i see a number of interesting strands in this discussion, two of which strike me as worth pursuing here.

first, it seems like the whole debate could benefit from a close analysis of how consciousness theory is used by each side. we tend to settle the question of FGC by asking whether or not the patients themselves object to it. if they do, then we should add our voices to theirs. if they don’t, then who are we to intervene? perhaps it’s positively meaningful to them! but in this latter case we might quickly object that the patients are victims of false consciousness foisted on them by the ideological agents of their society (chiefs, priests, husbands, etc.). i am not altogether averse to this approach, since i believe it allows us to retain our capacity to act politically. but it has its problems…

and this brings me to my second point. the ideology in question here is readily categorized as patriarchy. in fact, a number of commentators have suggested that patriarchy might be a cultural universal. to me this seems just patently problematic. as ruth benedict has taught us, we can’t assume that social facts that appear similar across cultures (e.g., marriage, love, sex) are indeed comparable. against this advice, we are quick to attribute FGC to patriarchal gender relations: it looks like patriarchy, so we assume it must be. but this impulse merely reflects certain analytical reflexes that themselves derive from our particular culture history. once upon a time we would have been content to see FGC through a functionalist lens, and our relativism – our moral neutrality – would have been built on this basis. by the late 1970s, though, marxist critical theory was gaining traction, and as we began to interrogate previously reified social wholes we found power relationships everywhere. “interest conflict” became the overriding leitmotif of critical analysis. this seems still to be the case among those who insist on moralizing about FGC. this version of the story shows that the men appear to dominate the women, hypnotizing them with narratives and rituals that naturalize their subordination, all in order that the men gain power and prestige and maintain control over resources. gender here is the point of “natural”, taken-for-granted schisms of interest. and it’s a zero-sum game: when the men gain, the women lose, and vice versa. never can their interests be mutual, and they certainly can’t extend beyond the pale of their interest group to encompass greater ends. put all of this together and voila! we have the maximizing individual projected across cultures.

not that his helps us solve the problem, but hopefully it’s useful in assessing its parameters.

Interestingly, (according to Cheryl Chase) intersex surgeries were originally justified in part by the “fact” that African women’s clitorises were removed without impairing their sexual function (meant, in this case, their ability to engage in intercourse and give birth, not their ability to enjoy sex).

Clearly, there are a number of problems with how we understand what happens when a child’s genitals are surgically altered. The claims about the effects of intersex surgery and FGC are contradictory; but not only that, claims in the “west” about surgeries in Africa have changed based on what purposes they are being put to. I doubt that either side is right at this point (although, to be fair, I haven’t had a chance to read the Lancet study yet).

Kate says,

In this light, the different results of FGC are biologically understandable. It need not always result in loss of sexual sensation, depending on the woman and how it’s done.

I’m not sure if I’m interpreting this statement correctly, but I think it’s along the lines of that North American surgeries are different and therefore have different results for women with respect to orgasm/pleasure. That may be true, although I’m not at all convinced based on the anecdotal experiences of intersexed adults.

However, it’s a little different from the point that I was trying to make, which is that if the Lancet study is accurate, and any degree of surgical alteration to the clitoris results in complications during labour, then shouldn’t we see increased complications during the labour of intersex women? Girls often undergo multiple surgeries, and (proportionately) large amounts of tissue are removed. So, if *any* tissue removal causes increased risk during labour (as, I understand, the study indicates), then we should expect that intersex surgery also increases risk for mother and child, regardless of whether the women retain sexual sensation. I don’t think such a study has been done, so I don’t know whether it’s true, but I think it would have interesting implications either way.

Okay, I’m feeling awfully long-winded, so I’ll stop now.

No abusive language. Please try to be constructive.

OK. As you were…

This is explicit in many FGCs. In many communities, it is believed that, left uncut, the clitoris will continue to grow — until it turns into a penis! (Because male circumcision is less focused on in the literature, I don’t know if there is a corrolary for men, if foreskins left uncut are believed to engulf the penis and turn into a vulva.) There is a sexual fluidity at work here, a recognition that nature left to its own devices does not create sexualities and must be helped along — and which, I’m sure, contributes heartily to the resistance many African women exert against the Western insistance on “going natural”.

“If that’s not enough to dissuade you, BC, consider this: Most of the surgeons out there hacking away at different-than-average clits don’t know much about clitoral geography. “They’ve finally started confessing this in the medical meetings I attend,” said Dreger. “For example, the nerves turn out to be in different places than most of them thought. Oops! And most of them don’t know that most women masturbate by rubbing the shaft of the clit—which is kind of like how most men masturbate, by rubbing the shaft of their penises. Meanwhile the shaft is what surgeons typically remove, thinking only the glans (the nubbin at the tip) is what’s important. Oops again!”

You can read the entire column and get links to Dreger’s cite at
http://citypages.com/databank/27/1330/article14392.asp

In this light, the different results of FGC are biologically understandable. It need not always result in loss of sexual sensation, depending on the woman and how it’s done.

At the same time, we are apparently not free of forms of FGC ourselves, as in the case of intersex operations.

There’s a strange parallel in modern Western discussions of genitalia as related to male or female sexuality. I am, for instance, astounded by the idea that someone could have the ‘wrong size’ of clitoris. Let’s see — we can have penises that are ‘too small’ (maybe) but apparently never ‘too large.’ And we can have clitorides that are ‘too large,’ but has anyone heard a discussion of a clitoris that’s ‘too small’?

That doesn’t mean I think those stupid outfits or the burka get a free pass from critical consideration.

