" If we care enough about African women to be concerned about the state of their genitals, we must also be willing to pay attention to their hearts and their minds. "

I clicked on the "heavily based on misinformation" link. It took me to your post on a "balanced" look at FGM. And I read the comment with the most upvotes, by Urooj Zia. Ze is not from Africa, but Pakistan, which has seen an increase in FGM in some communities (Bohra Muslims). Although it might be comforting to think that opposition to one's position rooted in ignorance, I don't think that's the case for FGM.

And women internalizing misogyny is a thing. It is a thing which we should not be supporting or encouraging.

"If we care enough about African women to be concerned about the state of their genitals, we must also be willing to pay attention to their hearts and their minds."

I think this is a pretty unfair thing to say.

I expect most opposition to FGM is not to elective surgery performed on adult women with their informed consent. By presenting that circumstance and asking us to listen to the women whose genitals we have concern for, you're imagining that most women who have FGM are able to speak up with their own decision if we just listen harder. That is not true -- most people who undergo FGM were not adults at the time, and could not give informed consent.

If we still oppose FGM without consent after hearing Fuambai Sia Ahmadu's experience, it's not because we don't want to hear the voices of African women. It's more likely because we *do* want to hear that voice, once the voice's owner is old enough to make her own decisions about her body.

Lisa, thank you for this incredibly challenging post, and the rich links within.

Fork and Mara below raise the question I am left with. Expanding beyond the misogyny they mention, I would really like to hear your thoughts on on respect for other cultures versus pushing for change in other cultures. I guess I would like you to flesh out your statement:

"That doesn’t mean that Americans or Europeans aren’t allowed to oppose (some of) the practices (some of the time), but it does mean that we need to think carefully about how and why we do so."

Thank you for this post. I remember being horrified when I first learned what FGC was in high school, to the point of tears. As a graduate student I was frankly relieved to read Ahmadu's work as I had realized years since that it was incongruous to care about female circumcision rites and the not male circumcision rites that often accompany them in the same cultures. Why did I feel horror over one and not the other? What faulty framework was I working with? I wish more people would read work like Ahmadu's and think critically about the preconceived notions (not to mention falsified data) that are par for the course in Western discussions of FGCs.

My first thought was that this blog must have been hijacked by a troll, so I was going to pass by without comment. However, on the off chance that there are people who genuinely believe that we have to support people's right to their cultural practices however painful, degrading and inhumane they are, I'd like to make a few points:

1. It is people who have rights, not cultures.
2. As Mara points out, we can (and should) be critical of our own cultures when they harm people; I believe that we also have the right to criticise other cultures when they are harmful.
3. People internalise cultural hatred; fork give the example of internalised misogyny.
4. There are no reasons for FGM that are not purely cultural.
5. Most of the people who have FGM are not able to give informed consent.

My overriding value is for people to be the most and the best they can be, and to avoid unnecessary suffering. FGM causes unnecessary suffering. I see no reason to support it whatsoever.

Wow, you're really pushing people with this one.

I remember running a FGM case when I was on the debate team in HS (the year the resolution was about immigration if there are any other old debate nerds reading,) and we would win almost every.single.time, because who's ok with that sort of thing?! I haven't given the issue much thought since then.

I certainly have my hesitations given what I already know, but I am opening to learning more about it. I also want to say that I am against male circumcision, but wonder if legislation or just attempting to change everyday people's opinions on it is the way to create change.

My first thought when I read this post was pretty similar to the people who say, "Yes, we absolutely should oppose all forms of FGM," and "Just because women are choosing to do it doesn't mean it's not related to patriarchal oppression." But after watching to the clip and reading one of Ahmadu's articles, I have to say that I am very grateful for this post. Honestly, I'm not sure I've changed my stance, but I've really been made to think about the issue in a really complex way.

Obviously, someone has the right to get involved when people's rights are being violated. But the question is: In cases where ADULTS are CONSENTING to female circumcision, are their rights being violated? And should Australia or the UK outlaw it? (And especially outlaw travel to other countries to do it.) It does reek of colonialism, and it seems pretty offensive for the West to say "Well, sometimes it's really really awful so let's just label the whole practice Female Genital Mutilation and get rid of the lot of it" rather than thinking about the different forms, its cultural associations, and what it means to adult women who choose to do it.

