FGM thread

[Daisyuk]

As there seems to be a discussion going on about FGM, I thought I'd put all the information I have here for people to read.

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/30/150.html
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?R...y=SIERRA_LEONE

http://www.who.int/reproductive-heal...mes_review.pdf
"The three overlapping reasons for the practice at the center of figure 1 - spiritual and religious reasons, sociological reasons, and hygienic and aesthetic reasons - seem to indoctrinate society into the practice without explicitly addressing women’s sexuality. According to these reasons, the clitoris and external genitalia are believed to be ugly and dirty, and if not excised can grow to unsightly proportions. In addition, they are purported to make women spiritually unclean. Their removal is thus required by religion."
"Like other social behaviours, the practice of FGM derives from varied and complex belief systems. It is tempting to simplify matters by isolating a piece of the behaviour and explaining it as a separate item, for example, “FGM has negative health consequences”. Yet it is crucial to see the big picture - the connections among all aspects of the behaviour. The challenge of taking the whole picture into consideration may seem daunting, but social behaviour involves a vast range of influences - defined by culture. Culture acts as a lens or filter through which people view, understand, and interpret the world. Each culture is selective in what is filtered out and what reaches the human consciousness. Some things may pass unchanged (basic human needs) while others may undergo subtle shifts in emphasis. The filter effect of culture has great importance for health communication programmes."

http://www.h-net.org/~africa/sources...rodectomy.html

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This is an excellent paper, comparing FGM,and MGM and comparing Western and African attitudes to it.

Global Jurist Frontiers
Volume 4, Issue 2 2004 Article 3
Hegemonic Human Rights and African Resistance: Female Circumcision in a Broader Comparative Perspective
Elisabetta Grande

Abstract The issue of Female Circumcision is usually discussed in the framework of extreme human rights violations victimizing non western women. This paper questions this approach by broadly comparing Female Circumcision with similar “cutting” practices routinely performed in Western societies. An integrative approach to comparative law is suggested in order to understand phenomena in context and to avoid ethnocentrism.
KEYWORDS: Human Rights, Hegemony, Female Circumcision, Breast Augmentation, Male Circumcision, Comparative Law

"Only a serious and comprehensive approach towards all modifications of sexual organs, African and Western, “theirs” as well as “ours”, using a single, not a double, standard to evaluate all body modifications related to human sexual apparatus, will make the human rights discourse on sexual organs’ modifications or mutilations (whatever we want to call them) less imperialistic, more effective and less assimilating. A more inclusive notion of human rights, a notion that includes “us”- the Westerners- as well as “them” -the “Others” -, serves, indeed, to reduce hypocrisy and gives credibility to the “human rights spirit”9

"1) In Italy and the U.S., M.C. is routinely performed, for no therapeutic reason, in public hospitals right after the baby is born (in the second mentioned country to the extent of at least 60 % of the newborn male population 10) and it is a practice that the law fully accepts. M.C., as everyone knows, consists of removing the foreskin or prepuce, the natural sheath of skin that covers the penis. In the same two countries, however, F.C., even the less extreme of its forms, the so called Sunnah circumcision, is outlawed and criminally sanctioned11. Sunnah circumcision, as very few would know, in its mildest expression is a largely symbolic circumcision that entails a small cut in the prepuce (the hood above a girl’s clitoris). It removes no tissue and leaves only a small scar. It is far less invasive than M.C.. Nevertheless, proposals by doctors at medical centers in the two countries that sought to perform this light form of F.C. at parents’ request (or even with the girl’s informed consent) have produced a major uproar of the anti- F.C. movements and have been deemed unacceptable by the law itself."

"According to the WHO’s classification, F.C. ranges from the very mild form of Sunnah, to the most radical practice of infibulation (also known as Pharaonic circumcision). According to the same source, however, the latter practice --which involves the complete removal of the clitoris, labia minora, and part or all of the labia majora, then suturing to narrow the vaginal introitus-- accounts for only 15% of all F.C.. Sunnah F.C. in its various forms (total or partial removal of the prepuce), excision (that involves excision of the prepuce with excision of part or all of the clitoris) – and clitoridectomy (excision of the prepuce and clitoris together with partial or total excision of the labia minora) account for the rest"

