Thanks to Courtney at Feministing for drawing my attention to this article by Michelle Goldberg on FGM. I won’t recap too much because I think you ought to read it yourselves; suffice it to say that the article is an attempt to give the pro-FGM movement some credit. To wit:
Ahmadu [a Western-educated PhD holder on the pro-FGM side] sees herself as speaking for African women who value female genital cutting but are shut out of the rarified realms of international civil society. “The anti-FGM activists have access to the media, and they have enormous resources, so they’re able to influence the media in such a way that most of the women who support the practice cannot,” she told me later that evening. “Even if they did, a lot of them are illiterate, so they can’t even speak the necessary language, and they cannot respond to charges of backwardness and barbarity.”
… even when it’s just, the project of trying to change other cultures is complicated, bound to elicit backlashes and cries of imperialism.
This is, of course, the fundamental problem of post-colonial attempts to articulate a theory of universal justice, for women or for anyone else. At what point is this refrain of “we know what’s good for you” the same one that the English used to use as they caned their indigenous servants? I went to school with a number of aspiring international civil servants, so to speak, and listened to their passionate speeches in classes with skepticism too. It’s not that I disagreed fundamentally with the result they sought – a more just society – but rather that the zeal with which they pursued it led it to look like self-promotion, not selflessness. The point at which we all start drowning out African women who want to talk about what FGM means to them is the point I get off the “Justice” international tour bus.
See, I make fun of cultural relativism all the time, but the premise of my ridicule is the lazy way in which people toss it around, not the fundamental idea that culture should and can be given weight. Out in the world, culture can be the 200-pound backpack you carry around, and it’ll make you do things you never thought you would. Perhaps this comes from having grown up in suburban Ottawa, Ontario, which for better or for worse is still the most culturally diverse and simultaneously open place I have ever lived. I have friends and acquaintances from childhood who are in arranged marriages (mostly Muslim but there is a Hindu or two in there too), who wore the hijab from puberty on and were forced to defend it to white friends, constantly, who believed they had to marry someone of their ethnicity. None of these life choices are ones that sit well with me as a feminist – but I know, too, that describing them as “choices” doesn’t much reflect the lived experiences of these people. I know that they had complicated relationships with the lifestyles they felt they nonetheless “had” to lead.
The only proper basis to articulate an objection to FGM, it seems to me, has to recognize that “choices” which are obvious to you and me are only visible to us because we live in a space that sheds light on them (but obscures other to us). Which isn’t to say that we have a superior perspective, exactly, but it is to say that it is one that recognizes that cultural limits are real and felt in most people’s lives. I get annoyed with the men (and they are inevitably men) who wander into discussions on FGM to derail them with a discussion about male circumcision, of course, mostly because they are articulating this only to highlight what they see as feminist hypocrisy for not caring about men and more particularly, their penises. But I can respect it on the basis that it underlines the way in which every culture bestows blinkers on its participants – I know a lot of feminists who think male circumcision “ain’t that bad,” and none of them have medical degrees. I think we can all benefit, in these discussions, from doing a lot more listening and a lot less yelling.
But at the same time as I have all of these reservations about the way the FGM debate gets framed – and the way it dismisses some women, because let’s face it, I don’t like dismissing women – I still would like to eradicate the practice. I would like to eradicate it because there are hundreds upon thousands of African women who will testify to its having had a detrimental effect on their lives. I would like to eradicate it because medical professionals, who do nothing but respond to the actual, physical, biological reality of all of this, can tell you it has long term effects up to and including, as listed in the article, “minor, chronic vaginal infections to inability to penetrate, to have intercourse, to infertility, to very painful intercourse, to inability to deliver a baby.” I would like to eradicate it because I want the end of women being viewed as essentially sexual objects. I have no romantic naturalist views of female bodies, but I do have concerns about their being socially constructed as things in need of fixing in order to enhance femininity.*
But most of all? I want it eradicated in a lasting way. I want it to be the result of widespread cultural agreement. I don’t want FGM to be a backdoor practice. I want it to be over. I want it to be done. And in order to do that, I can’t run around ripping knives out of people’s hands. I just have to change their minds. And I’m never going to do that so long as I keep pretending that culture doesn’t matter.
* Just to distinguish – some trans people may feel their bodies are in need of “fixing,” and I don’t mean to lump them in here. But FGM may be distinguished from trans people trying to make their bodies ever “more feminine” quite easily, it seems to be.
FGM NEEDS TO BE ERADICATED FOREVER.
THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND.
If this makes me neo-colonialist, or culturally insensitive or whatever, I do not care. You can add 1,000 lbs to my backpack and I will still caterwaul about the BRUTAL HIDEOUS MISOGYNIST ABOMINATION that is FGM.
Yep. I’m with Ms. Sharper here. There is no middle ground with FGM, no two ways of looking at it. It is cutting off a necessary and functional part of the female anatomy to further the patriarchic goal of controlling women by lessening sexual desire. That’s why it’s called mutilation. There is no rational pro-FGM argument. Our only goal can be eradication, forever.
I’m not clear – were people under the impression that I was advocating FGM? I was advocating talking about it in a way that I think would actually eradicate it forever.
@Pilgrim Soul: No, I get it. I’ve been thinking about how to express my thoughts on this, but it hasn’t come to me yet. I’m interpreting what you’re saying as this:
To eradicate FGM involves not just changing a single “cultural” practice, but changing the attitudes of a culture. This may include the difficult task of hearing and absorbing the thoughts of women who believe that this is an essential part of their culture, even if you believe there is no middle ground on this issue.
No, we were just caterwauling on the topic. I think your point is dead on, PSoul.
Kelsium, yes, that’s it, more or less. Even when you want to yell, “you’re wrong!” Not gonna get us anywhere good.
“I would like to eradicate it because medical professionals, who do nothing but respond to the actual, physical, biological reality of all of this, can tell you it has long term effects up to and including, as listed in the article, “minor, chronic vaginal infections to inability to penetrate, to have intercourse, to infertility, to very painful intercourse, to inability to deliver a baby.””
This is exactly my take on the subject. Pure medical science isn’t (or shouldn’t be) subject to cultural relativism, so that feels like the “safest” way for me to explain my support of eradicating FGM.
I agree with BeckySharper that this is dead-on, but I think it’s a hard truth to swallow. It shouldn’t be that distasteful, this whole listening to people and hearing what they have to say thing, but I have a really hard time on topics like this walking the line between “I think you are very very wrong and here is why” (okay) and “Your feelings aren’t valid because you are a product of your culture” (totally not okay).
Obviously we’re all a product of the values instilled in us, as we are all discussing in the Harpy Seminar on mothers. But, like you said, and I think you put it excellently, “we live in a space that sheds light on [these things].” I definitely struggle with how to feel about my sense of “objective–I don’t think ’superiority’ is the right word, but it’s close, maybe ‘rightness’?–rightness”, and articles like this give me a lot to think about.
@Pilgrim: But isn’t it just as paternalistic to say “I want to change their minds to agree with me” as it is to take the knives out of their hands?
Though of course I agree with you about eradicating FGM, and your point about the limits of advocating from a place of privilege/cultural ignorance. Maybe it’s impossible to avoid a whiff of colonialism, the same way men advocating for feminism still don’t completely get it (though we welcome them!). We should be uneasy–it keeps us mindful.
@Kivrin: Medicine has never been, nor ever will be, purely objective.
@Spark: I know, but I feel like it’s the best approximation (as compared to many other arguments for why something is or isn’t “good for you”). I am personally more comfortable justifying or explaining something based on logic and scientific reasoning than abstract cultural/sociological concepts.
I think the article was great, and confirmed for me that there are Ann Coulters and Serena Joys in every culture. These horrible things continue because women collude with the patriarchy even if it harms them.
The answer isn’t for affluent white women to rush over and grab knives or even to caterwaul, but to actively support the African and Asian women (I understand this also happens in the Middle East) who are fighting against it. That said, does anyone know how I could send money to Agnes Pareyio and activists like her?
PS I objected a number of times on that Feministing thread to the lengthy “men are hurt by circumcision too” derailment. I get so tired of “what about the menz?” Gaah. I am getting more and more ornery as I age.
@JetGirlz: To say nothing of the fact that men are not hurt NEARLY as much when their foreskins are snipped off. I’m not an advocate for male circumcision, but it doesn’t destroy men’s genitals and leave them dysfunctional, damaged or incapable of safely reproducing. Puh-lease. There’s no comparison.
@Kivrin: “Pure” medical science isn’t subject to cultural relativism? Sista, pls.
I sometimes wonder if a movement to frame female genital cutting as a kind of cosmetic surgery might work, make people wait until 18 and not allow others to make that choice for second or third parties. I don’t have a problem with it legally (personally, sure, but I’d be outlawing cosmetic surgery in the US too) except that it is perpetrated against children without consent. Not that that would probably be any easier than whatever goals anti-FGM activists currently have.