And I think it is really important to hear the voices of women who know a lot about it and who have been forced to engage with it. Why aren't they leading the debates? I think maybe that's what the poster means when she says, "If we care enough about African women to be concerned about the state of their genitals, we must also be willing to pay attention to their hearts and their minds." We might not agree with them, but we should certainly listen to what they have to say!

This is all especially true considering points made about the legal status of labiaplasty for minors, and also male circumcision at birth. I do think that male and female circumcision are probably fundamentally different things, but now I've been forced to ask myself why, and to try to investigate it.

So, though this might subject me to no little amount of "disagreement" in the comments, I do have to say: Thanks for making me think about this issue in a new way! Because, whether I change my mind or not, having an informed opinion due to thought-provoking challenges is an improvement!

An all time low for this place...and with unintentionally telling irony.

So yesterday we're treated to a harangue about how women suffer more "social pressure" than men in America for being drunk in public. But today, when it's social pressure in Africa on women for genital mutilation (!) we should rethink out attitudes? The juxtaposition of these social pressures and the flip flop in acceptance vs. condemnation is astounding in its lack of perspective.

I know the game is to be critical of American culture to the point of indignance, but when the bias is presented in such an undeniable way, this forum loses much of its credibility.

The Romans suppressed Druidism because the Druids practiced human sacrifice. However, the Romans continued to enjoy the Games for centuries afterwards.

And, yes, I know that was a long time ago, but the Romans were human and both they and the Druids had legitimate cultures. As a professional historian (now retired), I like to put things in perspective.

I sincerely think some westerners are too racist and sexist to even listen to different perspectives on these issues. We like to assume that ALL brown women [in Africa especially] are stupid dupes who are "primitive." Though there are abuses, I don't think we should categorize ALL women who undergo FGM as abused victims.

Similarly, in America, that's like assuming all women in porn or sex work are trafficked abused women who were physically forced into their positiions by men. Some women LIKE it, even though it may be a postfeminist thing. We can't strip away agency, even when we're talking about systemic oppression. We become colonialists when we write grand narratives FOR people. Women in the WEST undergo vaginal rejuvenation surgeries and boob implants, but we don't seem to see a problem there. No, let us westerners all have opinions about nations we've never even been to.

I'm not naturalizing what happens in "other" cultures. Most of us [especially in the west] have already heard of all of the terrible narratives of abuse that women have undergone with FGM; however, that doesn't mean all women who undergo FGM are abused. it's just another colonialist tactic for the west to use to go "save" brown women, even though we don't care about brown women in OUR OWN countries. Makes sense.

I appreciate this article. All too often, our colonialist mentalities assume that we can speak for ALL people,

Anything that an adult chooses to do to their own body is with their rights of self-determination. Subjecting a minor (who is not legally able to choose for her/his self, even if consenting) to an operation that is not medically necessary, not reversible and with important consequences is a violation of the child's bodily integrity. Cultural context does matter. The practice can be acceptable in one country if it is rooted in tradition in that country. However, in the West we believe in individual self-determination and therefore it cannot be accepted in Western cultures. I fully support prosecuting the practice as a crime as long as the child or the instigator live in a Western society. Regarding attitudes towards the practice, I do not think that Western countries need to adopt a "multiculturally correct" approach where any local practice is deemed appropriate, any more than we expect other countries to respect our values and practices. Rather, I believe that local custom should be respected locally, while it may be criticized or banned abroad. There are plenty of examples of Westerners subjected to local laws or customs: from dietary restrictions to alcohol consumption to dress codes to religious tolerance to sexual mores to drug laws, etc. A Westerner is subject to local laws and customs, and so it should be for everyone.

Yeah, I'm going to go with what the UN says on this one. Fuck this article's insidious soft racism and unhinged take on pluralism.

I think this article is pretty much bull-shit. No kidding. Why don't we have men do the same thing? How is a woman supposed to enjoy sex without a clitoris? Many women rely on the clitoris for sexual satisfaction. Is your young advocate aware of this? Has she ever experienced a mind-blowing, world-shattering, orgasm? And then over and over and over again. I can't believe you would actually defend this practice. Wow.

