FGM promoters want right to follow tradition.

[Fellow Traveler]

This article was just posted at circumstitions I thought everyone would like to read it.
http://www.thepatrioticvanguard.com/...d_article=3752

It will be useful when you're trying to make people see the similarities between FGM and MGM.

[Papai]

Great article.

Though I vehemently disagree with their stance, it's at least honest, unlike advocates for male circ who fail to connect the dots between the two.

That's why genital cutting of BOTH GENDERS needs to be tackled as one issue.

[minkajane]

Wow. That was a great article. Long-winded and I strongly disagree, but well-written. I appreciate the fact that she reiterated what intactivists have been saying all along - how can we condone MGM while condemning FGM? We both say we can't and shouldn't, but end up on opposite sides of the conclusion.

I disagree with her belief that fighting FGM is simply Western culture pushing its own feminine ideals on other cultures. We are trying to protect people from genital cutting, period. It has nothing to do with aesthetic ideals. I don't care what your vulva looks like. I am not opposed to MGM because I think an intact penis looks better, I am opposed to it because it violates the boy's rights and damages his genitals. The same with FGM. I think the author sees Americans saying that they chose MGM because it looks better and assumes that it's the same on the opposite front, which is not true at all.

[Lula's Mom]

Wow. I see they are planning a press conference in DC in just a few days. If they could just repeat this from the article over & over: "How do you condone the routine circumcision of your sons, if this is the case in your own cultures, and react emotively to the idea of the circumcision of girls?" that would be great. Maybe some people would start to think.

[perspective]

I thought this was a great article, probably one of best, and well educated articles I have ever seen, and one that best represents how I look at the circumcision issue for men and women.

BUT, my exception is that fact that she was too wishy-washy about age. NO child should EVER me circumcised, this should be souly an adult practice. No matter what the "majority" believes is right, that child should get to decide whatever they want. People should have full control over their own bodies. I feel she was not clear enough on that point.

But otherwise, great points, great article.

[Lula's Mom]

I thought she was pretty clear- she believes parents should get to choose to have their sons and daughters circumcised.

While we respect and do not support the coercion of the minority to uphold a tradition they find offensive, we certainly will not allow the minority to impose their will and worldview on the majority of women who are circumcised and their prerogatives as parents to make this decision for their children, both male and female.

I completely disagree with her on a whole lot of things, especially her beliefs about the motivation of anti-FGM activists. I don't give a flying fig if the people who want to cut their children are African or if they are the Smiths living next door to me. It's wrong. They need to delay the practice so that only adults are getting circumcised if they so choose (and I have no doubt that most of them would choose to be cut, due to social pressure and 'tradition'). Then my interest in what they're doing would be reduced to a vague bewilderment at wanting to remove the very best bits of your genitals. But you know, your body, your decision. Whatever makes you happy... I don't know how she doesn't get what the outrage is really about.

[kiara7]

:

I see what she's saying, but she's forgetting we're talking about children here, both mgm and fgm.

[rmzbm]

Originally Posted by minkajane

Wow. That was a great article. Long-winded and I strongly disagree, but well-written. I appreciate the fact that she reiterated what intactivists have been saying all along - how can we condone MGM while condemning FGM? We both say we can't and shouldn't, but end up on opposite sides of the conclusion.

I disagree with her belief that fighting FGM is simply Western culture pushing its own feminine ideals on other cultures. We are trying to protect people from genital cutting, period. It has nothing to do with aesthetic ideals. I don't care what your vulva looks like. I am not opposed to MGM because I think an intact penis looks better, I am opposed to it because it violates the boy's rights and damages his genitals. The same with FGM. I think the author sees Americans saying that they chose MGM because it looks better and assumes that it's the same on the opposite front, which is not true at all.

:

[Fellow Traveler]

Just so it's clear I think that she is going for what you think but I put it up as an example of parallel rhetoric.

[Spirit Dancer]

While I disagree with female circumcision I do think the writer has a lot of valid points like the need for more cultural sensitivity. Thought provoking article.

[jenP]

Although the article was not as clear or concise as it could be, she did get across her point that she believes all parents everywhere should have equal rights to carve up their babies and children as they please. And she is absolutely right that cultures practicing mgm have no room to talk about the evils of fgm or to try to put a stop to fgm while practicing and in fact trying to spread the practice of mgm. So I do agree with her that there should be equality, however she believes parents should have the right to cut girls as well as boys and I think parents should not be allowed to cut boys or girls.
I hope her movement get lots of visibility. It could wake people up to the hypocrisy here in America.
Or it could go the other way...

Jen

[SleeplessMommy]

Here is an interesting comment from the NYT web site.
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/...-circumcision/

(They used to neuter puppies and kittens without anesthesia because of the belief stated below. Vets now know that puppies and kittens of any age can feel pain. )

From NYT reader "joe"

...Male circumcision is performed in infancy and the trauma and pain exist in a pre-memory state before the self has been formed. Many still consider it barbaric but it seems to me that consciousness is required for such an ordeal to be described as torture.

Here is another reader who has no idea what they are talking about, has never seen an intact penis.

Please lets get the facts right. Female mutilation is *not* circumcision. The name says it all, circum-cision means “cut around”, i.e. cut around the extra skin on a man’s penis, which has many health benefits — penis cancer is unknown among circumcised men, plus the penis is allowed to grow more freely without a constricting fold of skin.

Fuambai Ahmadu, PhD (who was raised in the USA) chooses FGM as an adult, and advocates for it - and claims she is "perpetuating her cultural identity". Ayaan Hirsi Ali campaigns against FGM - and Ms. Ahmadu feels this is all part of anti-African cultural imperialism.
Ms Ahmadu wants African women's feeling to be respected - but only when they agree with her.
"... the sensationalist media spectacles of young circumcised African women who, in order to break into the modeling industry, accept invitations to publicly condemn their bodies as mutilated (as a couple of their infamous, albeit tragic predecessors did previously in bestselling tell-all books) on talk shows, reality TV, as well as magazine spreads where they exhibit their barely clothed bodies for the gaze and wonderment of the western world."