Very good article.
@May: Obviously I’m talking about medical science in its ideal form. And I suppose doctors could be manipulating the facts about FGM to make it sound worse than it really is, but…I dunno, those “side effects” sound unambiguously horrible to me. Ergo, when it comes to eradicating FGM, I feel like the medical explanations are perhaps the easiest to defend to people who might otherwise cry “imperialism” or whatever. Am I making sense? I’m not trying to say that doctors have never said or done horrible things in the name of “science”–only that, compared to other approaches, the medical/scientific approach is the one that seems easiest to defend wrt eliminating FGM. I obviously didn’t elaborate enough on my statements in previous comments–sorry!
Great article. As I read it, I found myself thinking that the ‘it’s fundamental to my culture’ argument was valid to an extent, and I don’t think it’s necessarily cultural relativism. But then I got to this part:
During the December holiday when she was 14, Pareyio returned home from school to find her family preparing a great feast. She asked her mother what was going on, and she replied, “All these people are here because there’s a ritual that is going to be performed.” Pareyio realized what they were planning and told her mother that she refused to let it happen. But eventually, under family and community pressure, she agreed to go through with it. Her legs were pried open and her genitals slashed off. Afterward, an old woman felt the wound to make sure nothing was left. The pain was horrible, and it came back twice as bad every time she urinated. She has regretted it her entire life.
And just like that, I snapped back into reality. AN OLD WOMAN FELT THE WOUND TO MAKE SURE NOTHING WAS LEFT.
Indefensible.
Great post.
What’s interesting here is that the woman born in America, raised in America, who went back to Sierra Leone when she was 22, and who is now a fellow at an American university, is arguing that trying to eradicate FGM is colonialism, while the actual African woman who was born in a place where FGM was common, is arguing that it must be done away with. Perhaps Ahmadu sees herself as committed to her culture, but she never lived in a place where toddlers were routinely mutilated. It’s hard for me to believe an American academic when they talk about cultural imperialism when the native activist disagrees.
I am curious as to how debilitating Ahmadu’s circumcision was. Clearly, she’s not in constant pain, or sick, and clearly she didn’t die from the procedure. So I feel like she has a distinctly Americanized experience of it, one that she doesn’t seem to recognize or acknowledge. Whereas the woman who spoke out against her, talking about the pain she’d gone through, perhaps had a more debilitating experience–and I wonder which is more usual. I also got the feeling that Ahmadu wasn’t really interested in the millions of girls and women who do NOT voluntarily get the procedure, and who are either prevented from imagining a world without it, or who are forced to get it regardless. Perhaps if she’d address these things, I’d be more inclined to give her points some more attention. But something tells me these points sort of… makes hers pretty much invalid. Or if not invalid, moot.
I read somewhere about someone who’s trying to get the villages to make it a ceremonial “prick” in which nothing is cut off or permanently damaged, in order to mirror the male-circumcision that is important to the culture. This works for me, because rites of adulthood are fine and dandy as long as nobody’s getting their mucous membranes sewed together, you know?
I think the element of choice should be paramount. If someone is educated about what FGM could do to them and their health, as well as knowing what it would mean culturally, and then allowed to choose, then there’s not much one can really say about it. Ms. Ahmadu made an educated decision, which I can respect. But most women don’t have that ability, and it seems like the way she’s campaigning isn’t going to give them that ability either. :/
I don’t mean to sound like an FGM apologist. I find the act to be horrible and reprehensible under any circumstances, but if an EDUCATED WOMAN who knows the facts of the procedure CHOOSES to go through with it, that’s her decision, whether I disagree with it or not.
Exactly, Cimorene, make it more like Ahmadu’s experience — chosen as an adult, emphasis on a ceremonial cutting that does minimum damage to functionality, use anesthetic.
Well excuse me if this looks like derailing, but when someone like cimorene says “to make it a ceremonial “prick” in which nothing is cut off or permanently damaged, in order to mirror the male-circumcision that is important to the culture.” I’m sorry, I can’t stay silent. Do you know that 30-40 boys die every year from male circumcision in Eastern Cape Province alone? How much worse can it get? When you compare apples with apples, tribal with tribal, surgical with surgical, they’re not all that different. Look at them both as human rights issues and they’re not different at all. It’s your cultural bias that makes you insist they’re so totally different. FGC may be supported by the patriarchy, but it’s largely done by women. I agree with dora and J D Regent, what adults choose to cut off their own bodies is their own business – for males and females – and they have to be left alone till then so they can make that choice.