"Acknowledging that it is with a great approximation that we can address F.C. as a unitary category, it seems that many forms of F.C., with the sure exception of infibulation, if performed in the same non-septic, safe and hygienic setting of a good hospital, would not entail greater health risks in terms of shortterm and long-term complications than M.C. or B.A. 14. Surgery routinely performed in our countries in case of congenital adrenal hyperplasia, i.e. cliteridectomy for those newborns who have been labelled “intersex babies” -- while incidentally raising the question regarding why we can blamelessly satisfy our social sexual taxonomy by a genital organ removal--, can prove at least the medical point15."

http://www.bepress.com/gj/frontiers/vol4/iss2/art3/
The article is available for viewing if you log on as Guest.
It is very powerful, and explains why the West has picked on female circumcision for eradication and yet has a double standard with regards to male.

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http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/30/150.html
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?R...y=SIERRA_LEONE
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...03/ai_n8794629
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~haneydaw/twwh/fgm.html#why

The people who practice FGM do it because they feel it's beneficial, and it's overwhelmingly women who want it. Consent is irrelevant, yes the girls are of an age where they could give consent - but most of them have no idea what's going to happen to them, and if they did they have no choice anyway - like little boys in the USA.

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http://www.state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/crfgm/10102.htm
That's from the State Dept.

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http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/dlj.../dlj47p717.htm
Interesting article.

http://law.case.edu/student_life/jou...11-2/59105.pdf
Another interesting paper.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...877760147.html
In the cut - FGM in Indonesia, hospital circs.

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Circumcised women also state that they are happy with their sex lives and find that they orgasm just as well as intact women.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2837


Genital Cutting May Alter, Rather Than Eliminate, Women's Sexual Sensations
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/2905103.html
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi....x?cookieSet=1

The Sexual Experience and Marital Adjustment of Genitally Circumcised and Infibulated Females in The Sudan
The Journal of Sex Research Vol.26. No.3, pp.375-392 August, 1989
http://www.fgmnetwork.org/authors/Li...experience.htm

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""Religiously, it's recommended," said Traore who, like most Malians, is a Muslim. "And, of course, it's good for the girls' hygiene.""
" But ask Gamara what she thinks of female circumcision, a practice denounced by women's-rights activists around the world, and her response is a positive one.

"Circumcision is one of the foundations of the society," the petite, rotund woman said decisively in a recent interview in Bamako. "It helps women maintain her purity and cleanliness."
http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDai...8-122737-2173r

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BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology
Volume 109 Page 1089 - October 2002
doi:10.1111/j.1471-0528.2002.01550.x
Volume 109 Issue 10


The association between female genital cutting and correlates of sexual and gynaecological morbidity in Edo State, Nigeria
F.E. Okonofuaa,b,*, U. Larsenc, F. Oronsayea, R.C. Snowd, T.E. Slangerd

Objective To examine the association between female genital cutting and frequency of sexual and gynaecological symptoms among a cohort of cut versus uncut women in Edo State of Nigeria.

Design Cross sectional study.

Setting Women attending family planning and antenatal clinics at three hospitals in Edo State, South–south Nigeria.

Population 1836 healthy premenopausal women.

Methods The sample included 1836 women. Information about type of female genital cutting was based on medical exams while a structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on the women's socio-demographic characteristics, their ages of first menstruation (menarche), first intercourse, marriage and pregnancy, sexual history and experiences of symptoms of reproductive tract infections. Associations between female genital cutting and these correlates of sexual and gynaecologic morbidity were analysed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression and Cox models.

Main outcome measures Frequency of self-reported orgasm achieved during sexual intercourse and symptoms of reproductive tract infections.

Results Forty-five percent were circumcised and 71% had type 1, while 24% had type 2 female genital cutting. No significant differences between cut and uncut women were observed in the frequency of reports of sexual intercourse in the preceding week or month, the frequency of reports of early arousal during intercourse and the proportions reporting experience of orgasm during intercourse. There was also no difference between cut and uncut women in their reported ages of menarche, first intercourse or first marriage in the multivariate models controlling for the effects of socio-economic factors. In contrast, cut women were 1.25 times more likely to get pregnant at a given age than uncut women. Uncut women were significantly more likely to report that the clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of their body (OR = 0.35, 95% CI = 0.26–0.47), while cut women were more likely to report that their breasts are their most sexually sensitive body parts (OR = 1.91; 95% CI = 1.51–2.42). Cut women were significantly more likely than uncut women to report having lower abdominal pain (OR = 1.54, 95% CI = 1.11–2.14), yellow bad-smelling vaginal discharge (OR = 2.81, 95% CI = 1.54–5.09), white vaginal discharge (OR = 1.65, 95% CI = 1.09–2.49) and genital ulcers (OR = 4.38, 95% CI = 1.13–17.00).