It's strange, in a world where we try to be more accepting, but we can't accept this.

Why do body mutilation practices stop? Because of globalization. Because women and the men who marry them learn to be ashamed of their past. Enforcement cannot stop FGM. What CAN stop it is a widespread media campaign, even worse than the anti-smoking ones, painting FGM as barbaric, painting the women who perform it as cruel and the men who marry women who have been mutilated as weak and unable to please a woman. It is only through shaming that it will stop. And yes, this is cultural imperialism. But smoking was a huge part of our culture and we shamed it away. Culture can continue through stoies and clothes and architecture and ritual ceremonies, while excising the parts that are hurtful.

I do agree that it should be legal for an adult woman to get the procedure done in a clean facility under the supervision of a doctor. Cigarettes are legal, after all.

Of course, I'm mostly thinking of infibulation or other extreme cases of FGM. I'd say that removal of ONLY the prepuce should probably be legal if it's done cleanly and safely... Really, only the clitorectomies or infibulation are a srious issue here.

In general, I can't agree with the implied premise that because there is a cultural context in which FGM is considered a norm, westerners should reconsider opposition to the practice.

If there was a culture which believed that removing children's left hands somehow led to virtuous behavior, we'd decry it. Why? Because we recognize that the behavior
- has no basis in observable reality
- the body mod is performed on children prior to the age of consent
- it leads to functional issues - an observable disability - which will affect the rest of the child's life.

Somehow, because this is bound up in sexual morality, which is deeply bound to culture, and because criticism of culture is considered generally outside the bounds of appropriate behavior, there are people willing to excuse bad behaviors by citing that they're culturally bound.

I don't find that argument compelling. FGM is not like male circumcision* ; instead, it is a fundamental alteration to female genital anatomy which results in reduced or entirely negated sexual function, significant health risks from intercourse, pregnancy, and (especially) parturition. Further, its practitioners do not trifle to note that it is done expressly to control female sexuality, and can offer no evidence that it works other than that the women having undergone the practice have proven more tractable.**

In that light, I can't agree that there is any context in which it is acceptable. Even an adult woman electively undergoing the process is essentially buying into a vision of female sexuality as inherently sinful and toxic, and therefore it's an expression of internalized misogyny.

Irrespective of the source of the argument, it remains utterly demeaning to the lives and suffering of those women who have undergone this practice, usually as children, under the auspices of religious practice which can offer no objective justification for the practice.

* I also don't care for male circumcision, but am not passionately against; I think it's a foolish practice derived from religion, and while it changes male sexual response it does not fundamentally alter it as with FGM.

** tractability in this case is entirely congruent with coercion - if someone had performed such a radial alteration on your body with the consent of the local body politic, would you be inclined to resist additionally? You'd already know what at least *some* of the consequences would be.....

I am unequivocally opposed to this practice in relation to children who are too young to give informed consent. I feel the same way about male circumcision.

That being said, it's interesting to consider and flesh out the influence of both ethnocentrism and misogyny in discussing the exploding-in-popularity labiaplasty procedure in the Western world. Women seem to be largely influenced by access to images in pornography that show a very specific "look" and indicate concern over not "fitting in" if their genitalia doesn't match this. This conversation is parallel on a certain level to Ahmadu's and other adult women's decision to undergo FGC... is this a desire to fit in? Is this a cultural practice that creates a sense of belonging? Is this internalized misogyny? Should we prevent adult women from having access to this surgery and/or the practice of FCG? I don't know the answers to these questions but think they are very worthy of exploring.

"African Women are Free to Choose" is a great feel-good statement, but African baby girls aren't exactly free to choose, are they?

One thing that I never see in these discussions is that we (in the US) live in a society of rampant, non-consented male genital mutilation (circumcision).

The reasons for and impact of these different procedures are different, but the fact that we view them SO differently that we never even mention the one when we write essays about the other... I think there is some rich sociology here that this site could explore.

Also, this seems relevant: http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Egypt-doctor-in-female-genital-mutilation-trial-20140311-2

We're killing girls to "purify" them from sexual desires, huh? And there's an upside to this practice?