Ahmadu may have an education, but her pro-FGM argument isn’t particularly educated. It’s the same argument I’ve heard from illiterate village women: that it’s tradition, that it’s essential to womanhood, and that it doesn’t cause problems. She glosses over the serious health risks and the consent issue.
You know what else used to be “tradition”, “essential to [speaker's] culture”, something outsiders wouldn’t understand?
Slavery. Pro-slavery apologists sounded an awful lot like people who cry “colonialism” against anti-FGM activists: “it’s our way of life”, our “peculiar institution”, “[those subjected to it] are happy the way things are”. And you know what finally ended slavery in this country? Not letter-writing and education campaigns, not legal reforms, not diplomatic treaties. It took a war that consumed the nation for four years. It took the invasion of Atlanta and New Orleans and Richmond by soldiers who’d never been south of the Ohio before enlisting. It took the subjugation and destruction of an entire culture.
And if that’s not colonialist I don’t know what is. Perhaps the difference was that white people and black people were fighting white people who wanted to subjugate black people whereas now black people and brown people and white people are trying to get other black people and brown people from subjugating other black people and brown people. And yes, there was certainly less of a power imbalance between the North and the South than there is between the Global North and the Global South today.
But I’ll be DAMNED if my alma mater’s going to be represented by an apologist for violations of human dignity.
Hey there, Hugh7. Did you actually read the post? No? Let me point out just a piece:
That would be you. NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT MALE CIRCUMCISION. Not because it’s okay, or doesn’t matter, or we hate men or whatever, but because at this site WE ARE INTERESTED IN WOMEN AND THEIR WELFARE. You’ve got your website, wherein you can twist yourself into knots over foreskins, and we’ve got ours, where we can think about whether or not women should have their clitores cut out and their labia sewn together. The internet is a big place, and we’re not coming into your backyard to tell you How It Is, so kindly return the favor.
And here’s the deal, chief: that FGM/FGC is “done by women” doesn’t make it okay, or non-patriarchal. That’s Feminism 101.
Thanks, PhDork. Well said.
I think the fact that the woman arguing for FGM as a cultural practice should perhaps be arguing for it to be reformed so that those who CHOOSE to undergo the ritual can do so, as she did, as adults who freely choose the practice, perhaps under the most sanitary and safest conditions possible. But the fact is that most of the time it’s performed on unwilling little girls who have no say in the matter, under horrible conditions. There’s no defending that kind of culture, though perhaps there could be some understanding if it was something chosen by adults– much like the extreme body modification/piercing crowd.
PhDork and Jetgirl: “NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT MALE CIRCUMCISION.” What’s this about then? “in order to mirror the male-circumcision that is important to the culture.” Or this? “men are not hurt NEARLY as much when their foreskins are snipped off. … it doesn’t destroy men’s genitals and leave them dysfunctional, damaged or incapable of safely reproducing.” And when you talk about and trivialise MGC by saying “you can twist yourself into knots over foreskins” what part of “die” didn’t you understand?
“that FGM/FGC is “done by women” doesn’t make it okay, or non-patriarchal. That’s Feminism 101.” I didn’t of course say it did. In the Muslim context, where the imams and mullahs say it’s needful and the women submit (and submit their daughters to it), a simple patriarchal explanation suffices, but equally they quote the prophet to say it should not be “excessive”, and in Indonesia and Malaysia it can be quite tokenistic and surgical, quite comparable in severity to MGC. Does anyone here think that is OK?
But it’s harder to apply feminism 101 in Sierra Leone where women embrace it for the social benefits it gives, such as membership of secret women’s societies. (Secret WOMEN’S societies patriarchal? Maybe they explain that in feminism 301…) The Sierra Leonean women defend their FGC (and that of their daughters) by reference to western MGC.
It’s not possible to approach FGC (or MGC) with a one-size-fits all approach. Genital mutilation is a hydra-headed monster. There’s something funny
(and pan-sexual) about the urge to cut genitals. “Medical” FGC used to be practised in the US (I have met a survivor of it), and a study of how it ended would be useful. Robert Darby’s “A Surgical Temptation” has an interesting section about how one doctor tried hard to promote “medical” FGC in England in the 19th century and failed.
RocktheDebit’s slavery analogy is a good one, but Americentric. The slave trade was largely run from England and Holland, and it ended there (and so far as I know, in the Carribean) without a civil war, just by people being persuaded by humane arguments.