Conclusion Female genital cutting in this group of women did not attenuate sexual feelings. However, female genital cutting may predispose women to adverse sexuality outcomes including early pregnancy and reproductive tract infections. Therefore, female genital cutting cannot be justified by arguments that suggest that it reduces sexual activity in women and prevents adverse outcomes of sexuality.

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[pdx.mothernurture]

Here's my resource list on this topic...some of the links/info may be repeats of what Daisy shared.

FGM & MGM: Comparable? YES!

FGM FACTS

Types of FGM:

I: Removal of the prepuce (clitoral hood), sometimes with removal of part of (or all) of the clitoris. (Often called “Sunna Circumcision”, and comparable to RIC)
II Removal of the clitoris, and some (or all) of the labia minora
III: Removal of some/all of the external genitalia, and infibulation
IV: Other: Pricking/piercing/excising the clitoris/labia, stretching or burning of genital tissue, etc.

Reasons:

A.) Psychosexual: Decrease sexual pleasure, maintain virginity/fidelity, increase sexual pleasure for her partner.
B.) Social: Coming of age/initiation ritual, family/social pressure, conformity.
C.) Hygiene/Cosmetics: Believed to be cleaner and look nicer/tidier.
D.) Myth/Folklore: Belief that it will make a woman more fertile and decrease infant mortality.
E.) Religion: Practiced by some Muslim sects in accordance with Islam.

How:

FGM may be done by a traditional practitioner without formal medical training, or by medical personal in a hospital or other healthcare facility.

When:

FGM is performed on infants, children, teens, and, sometimes even adults.

Where:

Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Also by immigrants in other countries, including the US, Canada, and Australia.

How many:

100-140 million girls and women have been circumcised, with potentially 2 million acts of FGM still occurring annually.

Source: World Health Organization (WHO)
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/

[NOTE: This is not a copyright violation. I did not cut and paste anything, merely compiled the information, altering terminology, reorganizing, and rephrasing the basics.]

Another interesting article:

“In the Cut”

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...877760147.html

Is FGM comparable to Routine Infant Circumcision (RIC)?

BoysToo: “Comparing FGM & MGM: Mutilation for the Same Reasons”:

http://www.boystoo.com/fgm&mgm.htm

Circumstitions: “FGM vs. MGM”:

http://www.circumstitions.com/FGMvsMGM.html

Circumstitions: “AAP: FGM vs. MGM”:

http://www.circumstitions.com/AAP.html

“Similarities in Attitudes and Misconceptions toward Infant Male Circumcision in North America and Ritual Female Genital Mutilation in Africa”, by Hanny-Lightenfoot Klein:

http://www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/mgmfgm.html

International Coalition for Genital Integrity (ICGI):
“Human Genital Mutilation (HGM) Classifications”:
http://www.icgi.org/hgm_classification.htm

Compleat Mother: “Female circumcision. Male circumcision. Is there a difference?”,
by Karen Squires:
http://www.compleatmother.com/articl...umcision.shtml

Yuki’s Intactivism Resource: FGM vs. MGM: http://www.angelfire.com/ca5/intact/fgm.html

NOHARMM: “Common Denominators between Male and Female Circumcision”
www.noharmm.org/comparison.htm

“Genital Mutilation & The United Nations: Male and Female Circumcision, Human Rights, the Restoration of Spiritual Integrity & Freedom”, by Anastasios Zavales,
Presented at the Fourth International Symposium on Sexual Mutilations, Universiity of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, August 9-11, 1996:

http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/fourth/zavales4.html

“Erroneous Belief Systems Underlying Female Genital Mutilation in Sub-Saharan Africa and Male Neonatal Circumcision in the United States: a Brief Report Updated”,
by Hanny-Lightenfoot Klei

Presented at The Third International Symposium on Circumcision, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland May 22-25, 1994.