And I\’m not trying to forestall critical consideration here; if anything, I hope I\’m encouraging *more* critical thought. If we take veiling as an example, whatever we think of veiling, I think we can agree that the French feminists public, and often forceful, unveiling of North African women at the end of the 19th c. was not the right way to deal with the issue. And how do we know that? Well, for one thing, because since then we\’ve spent a lot of time trying to discuss the complexities of veiling in its many manifestations and of the cultures in which it occurs. I think a lot of the anti-FGC activism today is similarly misguided and, like Victorian-era anti-veiling efforts, often racist and sexist. But there seems to be an incredible resistance to the notion that better ideas might emerge from a better understanding of the cultural context in which FGC occurs, and I have to wonder why that is.

(more to the point: it is REALLY significant that we spend so much fucking time discussing what women fucking wear)

And what do you think the fact that we spend at least as much time talking about their genitals says about us? And that we\’ve done so for at least 2 centuries…?

This piece is not intended as a defense of FGC or even to dissuade activism intended to help women for whom FGC is a part of their daily lives. Rather, it is hoped that by complicating the over-simplified representations that make up the bulk of anti-FGC discussions, more effective action can be developed that, while it may not directly address the end of FGC, can improve the lives of women overall and indirectly address the issue at hand.

So, both Oneman and Ozma agree that any attempt to deal with FGC requires coming to terms with inequality. The difference I see is that Oneman is making an effort to describe what dealing with inequality might mean (i.e. “understanding complexity”), while Ozma sees any such efforts as a defense of FGC. (Presumably Ozma feels that inequality must be dealt with as a separate issue, which strikes me as overly materialist.)

Ozma also seems to deliberately misrepresent Oneman’s “abortion” argument – which (as I understand it) is not a defense of FGC but an argument that legalizing it would make it safer. Perhaps bringing abortion into this discussion was unwise – heroin needle distribution programs might have been a better analogy, but I don’t think he is saying what Ozma implies he is saying.

While I am horrified at FGC and don’t see any way in which it could be excusable, the whole “white men [and women] saving brown women from brown men” disturbs me (mostly because I know many brown women who are disturbed by it). I think any solution to FGC needs to come to terms with this concern in order to be successful.

I suspect that Oneman deliberately overstated his case in order to provoke reaction. For this reason it is probably easy to selectively pick out quotes showing him to be clueless and insensitive to the issue; but doing so seems to miss his point and his concerns.

And my argument about patriarchy is a little more complex than you’re giving me credit for — I don’t see how us telling women what to do with their genitals is any less patriarchal than their own cultures telling them. If we are going to advocate for better women’s health *and* more equal power relationships for African and other women, we have to get around that, and I think ignoring women’s own complex relationships with FGC and with their own bodies is *not* the way to do that.

On the “crap reasons”, I agree with Carmen, and I’ll go one further — most discussion of FGC isn’t concerned with the crappiness of the reasons because most pays scant attention to reasons of any sort. And *then*, the small number of people who pay attention have the nerve to label women’s reasons “crap”. Again, how does this help?

I don’t see how a stand that suggests that all FGC forms are misogynistic, harmful to women, and things that women would never, ever choose is anything other than deeply ethnocentric and problematic. Women do choose to get their genitals altered, all the time. Sometimes (often) it’s problematic. Sometimes it’s rooted in misogyny, patriarchy, or just general bad reasoning. But given the prevalence and history of body modification in humans, I don’t think that we can boil it down to something that is simply about men verses women, oppression, or subjugation. And I don’t think that we can say that the balance of norms, choice, power, etc. is the same in every case.

And I’m sorry, but I can’t help but see the evidence that most forms of FGC are NOT associated with medical problems (or only very weakly associated) as being incredibly relevant to women’s choices. I do not see a defensible feminist position in using misinformation to argue that other women shouldn’t do something that the feminist women just happen to have a moral objection to. This is taking licence to take away some women’s choices based on moral judgements (it’s like saying “it’s okay to say that it prevents fertility, even though it doesn’t, because they respond to issues of fertility and *we* know that they should stop”).

Thus the slippery slope I didn’t want to go down. But if you really want to get technical (and I’m not an expert on the subject by any means, so I may be wrong), I don’t think rape would be defensible because it takes away female choice, which is an integral part of sexual relations. I won’t defend this statement any further, because it was just me thinking out loud and not something I’m willing to commit to. That’s the beauty of blogs, right?

And, yeah, you’re right, I could see that coming. But for me, my comment had nothing to do with you being a woman and me being a man, it had to do with you withdrawing from the discussion rather than returning Dustin’s argument. You’re the one who made it about you being a woman, not me. And I know that sounds like a tired argument, but in this case I think it holds water. And if all else fails and you were offended by it, I really do apologize.

in re: sense of humour. you probably saw this one coming from a thousand miles away too, but it’s what people always — always — say about feminists and their arguments. If only they weren’t so humorless, if only they used a different tone, if only they weren’t so overbearing, if only they talked about X instead of Y, if only…

*then* they might be worth listening to. But until then:

feminists 0
same damn thing over and over 1

In all seriousness, however, I agree with a lot of your criticisms and I’m glad you decided to come back and voice them; the only way to lose an argument is to stop arguing.

I’m still not sure where to stand on the matter of biology – I haven’t seen any of the referenced studies and can’t make a judgment without seeing the facts – but I know if arguing from the position of biological ethics one can make the argument that given the cultures which practice FGC, cutting is biologically ethical if it increases one’s chance of reproduction and (if Dustin’s biological facts are correct) has little ill effects.

I won’t argue that position myself; it’s a slippery slope I don’t want to travel down, not to mention I couldn’t really take myself seriously if I said it. I would always prefer to take the route of systemic change than fitting one’s morals to the system. But what do we use as a blueprint? It all depends on where you’re arguing from – geographically, politically, ethically – even from which field of scholarship you’re coming from (or whether you come from a field of scholarship at all). How do we decide?