Thinking about Female Circumcision (for World Civ. class)
Question: In "The River Between," one of the central conflicts between the Christians (both white and African) and the non-Christians is the ritual of female circumcision. As many of you may know, female circumcision (or female genital mutilation - FGM - as it's known by its critics) is still practiced in parts of Africa today, and among some immigrants to the United States and Europe. For many advocates of women's and human rights, this is a barbaric practice that should be stopped. Others, while not necessarily agreeing with the practice of FGM, believe that it is not the place of western critics to impose their values and practices on other cultures. What do you think? Is this a case of respecting diverse cultural practices, or is it simply another case of human rights abuse that should be stamped out?---
My Response:
This is a thorny issue for me. I'm all for preserving the cultural uniqueness of diverse populations. There is beauty in the mind-numbing diversity that God created. The proponents and actors of FGM may well place other values (e.g., unity with the tribe, womanhood) well above sexual pleasure and individual rights (which are so prized by Western societies). The way I see it, opposition to this practice stems in large part from a sort of ethnocentricity - mainly Western advocates of human and women's rights declare that the female person is being grossly violated with every instance of this act. I would be careful in supporting such a bold claim, especially since practices such as FGM belong to a long tradition that appears to me to be integral to cultural and ethnic identity wherever it is practiced.
On the other hand, however, my Christian values cause me to strongly react to the prospect of permanently altering the body for purposes other than, say, life-saving. I believe that FGM may be reasonably placed in the same league as, albeit much lower than, sex change operations, in which physiological functions are tampered with, with permanent and irreversible ramifications. Simply as a Christian who believes the design of the Creator should not be unnecessarily altered, not necessarily as a Westerner or human rights advocate, I find this practice to be deeply troubling.
Furthermore, the high incidence of compulsion (physical or otherwise) in the contemporary practice of FGM does nothing to help its case with regards to human/women's rights. In this I find one of my larger bones to pick - this practice is compulsory, regardless of whether or not physical aggression and forcing is involved. If FGM is such an integral part of assimilation into a tribe/society, physical compulsion is not entirely necessary; there are other forms of pressure that may be even stronger than that - who can deny the awesome power of peer pressure? In this case, the number and influence of and contact with "peers" placing this pressure is magnified exponentially. Who needs physical compulsion? Taking these arguments into account, one may consider that FGM in all cases is involuntary (to varying degrees). This appears to be a violation of free choice, a fundamental human right. But again, one must be careful - is this right treasured to the same degree by those individuals affected? Do they place other "rights" on higher levels of priority? Are we forcing "our" values upon them, thus eradicating their identity and assimilating them into "our" culture and values? A thorny issue, indeed.
The thorns multiply: most of the pressure to outlaw this practice comes from sources external to the nations/societies where FGM is practiced. Indeed, I am not entirely sure that external organizations/parties are justified in stepping in to eradicate such a time-honored cultural component. If anything, the decision of FGM's fate should be made by the individuals and societies which are directly involved in and affected by the practice. Certainly, as Courtney Taylor pointed out, education on the physiological consequences and potential risks of FGM may be useful in better equipping the individuals and societies concerned to make this weighty decision.
posted by Joel Chan @ 9:19 PM
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