http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/third/hanny3.html




ACTIVISM:

Ashley Montagu Resolution to End the Mutilation of Children Worldwide:

http://MontaguNOCIRCpetition.org/

US MGM Bill: A Bill to End Male Genital Mutilation in the U.S. :

http://www.mgmbill.org/usmgmbill.htm

[Daisyuk]

Female circ prevents HIV infection

http://www.ias-2005.org/planner/Abstracts.aspx?AID=3138

"Conclusions: A lowered risk of HIV infection among circumcised women was not attributable to confounding with another risk factor in these data. Anthropological insights on female circumcision as practiced in Tanzania may shed light on this conundrum."

[LeosMama]

I'm a bit brain dead here...does this conclusion mean that they're saying that HIV infection is reduced in circumcised women?

[Frankly Speaking]

That's exactly what they are saying.



Frank

[LeosMama]

Wow. I guess I'll be circ'ing any daughter I may have. I have a responsibility to reduce her chances of contracting and spreading HIV/AIDS. I really need to look into this a bit further, thanks for the info.
-Lindsay

[Quirky]

We should ask to have this made a sticky in the Resources sub-forum.

[cornflower_3]

*

[eightyferrettoes]

Originally Posted by cornflower_3

Also, there is another thread where a mother aborted to avoid male circumcision, most people were pretty disgusted. I just wondered if people would feel the same way if she had married into a culture that practiced FGM and aborted to avoid the procedure on a girl?

That though occurred to me as well. Would the woman garner more sympathy from predominantly American posters? I tend to think so... I think it reflects on the fact that even for anti-circ folks, a lot of us don't seem to REALLY equate FGM with its twin brother, circumcision.

My guess is that the society that forced that decision on her would be condemned, not her reaction to it.

[hummingbear]

Thank you for the resources. I think it would be a good sticky too.

[LavenderMae]

Thanks you for putting this all together!!


Cornflower, you bring up a very good question. I think I would feel differently if it was a woman in a country that culturally requires FGM and the reason why is that women in said countries do not have the same kind of power over making decisions for their children that mamas do in the US. I would have told my husband so sorry but no child of mine will have their genitals cut and w/o my consent it would be hard for my husband to do. For me it isn't because I see FGM as worse or something different than MGM but that in countries where FGM is done women/mothers don't have the same rights as women/mothers do here (US). But this would apply to a woman in such countries aborting to save a son from circ too. So for me it isn't FGM versus MGM but what kind of options the woman actually has.
All that said I do think a lot of the people condemning the woman on here wouldn't feel the same if it was about FGM.

[cornflower_3]

*

[Daisyuk]

Outside the US there really isn't any distinction made in people's minds between the two genders, even though girls are legally protected whilst boys are not. Both disgust people when they actually think about it.

My first question to my partner (after the stunned "are you serious, that's SICK!") when I found out what Americans do to their baby boys was "Do you do that to women too?". He was very, very, shocked to find out that I considered the two procedures to be the same in principle, just different in the scale of the damage. Thinking about it, I probably did his ego no good at all, I was just so stunned at finding out what had been done to him that tact went right out the window.

What is also stunning to me is the extent of the cultural blinkers that Americans acquire when talking about this issue; looking at all the information available, and the reasons that FGM is carried out in the societies that practise it, how can they NOT see the parallel reasoning for MGM in their own?

[njeb]

Originally Posted by Daisyuk

Outside the US there really isn't any distinction made in people's minds between the two genders, even though girls are legally protected whilst boys are not. Both disgust people when they actually think about it.

My first question to my partner (after the stunned "are you serious, that's SICK!") when I found out what Americans do to their baby boys was "Do you do that to women too?". He was very, very, shocked to find out that I considered the two procedures to be the same in principle, just different in the scale of the damage. Thinking about it, I probably did his ego no good at all, I was just so stunned at finding out what had been done to him that tact went right out the window.

What is also stunning to me is the extent of the cultural blinkers that Americans acquire when talking about this issue; looking at all the information available, and the reasons that FGM is carried out in the societies that practise it, how can they NOT see the parallel reasoning for MGM in their own?

That is why I'm an intactivist here in the U.S. rather than fighting FGM in other countries. We need to clean up our own back yard first before we start condemning other countries.
You mentioned in another post that you are the partner of a circ'ed American male. How does he feel about his circumcision now that you have educated him on it?

