Female Genital Mutilation
Maybe I'm a caveman, but...
The apologist bullshit that we hear accusing cultural imperialism makes me sick.
There is one and only one correct stance on this issue. I am right and you are wrong. The mutilation of children is evil. Not just naughty, not just distasteful, not even culturally relative. Evil!
The three articles above provide a refreshing read. Not only are they not opposed to forced genital mutilation, they present it as a viable option -- something that's OK...just different. One of many possible modes of cultural expression, if you will. The primary reason that these are good to read is that they demonstrate what kind of asinine thinkers are defending human right violations in academia. After displaying those articles, though, K9 asks "who are you to judge?" Well I'm exactly the person to judge. I'm the one who is willing. But I'll take it a step farther than that.
Any culture that is so dependent on violence perpetrated against the innocent for its very identity would be better off annihilated than suffered to continue.
Support for these practices is based solely in ignorance. Even where supporters call on aesthetic, these preferences arise culturally, not in isolation, for reasons with cultural context. If mutilating the genitals is believed to (e.g.) increase fertility, the aesthetic favoring the mutilated genitals is based on ignorance as we can cleanly assume that it arose under mistaken notions. Regardless of the angle, ignorance is the root and makes a piss-poor excuse for such practice.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights calls female genital mutilation a "harmful tradition" and has issued: "States should...ensure the enactment and effective enforcement of laws that prohibited female genital mutilation..." That's the UN, folks. Not just some western-centric organization. The fact is, only a pretty small number of people across the world are savage enough to promote this kind of abomination. Most of the human experience thinks that mutilating children is wicked.
But I don't really follow the discomfort that people have in drawing analogies between FGM and other practices such as male circumcision and body piercing. There are certain undeniable similarities. Why isn't it obvious to all that mutilating any child is evil? Circumcising the foreskin of baby boys is wicked. having the flesh of babies cosmetically pierced is wicked. Any of the practices described can be allowed to adults so long as that decision is made in an atmosphere free of coercion and enforced ignorance. I have no problem with consensual bod-mod. But children can not reasonably provide informed consent -- particularly when under a constant barrage of disinformation. So what if there are similarities? I agree.
This isn't rocket science, people.
The really salient reason that child-mutilation of any kind is wicked is the denial of freedom -- current and future. The fact that there are tremendous negative physical and psychological complications and repercussions is also bad, but not my particular vexation. But these complications are still worth mentioning. Here's a list of what can happen to girls and women upon whom these procedures are inflicted:
- The girl (Patient? Victim?) is held or bound into the lithotomy position for the typically unanesthetized procedure. As you might imagine she wiggles tremendously as her most sensitive body parts are sliced, ripped, or scraped from her body. This wiggling prevents anything that we might want to think of as surgical precision and leads to a number of immediate-term consequences including:
- The most common long-term wellness hazards relate to injury of the urethral meatus, leading to obstruction. Urination can become a strain, onerously slow, and unhygenic. The infibulation scar may cause trapped urine to become stagnant, giving bacteria access to the urethral opening. These women are likely to suffer from meatitis and chronic urinary tract infections. But the long-term complications can be summarized as:
- Other complications include: difficulty in conducting a pelvic exam producing a lack of gynocological care, increased complications related to obstetric delivery (perineal tears, perineal wound infection, separation of episiotomy scar, postpartum hemorrhage, and sepsis), and the inability of the obstetrician to examine and monitor labor and delivery.
Having done an adequate job of presenting my strong opposition to these procedures, I think it only responsible to note that there are occasional medical circumstance that justify surgical practices that would otherwise be most reasonably called mutilation. But that's not what we're talking about here.
I have read numerous sources over the past thirteen years that have informed my knowledge and opinion on this matter. For purposes of looking up facts for this write up, I consulted:
- http://dictionary.reference.com/
- http://www.contemporaryobgyn.net/
- http://www.unhchr.ch/
- http://askdrsears.com/
Historical Note: This WU was written in a node called Female Genital Mutilation. On 9 October 2006, paraclete -- as a content editor arranged to have the articles moved to Female Genital Cutting as a less villainous name. I couldn't disagree more with this change, but it was made and I'm not a god.
Historical Note 2: On 1 November 2010, JD moved this node back to the original name and now the cutting name redirects. I'm no longer active at E2, but I'm happy to find this change made.