Female Genital Mutilation...all in the name of culture...
gimmesometruth27
St. Fuckin Louis Posts: 23,303
British girls undergo horror of genital mutilation despite tough laws
Female circumcision will be inflicted on up to 2,000 British schoolgirls during the summer holidays – leaving brutal physical and emotional scars. Yet there have been no prosecutions against the practice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/ ... ritish-law
Like any 12-year-old, Jamelia was excited at the prospect of a plane journey and a long summer holiday in the sun. An avid reader, she had filled her suitcases with books and was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when her mother came for her. "She said, 'You know it's going to be today?' I didn't know exactly what it would entail but I knew something was going to be cut. I was made to believe it was genuinely part of our religion."
She went on: "I came to the living room and there were loads of women. I later found out it was to hold me down, they bring lots of women to hold the girl down. I thought I was going to be brave so I didn't really need that. I just lay down and I remember looking at the ceiling and staring at the fan.
"I don't remember screaming, I remember the ridiculous amount of pain, I remember the blood everywhere, one of the maids, I actually saw her pick up the bit of flesh that they cut away 'cause she was mopping up the blood. There was blood everywhere."
Some 500 to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be genitally mutilated over the summer holidays. Some will be taken abroad, others will be "cut" or circumcised and sewn closed here in the UK by women already living here or who are flown in and brought to "cutting parties" for a few girls at a time in a cost-saving exercise.
Then the girls will return to their schools and try to get on with their lives, scarred mentally and physically by female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that serves as a social and cultural bonding exercise and, among those who are stitched up, to ensure that chastity can be proved to a future husband.
Even girls who suffer less extreme forms of FGM are unlikely to be promiscuous. One study among Egyptian women found 50% of women who had undergone FGM "endured" rather than enjoyed sex.
Cleanliness, neatness of appearance and the increased sexual pleasure for the man are all motivations for the practice. But the desire to conform to tradition is the most powerful motive. The rite of passage, condemned by many Islamic scholars, predates both the Koran and the Bible and possibly even Judaism, appearing in the 2nd century BC.
Although unable to give consent, many girls are compliant when they have the prodecure carried out, believing they will be outcasts if they are not cut. The mothers believe they are doing the best for their daughters. Few have any idea of the lifetime of hurt it can involve or the medical implications.
Jamelia, now 20, who says her whole personality changed afterwards."I felt a lot older. It was odd because nobody says this is a secret, keep your mouth shut but that's the message you get loud and clear." She stopped the sports and swimming she used to love and became "strangely disconnected with her own body". Other girls have died, of shock or blood loss; some have picked up infections from dirty tools. Jamelia's mother paid extra for the woman to use a clean razor. It is thought that in the UK there are one or two doctors who can be bribed by the very rich to to carry out FGM using anaesthetic and sterilised instruments.
Comfort Momoh works at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, in one of the 16 clinics up and down the country who deal with FGM and its health repercusssions. Women who have had much of their external genitalia sliced off and their vaginas stitched closed, but for a tiny hole, also come to be cut open in order to give birth.
There are four types of female circumcision identified by the World Health Organisation, ranging from partial to total removal of the external female genitalia. Some 140 million women worldwide have been subjected to FGM and an estimated further two million are at risk every year. Most live in 28 African countries while others are in Yemen, Kurdistan, the US, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Canada.
The UK Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985 makes it an offence to carry out FGM or to aid, abet or procure the service of another person. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, makes it against the law for FGM to be performed anywhere in the world on UK permanent residents of any age and carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment. To date, no prosecutions have been made under UK legislation.
"Obviously in summer we get really anxious. All activists and professionals working around FGM get anxious because this is the time that families take their children back home. This is the time when all the professionals need to be really alert," said Momoh.
"There is no hard evidence in figures about what is happening in the UK because it's a hush-hush thing. It's only now that a few people are beginning to talk about it, which is good because change will only come from within and the numbers coming forward are rising. But there is a lot of family pressure. When I first started in 1997 we had two clinics in the country, now we have 16."
One woman told the Observer how a midwife examining her had raced retching and crying from the room. She had no idea she was "abnormal" before that happened. There is a clear need for women who have suffered FGM to be able to visit health professionals who understand what has happened to them. Momoh said that for those who wanted it, some surgical reversal work could sometimes be done on women with the most severe FGM procedure, Type III. For those with other types, counselling and support is all that can offered.
"Periods are agony – you get a lot of women who are determined to have reversals while they are having their period but then when the pain has stopped they lose their nerve again," said Leyla Hussein, 29, who has had to have years of counselling to cope with her own anger and distress at what was done to her as a child. It has helped her forgive her own mother's complicity in the mutilation she endured, though the older woman could not understand why Hussein would not have her own child, now aged seven, cut. But Hussein has vowed that she will be the last generation of women in her family to suffer.
"It was my husband who said on our honeymoon, 'We are not going to do this thing to any child of ours.' I was quite shocked, I hadn't questioned it. But I now realise a lot of men are not in favour of FGM, not when you tell them the woman is not going to enjoy herself."
