Call it “smoothing”
From the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago:
Journal of Medical Ethics article defends female genital mutilation
The British Medical Journal Group has published an article defending female genital mutilation (FGM).
Researchers from 25 different global institutions claim the widespread condemnation of the practice is based on “misleading, often racialised, stereotypes” and “Western sensationalism”.
FGM involves the partial or total removal of a female’s external genitalia, or other cutting of the organs, for non-medical reasons.
Like the “Because Mohammed said so” reasons.
More than 230 million girls and women around the world have had their genitalia mutilated, mostly commonly in Africa, but also in parts of Asia and the Middle East, usually on historic religious or cultural grounds.
But they look like Barbie dolls between the legs, so it’s fine.
However, writing in the BMJ Group’s Journal of Medical Ethics, researchers from around the world, including the UK, have defended FGM and “rejected” the use of the word “mutilation”. Instead, they label it “female genital practices” so they can “refer inclusively and descriptively to a diverse set of practices without prejudging their ethical, medical or cultural status”.
Not all that “inclusively”. Not inclusive of girls and women who struggled and screamed, for example.
“Most affected women themselves rarely use the word ‘trauma’ to describe their experiences of the practices. If they describe the experiences in negative terms, they may use words such as ‘difficult’ or ‘painful’,” the authors write.
“Even if women report unwanted upsetting memories, heightened vigilance, sleep disturbance, recurrent memories or flashbacks during medical consultations, a prior genital procedure may not be the primary cause for their distress,” they add.
Stop right there. It’s not a “procedure”. It’s not medical. It’s an intrusion, a removal, a stitching up, a scraping – a mutilation. There is no medical reason to tamper with girls’ genitalia. There is no “procedure”.
The essay also blames the “mainstream media coverage of female genital practices in Africa” for relying on “sources from within a well-organised opposition”.
Mmmyeah. How dare opponents of slashing female genitals be an organized opposition.
“In North America, Australia and European countries like the UK and Sweden, such coverage has frequently fallen short of journalistic standards of impartiality, often using stigmatising and denigrating language that fuels suspicion and surveillance of migrant communities,” the authors write.
They add that the press has “played a central role” in the “abolitionist narrative of ‘FGM’”, and call out the Guardian newspaper’s “Global Media Campaign to End FGM”, as well as the BBC and CNN’s “advocacy-driven coverage focused on eradication, often lacking cultural nuance”.
Some cultural nuance needs to be lacked.
If someone was ‘smoothing’ male genitals, I suspect they would not be so sanguine. I realize many males go through circumcision, but they leave most of the structure intact. You can argue against it, and many do, and it is often defended culturally and religiously, but it still has not got the lasting repercussions of removing the totality of a female’s external genitals.
I suppose next they’ll be defending throwing acid in the faces of young girls for attending school something that needs ‘cultural nuance’.
What irks me most is the number of women who identify as feminists and yet support such practices as FGM and wearing the burka and the hijab.
Whats next?
Slavery is merely being “differently employed”?
This really is an appalling article. It’s cultural relativism gone mad. It’s quite disturbing that the Journal of Medical Ethics would publish such a piece.
iknklast #1 :
Not all Muslims support FGM. The Muslim Council of Britain has condemned FGM:
https://www.hampshirescp.org.uk/what-is-fgm/
Practically a word for word description of PTSD, but nah, don’t dare impugn the practice! It’s tradition donchaknow.
Mostly Cloudy @ 4 – I don’t understand your point. iknklast didn’t say anything about Muslims.
I’m pretty sure FGM is not prescribed in the Quran, can anyone dig up a hadith that promotes it?
One of the great things about ‘sincere religious belief™’ is that it is infinitely inclusive of local barbarisms.
Female Genital Mutilation has also been carried out on some US women from Protestant Fundamentalist families – Renee Bergstrom spoke about her experience with FGM a few years ago:
https://www.reuters.com/article/world/us-woman-says-strict-christian-parents-subjected-her-to-fgm-idUSKCN1RD2LH/
These US women have been pretty adamant that the “prior genital procedure” was the “primary cause for their distress”.
We understand that, Mostly Cloudy, but why did you direct your comment at me? I neither said nor implied that all Muslims, or only Muslims, support it. The section you blockquoted was talking about how some feminists are unwilling to condemn it.
My apologies, Iknklast.
I posted my reply without reading your post properly, and didn’t realize that you were talking about the minority of feminists who support FGM, the burka and the hijab.
Apology accepted. :-)