[calngavinsmom]

Is this info, or culd it be, posted in the "Web Resources" sticky? It is a great compilation


Tara

[Daisyuk]

Originally Posted by njeb

That is why I'm an intactivist here in the U.S. rather than fighting FGM in other countries. We need to clean up our own back yard first before we start condemning other countries.
You mentioned in another post that you are the partner of a circ'ed American male. How does he feel about his circumcision now that you have educated him on it?

Apart from a couple of "high volume discussion"s when I found out about cat declawing and dog tail and ear cropping (Me: "what is it with your cutting, mutilating culture? Do you cut bits off anything else? ...." , him: "NOooo...!"), and when he tried to tell me that he thought "Brits" are obsessed with looking for paedophiles and see them everywhere - whereupon I rather let rip about how I'd rather be over protective than what his countrymen happily do to children, we've not really talked about it.

He knows, unfortunately in no uncertain terms, what I think of it, and I don't really want to damage his ego further. I don't think he's particularly happy about it, but he's the sort of person who, if he can't change things he doesn't like, just puts it to the back of his mind and doesn't think of it. I had a rant about the HIV study, and was greeted with polite silence, I didn't push it.

[plantmama]

Wow, these articles are great and very interesting, thank you for posting them! I have no time to read them in depth, just skim right now.
I would definately like to get involved with this thread more, but right now -busy weekend.
I've been having interesting conversations with dh about this subject too. He is circed and came upon the information about how bad male circ is sometime around ds's birth. It was not even on my radar. We were supposed to have a homebirth so it wouldn't have been an issue. Unfortunately ds was born very early and so we were in the hospital for awhile. "NO CIRC" was written in big letters on his binder when they asked if we wanted him to get one. Surprisingly (to me) he was to only uncirced boy that I knew of in the NICU at the time we were there.
Sorry to go so OT.
Anyway, dh has definately been challenging me on my don't compare male and female circ argument because they are so different. So I'm starting to think more about my own sexist assumptions- one of which is males can't be victims. Of course I don't really think that logically, but it is still kind of there in some form or another.
I am wondering what everyone thinks of male circ in terms of sexism, because that is one of the first issues that comes up with FGM- that it is a custom deeply rooted in sexism.
Anyway, I need to read these articles in more depth and hopefully make more sense next time.
-plantmama

[LeosMama]

This is a little related to Daddy Joe's thread about male reproductive rights. Men in our culture are viewed as being oversexed and dangerous. I certainly feel that men are sexually dangerous. Not all men, but enough of them that I am careful of all of them. Men are treated as though they are all potential sexual predators and when accused, best to assume guilt first.
Circ in this country came from punishing boys for masturbating. This is a documented fact, go back and read the old Lancet articles from the late 19th century about circumcision.
We have come with various reasons through the last century to continue it, but I think the main core assumption is that men need to be controlled sexually. We have other ways in our culture of controlling female sexuality, foreskin amputation is the way we do it to males.
There is something uncivilized, non-comforming, primitive, and therefore uncontrolled about a male with a foreskin.
Sexist??

[Bm31]

I agree with a lot of Leosmama's post. It all plays into those old puritanical views of sexuality, especially that of the male. The male is the aggressor and predator with an insatiable sexual appetite and a "dirty," penetrative penis. If we can curb a man's worse impulses with a little "snip, snip," then it's all for the better. We can giggle about it too, and that's acceptable because the man's sexuality has no value.

And I think this totally plays into men being the promoters and enforcers of continuing the practice of circ. Men buy into this BS as well because it plays to our ego's. I've heard way too may times from circ'd men (who wouldn't have any basis for comparison) that it's "better" or they "couldn't stand any more sensation" when perpetuating it with their sons. It comes off to me like they're saying, "Yes, I am the greatest thing alive in bed. I am so oozing with sexuality and power that I'm GLAD they toned me down some. Tee Hee!! I'm fine, so I will cut my son too. Make him a REAL man." (Add chest thumping for effect)

[LeosMama]

Wow, BM31, that is exactly it.

You hear that so often, how circ'd men say how glad they are to be cut b/c they are too sensitive as it is. I'm going to copy your text into my archives, with your permission.

-Lindsay