Thursday, February 12, 2009
Female journalists attacked after reporting on genital mutilation
3 comments
After reporting on female genital mutilation, four female journalists were attacked by an all-women pro-FGM group in Sierra Leone. The attackers, members from Bondo society, which uses circumcision to initiate new members, abducted the women, stripped them, and forced them to march through the city of Kenema. The women were freed by police and human rights organizations.
"Pro-FGM" women sounds like just as much of an oxymoron as "feminists for life." Genital cutting is a cultural issue, and so it makes sense that as an American who has never faced it, I can't even begin to understand why women would support it. Why support something that defiles and dehumanizes the body and soul? How can they so easily accept a practice that mutilates the most delicate part of a woman's body, leaving her partially empty for the rest of her life?
I just can't understand it. And this story proves that this issue is a delicate one. Female genital mutilation is not likely to go away soon.
"Pro-FGM" women sounds like just as much of an oxymoron as "feminists for life." Genital cutting is a cultural issue, and so it makes sense that as an American who has never faced it, I can't even begin to understand why women would support it. Why support something that defiles and dehumanizes the body and soul? How can they so easily accept a practice that mutilates the most delicate part of a woman's body, leaving her partially empty for the rest of her life?
I just can't understand it. And this story proves that this issue is a delicate one. Female genital mutilation is not likely to go away soon.
Posts
February 13, 2009 at 9:29 AM
This is shocking and you are right, it is very hard as a Westerner to understand the cultural draw of this sick practice to the women who suffer it. I can only venture to guess that the pro-FGM women really DO believe that it is wrong for them to experience sexual pleasure, or perhaps since they went through it, they want all women to go through it.
It really is a sad, sad subject to read about. Not only the clitoris but whole parts of the labia are cut off, resulting in infection and lifelong problems having your period and peeing. I don't know how women can live after that.
February 16, 2009 at 6:54 PM
It's hard to understand as it's not part of our culture, but in my point of view, the reasoning behind it is prevalent in all cultures. If a woman feels that she has to cut off parts of her vagina to curb sexual urges for religious reasons then let her do it but why are men's own actions never considered in this human desire to remain chaste and pure? There are so many examples worldwide of sexual deviance being the fault of women for wearing what they wear or looking how they do and no one holds men accountable for the fact that they don't stop themselves from having sex. Why else would rape victims be the first ones to get ostracized and single mothers be scorned for suppporting their children as though they created the child all their own? To me, FGM is just as bad as a purity ball here in the states and I can't take either seriously until there are programs that make men responsible for what they do sexually instead of putting all the weight on us on the basis of "boys will be boys."
February 21, 2009 at 12:48 AM
There are a lot of things that I feel Westerners don't have a right comment on, because they are cultural differences. But I think other times to shrug things off as a cultural difference is equally offensive. So brutalizing genitals is a cultural thing? What does that say about someone else's culture?
Though I think male circumcision is also horrendous & brutal mutilation. Not nearly as much a female circumcision, but the fact that we approve, condone & bully others into doing one while crying out against the latter is very confusing indeed. What does that say about OUR culture that any guy with a foreskin is a freak?