{"id":36751,"date":"2011-06-14T10:03:30","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T15:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=36751"},"modified":"2011-11-02T19:16:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-03T00:16:48","slug":"on-circumcision-politics-and-rhetoric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/06\/14\/on-circumcision-politics-and-rhetoric\/","title":{"rendered":"On Circumcision, Politics, and Rhetoric"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crusaders against male circumcision (intactivists)<\/em> face the same sorts of challenges as activists on a wide range of other causes.\u00a0 They want parents to choose\u00a0not<\/em> to circumcise their sons AND they want the government to prohibit circumcision — and punish adults involved in circumcisions.<\/p>\n

[This really is a recurrent movement story: Think about animal rights activists who want to promote vegetarianism as a personal choice\u00a0—\u00a0as well as legal restrictions on the use of animals; think about anti-abortion activists who wish to promote adoption —\u00a0as a personal choice —\u00a0while simultaneously limiting legal access to abortion.]<\/p>\n

It looks like the intactivists are making progress on the first front, individual choice — or at least riding some sort of wave of history: the percentage of newborn boys\u00a0circumcised in the US has declined <\/a>substantially in the last few years.\u00a0 All the physicians I\u2019ve seen quoted in the run of news accounts have emphasized parents\u2019 choice.\u00a0 With parents making different choices, boys and men are far less likely to face social stigma or discrimination on the basis of foreskin status.<\/p>\n

Promoting non-circumcision means making that choice attractive — and making a very widely accepted choice — problematic.\u00a0 Here, rhetoric matters, and strategic choices about images and language are consequential in mobilizing support — and provoking opponents.<\/p>\n

Jena Troutman, the Santa Monica activist who abandoned her referendum campaign, pushes non-circumcision\u00a0as healthy, natural, and attractive.\u00a0 Her website, WholeBabyRevolution<\/a>, is chock full of pictures of happy baby boys\u2013diaperclad.<\/p>\n

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\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew Hess, the author of the\u00a0Foreskin Man<\/em> comic, projects more alarm —\u00a0and more vitriol.\u00a0 He,\u00a0literally, demonizes those who perform circumcisions, thus far, a doctor and a mohel.\u00a0\u00a0 Here you see his hero battling a physician who takes sadistic pleasure in performing a procedure that is, by all other accounts, quick and routine.\u00a0 The rhetoric is provocative and polarizing —\u00a0hardly peculiar for social movement activists —\u00a0but maybe not the smartest strategy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of us are not inclined to see physicians treating children as monsters who derive pleasure from a baby\u2019s pain.\u00a0 We might distrust someone who offered a portrayal at odds with our own understanding of the situation.\u00a0 The portrayal of the mohel —\u00a0understandably —\u00a0\u00a0spurred a debate about anti-Semitic imagery<\/a>.\u00a0 (But Hess is clear<\/a> that he has nothing against Jews or Muslims — only those who circumcise.\u00a0 Arrgh.)\u00a0 Identifying and demonizing an enemy is likely to inspire — and mobilize — those who already agree with you.\u00a0 It\u2019s likely to be off-putting to others, and may well provoke your opposition.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m ill-inclined to offer psychological explanations for why someone believes what he does.\u00a0 That said, Hess\u2019s description of his analysis\u00a0and his commitments is likely to stir pause among would-be supporters.\u00a0 San\u00a0Diego\u2019s\u00a0City Beat<\/em> reports<\/a>, quoting Hess:<\/p>\n

I was in my late 20s when I just started to notice a slow decline in sensation… Year after year, it started to get a worse and worse after sex. I went to a urologist, and he didn\u2019t have much of an answer. It struck me that my circumcision could have something to do with this. I researched online and quickly found a lot of information about what\u2019s lost. That made me pretty angry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

City Beat<\/em> reports that Hess has been engaged in therapies to restore sensation — and, for nearly a decade, working on legislation to ban circumcision.<\/p>\n

The extraordinarily committed are at the heart of any social movement, and opponents will look to counter a movement by disparaging its champions.\u00a0 Successful movements are always comprised of coalitions, and the recurrent question is how rhetoric, tactics, and personnel aid or hinder in recruiting allies.\u00a0 The controversy over\u00a0Foreskin Man<\/em> led Jena Troutman to put her referendum campaign on the back burner, suggesting that Matthew Hess brings energy, commitment, and liabilities to his cause.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

David Meyer<\/a> is a political science professor at the University of California, Irvine. \u00a0At his blog,\u00a0Politics Outdoors<\/a>, he tries to understand\u00a0when social movements emerge, how they develop and decline, and how they\u00a0sometimes<\/em> matter. \u00a0You can also follow Meyer at\u00a0OrgTheory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our\u00a0Guidelines for Guest Bloggers<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crusaders against male circumcision (intactivists) face the same sorts of challenges as activists on a wide range of other causes.\u00a0 They want parents to choose\u00a0not to circumcise their sons AND they want the government to prohibit circumcision — and punish adults involved in circumcisions. [This really is a recurrent movement story: Think about animal rights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12508,223,23384,252,85,283,3875,42],"class_list":["post-36751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activismsocial-movements","tag-childrenyouth","tag-social-construction-discourselanguage","tag-healthmedicine","tag-politics","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-jews","tag-religion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36751"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41302,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36751\/revisions\/41302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}