAR worse deal as far as what is expected for their genitals. In one culture, the men bleed their penises once a month because they believe that menstration is a cleansing process, and because they do not naturally menstrate, they cause what they believe to be a simular occurance.
The fact of the matter is that, in a perfect world, we would all be allowed to make our own decisions about what is done to our bodies, without our culture or our government or our families telling us what is right. Male, female, whatever, it shouldn't matter. I am not lobbying for any kind of genital mutilation, and I am not attempting to give my opinion on the practice one way or the other. I just think that if we are going to talk about other cultures, we need to really delve into the issues, instead of just analyzing things through our own culturally biased set of eyes. And we cannot help but be culturally biased. I think that in some ways, it is natural to assume that your culture has it right (false though it may be). But as we talked about in class today, we are all different, and it is important to really come to understand those differences.
There are various types of female circumcision. It can be a removal of the labia, a removal of the clitoris, a stitching of the vaginal opening, or any combination of the three. It varies from culture to culture. I think that as westerners, when we hear about these things taking place, we see it to be a form of violence against women. And yes, the practice of female circumcision, in some cultures, is related to female oppression. The removal of the clitoris, in some cultures, is done to remove sexual temptation. However, in order to deal with this issue accurately, we must understand other cultural aspects that revolve around female circumcision. For instance, many of the cultures that practice this (and many cultures around the world, period) place a high value on female virginity. Our own culture is guilty of this idea, although perhaps to a lesser extent in recent years.
In conjunction with this idea, the economic success of individual families is many times highly dependent on their ability to "marry off" their daughters, as they are not financially prepared to take on a life long obligation to their female children. The stitching of the vaginal opening is symbolic of virginity, and those women who have not undergone this procedure are deemed unfit to marry, as it is possible that they have been sexually active. The stitching provides insurance that the woman is still a virgin.
In the instances where a woman has not been circumsized, she then cannot find a husband, and many times is not eligable for any kind of work that includes a decent income, due to the fact that she is female, and hence, her parents are left with the financial burden of caring for her for the rest of her life.
Personally, I do have one big beef with female circumcision as it stands, and that is that in many countries, it is performed not by medically trained physicians, but by midwives who have only apprenticed and use only local anesthetic (and in other instances, twigs and rocks are used as tools for the procedure). If a culture is intent on practicing female circumcision, I believe it should be a standardized practice, performed by individuals with extensive knowledge of the human anatomy. That is just my western opinion however.
And now, onto male circumcision and how it relates to this discussion. Our American opinions on male circumcision could be termed surprisingly simular to those attitudes applied to female circumcision in other cultures. Many people seem to think that men who are uncircumsized are unclean, despite the fact that this has many times been said to be a myth. Is this really so very different than, perhaps middle eastern ideas involving the "uncleanliness" of a woman who could POSSIBLY have had sex? I don't think its a far cry. We may not term uncircumsized men unsuitable for marriage, but we carry a simular belief in WHY we think men should be circumsized.
And there are cultures where men have a FAR worse deal as far as what is expected for their genitals. In one culture, the men bleed their penises once a month because they believe that menstration is a cleansing process, and because they do not naturally menstrate, they cause what they believe to be a simular occurance.
The fact of the matter is that, in a perfect world, we would all be allowed to make our own decisions about what is done to our bodies, without our culture or our government or our families telling us what is right. Male, female, whatever, it shouldn't matter. I am not lobbying for any kind of genital mutilation, and I am not attempting to give my opinion on the practice one way or the other. I just think that if we are going to talk about other cultures, we need to really delve into the issues, instead of just analyzing things through our own culturally biased set of eyes. And we cannot help but be culturally biased. I think that in some ways, it is natural to assume that your culture has it right (false though it may be). But as we talked about in class today, we are all different, and it is important to really come to understand those differences.
posted by Shauna at 3:41 PM
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