Female Genital Mutilation
In her essay “Is Multiculturalism Bad For Women”, Susan Miller Okin briefly touches upon the issue of FGM. She sees it only as a means to control women’s sexuality. Okin has been criticized for her views by many. Honig says that there is an equal attempt to control male sexuality in these cultures as well. Okin replies that the women always suffer more, and I agree with Okin.
Female Genital Mutilation is believed to have started in Egypt 2,000 years ago and spread from there. Only a few years ago, FGM was considered a cultural tradition, but now the United Nations has labeled it as a violation of human rights. Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States have declared Female Genital Mutilation grounds for seeking asylum and is a punishable offense (1).
Many people have never heard of Female Genital Mutilation until the story of Kauziya Kasinga, a woman from West Africa. Her father did not believe in polygamy, forced marriage, or “female circumcision”. He died when she was 17 and the father’s sister inherited the home, banished the mother, ended Fauziya’s schooling, and arranged a marriage as a fourth wife to a man she had never met. The aunt scheduled her for the circumcision and she ran with 3,000 dollars that one of her aunts had saved.
What is female circumcision? The female genital mutilation term covers three main varieties of genital mutilation (2). There is the “sunna circumcision”; this consists of removal of the prepuce and/or the tip of the clitoris. Ironically, sunna in Arabic means “tradition”. This is done because it is believed that the clitoris is a very dangerous part of the female anatomy.
Freud stated in his book, Sexuality and the Psychology of Love, “In our culture, the elimination of clitoral sexuality is a necessary precondition for the development of femininity.” In 1979, the “Love Surgery” was performed on women in the United Sates. Dr. James Burt, the “Love Surgeon”, introduced “clitoral relocation” (sunna circumcision) to the medical field. He believed and acted upon the idea that excision does not prevent sexual pleasure, but enhances it. Dr. Burt practiced in Ohio for almost ten years before he was exposed, after which he gave up his license.
Clitoridectomy, also referred to as excision, involves the removal of the entire clitoris and the removal of the labia. There is another procedure included in the definition of female genital mutilation, called an infibulation. This is the most extreme form of circumcision, it consists of the removal of the clitoris, the labia, and the joining of the scraped sides of the vulva across the vagina, where they are secured with thorns or sewn with thread. A small opening is kept to allow passage of urine and menstrual blood. A woman with this type of circumcision must be cut open to allow intercourse on the wedding night and is closed again afterwards to secure fidelity to the husband. It is sometimes opened to allow childbirth, but is sewn up again. In some cultures, the husband will cut her open to have sex with her.
In males, you would have to remove the entire penis and testicles (castration) to compare this with infibualtion (3). This was done in the Catholic Church to get men to sing soprano. It is no longer permitted and has been outlawed by the Pope. It was also done to men who worked in harems so that they would not have sex with the girls.
Female genial mutilation is mainly practiced in the African culture. It is also practiced in Christian, Judaism, Aboriginal, and Islamic cultures. FGM is not religious, but is a social custom (4). In some countries it is almost universal. There are over 30 million women currently living in Nigeria that have been circumcised and 24 million n Ethiopia and Eritrea. Some groups say that 114 to 130 million women orldwide have had the operation.
FGM has spread worldwide with immigrants coming from Africa and other nations that accept this practice. It is outlawed in the United States, but the practice is still done. Specialists in Denver, CO reported in 1998 that at least 6,000 immigrants have settled in the area from African countries, which widely practices FGM.
Dr. Terry Dunn, director of a women’s clinic in that city commented: “I know of one patient where it was clear it was performed in this country.” About 4 mutilation cases are seen each year at the clinic (5).
Female Genital Mutilation can be done at any age, depending on the culture. Most cultures do it at the age of puberty; some do it at birth. The justification for the operation appears to be largely grounded in the desire to terminate or reduce feelings of sexual arousal in women so that they will be much less likely to engage in pre-marital intercourse or adultery. The clitoris has a lot of nerve endings, and this gives feelings of sexual arousal when stimulated. Women in countries that practice FGM who don’t get circumcised have a hard time finding marriage partner and are chastised by other women and men.
If you are not married in an African tribe you are basically useless. Family honor, cleanliness, protection against spells, insurance of virginity and faithfulness to the husband or simply terrorizing women out of sex are sometimes used as excuses for the practice of FGM.
