Re-flower the De-flowered

When one thinks of circumcision, well at least when I do, the idea of male circumcision immediately comes to mind. In our western culture, you don't hear to much about what female circumcision - in fact when we do, it's usually something that people see as horrible and disgusting. In Kirsten Bell's article "Genital Cutting and Western Discourses on Sexuality", Bell explains the female circumcision practice in Africa, and that they do it to discourage masturbation and to calm a woman's 'wild and outrageous' sexuality. This article emphasizes that the clitoris is seen as an equivalent to the penis, and that the only similar procedure to men as removing a woman's clitoris is a full castration, and that removing the clitoris would ruin a female's sexuality and that a men's sexuality is all based on their orgasm. In Africa, male circumcision (also female circumcision) is to discourage masturbation because it is considered 'unclean' and can lead to multiple health problems. Most negative views on genital cutting are western perspectives, while African women claim that their sexuality is unaffected by the procedure. In the end, it all just comes down to judging a culture on their own terms rather than your own.

(1)

I found this article a bit disturbing to be totally honest, but also interesting because it gave me a perspective on something that I thought to be so taboo and, well, gross that I have never been exposed to before. While looking at the procedure images online to better understand how these procedures were done, i couldn't help but shiver, especially the ones with the removal of the female clitoris or the sewing together of the vaginal walls. There are activists for stopping female genital mutilation, and ones for men too, but I cannot help but wonder if the ones who are the activists have even spoken to the women and men in Africa (for the sake argument) who have undergone these procedures and how it affected them. By living in a different culture and society all together, these activist groups may just be fighting for a cause that they don't really know anything about. 

(2)

These theme of being an activist for something that is unfamiliar to someone can be seen in multiple places in our society. One example is the wearing of a hijab in the Islamic religion. Just like the anti-genital cutting activists, there are groups that go against wearing a hijab and they are typically, as you may have guessed, groups of people who are not involved with the Islamic culture in any way and are probably from the West. Little do these so-called 'activists' know is that (1) In no where in the Qua'ran does it say that women must where one and (2) Not every Muslim women even wears a hijab. Wearing a hijab is rather considered a form of identity and is accepted among Muslim women as something that they want to wear, not something they have to wear. 

Though I am completely aware that there are obvious differences between the wearing or a hijab and the removal or a piece of flesh from a woman's body, I wanted to point out the idea that activists who make these 'women's rights' issues seem so catastrophic and deal with the objectification of women truly do not have an understanding or that culture at all...usually anyway. I can't help but wonder if this idea of cultural relativism will ever sink in to societies and that people can understand that not all cultures are the same or have the same ideals - but I fear that will not be the case. Especially not in the near future. So I suppose the key question here is to ask the following question: is genital mutilation wrong? Also, will we ever truly have an answer to this question that isn't varied between cultures? As I said earlier, most likely not. 

Text
(a) Kirsten Bell. 2005. "Genital Cutting and Western Discourses on Sexuality". Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19(2):125-148.
Images

(1) http://www.notcot.org/post/7741/Amnesty-Sweden-release-three-campaign-posters-against-f/

(2) http://www.youngchicagoauthors.org/girlspeak/features_bridging_the_disconnect_unveiling_the_hijab_and_islamic_feminism_by_diamond_sharp.htm