In Muslim countries men prefer circumcised wives because they are more likely to be faithful. Other claims in support of FGM are (6): The clitoris is dangerous and must be removed for health reasons. They believe that it is a poisonous organ, which can cause a man to get sick or die if contacted by a man’s penis. Others believe that men can become impotent by contacting a clitoris, or that a baby will be hydrocephalic (born with “water on the brain”) if its head contacts the clitoris during birth. Some believe that the milk of the mother will become poisonous if her clitoris touches the baby.
Other reasons for performing FGM are to eliminate bad genital odors, to prevent vaginal cancer, masturbation or lesbianism, to prevent nervousness, and because it supposedly makes the woman’s face more beautiful (perhaps in comparison to her badly scarred vagina).
If FGM is not done, older men may not be able to match their wives’ sex drive and may have to resort to illegal stimulating drugs. An intact clitoris generates sexual arousal in women can cause neuroses if repressed (According to Freud). These claims appear to have ittle support outside of countries where FGM is common.
FGM was started during the “al-gahiliyya” (translates into “Era of Ignorance”). The Bible is silent on the subject, but the Sunnah (words and actions of the Prophet Mohammed) contains a number of references to female circumcision. One passage is recorded between Mohammed and Um Habibah, a woman who performed infibulation on slaves. She said she would continue to do it unless he forbade it and until Mohammed ordered her to stop doing it. He replied, “Yes, it is allowed. Come closer so I can teach you; if you cut, do not overdo it because it brings more radiance to the face and it is more pleasant for the husband”(7).
Nawal El-Saadawi, a Muslim circumcised woman, stated (8): “The importance given to virginity and an intact hymen in these societies is the reason why female circumcision still remains a very widespread practice despite a growing tendency, especially in urban Egypt, to do away with it as something outdated and harmful. Behind circumcision lies the belief that, by removing parts of girls’ external genital organs, sexual desire is minimized. This permits a female who has reached the dangerous age of puberty and adolescence to protect her virginity, and therefore her honor, with greater ease. Chastity was imposed on male attendants in the female harem by castration which turned them into inoffensive eunuchs. Similarly female circumcision is meant to preserve the chastity of young girls by reducing their desire for sexual intercourse.”
The danger in FGM is the unsanitary conditions that these procedures take place in. A midwife or holy woman uses an unclean sharp instrument such as a razorblade, scissors, kitchen knives, and pieces of glass. These instruments are frequently used on several girls in succession and are rarely cleaned, causing the transmission of a variety of viruses such as HIV or hepatitis. Beyond the pain, there are ong-term physiological, sexual, and psychological effects, which have been reported from those who have been circumcised. The infections are the biggest problem. There are reports of death from shock and hemorrhage. Long-term complications include sexual frigidity, genital malformation, chronic pelvic complications, recurrent urinary infection and retention, and all obstetric complications, such as the fetus being exposed to disease, having the child’s head crushed in the birth canal. Some women must undergo another operation to be “opened” to let the baby out.
When Fauziya Kasinga let her story be known the United Nations and other countries decided to take this problem head on. They have refused to give loans to nations that refuse to stop the practice of FGM. The New Woman Research Center in Egypt says the decision to codify FGM instead of criminalizing it had nothing to do with religion or morality, but is instead “a decision to codify the control of women, and codify violence against them, in addition to decodify the inferior status in society” (9).
The UN Human Right Conference in Vienna, has classified as a human rights violation and is a criminal offense and against the statutes of national and international medical associations. UNICEF and UNDP want to stop this. They say that it is “absolutely certain that if similar tortures were inflicted on boy children the whole world would rise up to stop it by all means”.
To conclude, The act of female genital cutting in Africa has been the focus of recent media. It is an act that involves the mutilation of the female genitals. It is done for several purposes including making sex undesirable for the female, which makes her less apt to cheat on her spouse, making her feel subservient to the males of her society, and for family tradition. The act itself is barbaric, often not sterile and causes the woman extreme pain and lifelong suffering. The government has declared the act to be illegal but that has not stopped millions from continuing to participate. If it is going to stop, the nation needs to turn to education. Residents of the nation need be educated on not only the physical dangers but the moral dangers of continuing the practice. A program that educates men and women alike about how degrading the practice of female mutilation is will lay the foundation for its cessation. In addition, the program needs to provide health classes about the physical dangers of the practice as well. Implementing such a program on a national level will encourage the residents of Africa to refuse to take part in any aspect of female genital mutilation practices, which will help enforce the laws against it.