Hussein is among a slowly but steadily growing band of women who have reacted against what happened to them with courage and a determination to stamp out FGM. Hussein has run support and discussion groups for affected women and for men, and formerly worked at the African Well Women's Centre in Leyton, east London.
"I can really relate to some of the women who are very angry, but how do you blame your mother, who loves you yet planned this for you? There is a lot of anger and resentment. Many women blame themselves and of course there are flashbacks to deal with. I had blackouts – anytime I had to have a smear test, I would pass out because lying in that position brought it back to me, but the nurse is used to me now and allows a little more time with the appointment."
"The new generation, born and raised here in Britain, they are used to expressing their views and it will be a lot harder to shut them up. Last month was the first ever march against FGM [in Bristol where 15 to 16 mothers protested] and that is a sign of something new."
Asha-Kin Duale is a community partnership adviser in Camden, London. She talks to schools and to families about safeguarding children. "Culture has positive and negative issues for every immigrant community. We value some traditions, and most are largely good.
"FGM is not confined to African countries. It has no basis in Christianity, it has no basis in Islam; none of Muhammad's daughters had it done. For some parents it is enough to let them know that and they will drop it completely. Everyone needs to understand that every child, no matter what the background or creed, is protected by this law in this land."
She said there needed to be an understanding of why FGM took place, although that was not the same as accepting that the practice had a cultural justification.
"FGM has a social function and until this is understood by social services and other bodies they will never stop it. It is a power negotiation mechanism, that women use to ensure respect from men. It prevents rape of daughters and is a social tool to allow women to regain some power in patriarchal societies. With girls living in the UK there is no need to gain the power – it has to be understood that girls can be good girls without FGM."
For Jason Morgan, a detective constable in the Met's FGM unit, Project Azure, the solution lies with those girls themselves: "Empowering youth, giving them the information, is the way forward. They are coming from predominantly caring and loving families, who genuinely believe this is the right thing to do. Many are under a great deal of pressure from the extended families.
"Sometimes it might be as simple as delivering the message of what the legal position is; sometimes we even give them an official letter, a document that they can show to the extended family that states quite firmly what will happen if the procedure goes ahead. The focus has to be on prevention."
Project Azure made 38 interventions in 2008, 59 in 2009 and 25 so far this year. For Morgan those statistics are just as important as getting a conviction. "We know it happens here although we have no official statistics, but we have seen very successful partnerships and we don't want to alienate communities through heavy-handed tactics.
"While a prosecution would send out a very clear message to practising communities, really it is very difficult and you would be relying on medical evidence, and in turn that would all hinge or whether the child consents to an examination."
But Naana Otoo-Oyortey is not so content with the softly-softly approach: "We have anecdotal evidence that it is being done here. So someone is not doing their job: it's an indication that the government has been failing to protect children. The commitment is hollow."
Head of the leading anti-FGM charity Forward UK, Otoo-Oyortey said people value the FGM tradition as something which holds a community together and gives it structure. "It's seen as a party, a cutting party because it's a celebration – people expect it as a way of welcoming a girl. A lot of women will mention to us that there have been no prosecutions here so why do we worry about the law? At the end of the day who will know?
"And we cannot just blame the women as the men are silently supporting it by paying for it. The new government's lack of a position on FGM is very worrying. We don't know what they will do, but we do know that the summer holidays are here again and we will be left to pick up the pieces in a few weeks' time."
And for those who will be "cut" this summer, the effects will be lifelong. Miriam was six when she had her cutting party at her home in Somalia, two years before war arrived to force her family out.
When she was 12, doctors were horrified to find that what they thought was a cyst in her body was actually several years of period blood that had been blocked from leaving her body. Unable to have children, she now lives and works in England and worries about other girls. "I'd seen so many people circumcised, all my neighbours, so I knew one day it was going to happen to me. We knew what was happening," Miriam said.
"The little girls who were born in Europe have no clue. They will be traumatised a lot more. The only thing they know is that they are going away – that's what they say, 'We're going on a holiday'.
"Then her life and her head are going to be messed up. It's amazing how many people are in mental health care because of their culture. Don't get me wrong, I have religion and culture and I love where I'm from and I love what I stand for. But culture should not be about torture.
"Why would anyone want to go and cut up a seven- or eight-year-old child? People need to wake up — you are hurting your child, you are hurting your daughter, you're not going to have a grandchild, so wake up."
Female genital mutilation: the facts
■ Female genital mutilation, also known as cutting, is practised in 28 African countries. The prevalence rate ranges from 98% of girls in Somalia to 5% in Zaire. It also takes place among ethnic groups in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand.
■ Until the 1950s FGM was used in England and the US as a "treatment" for lesbianism, masturbation, hysteria, epilepsy and other "female deviances".
■ A survey in Kenya found a fourfold drop in FGM rates among girls who had secondary education.
■ Reasons for the practice include conforming to social norms, enhancing sexual pleasure for men and reducing it for women, cleanliness and chastity.
■ No European country accepts the threat of FGM as a reason for asylum.
■ In Sudan, 20%-25% of female infertility has been linked to FGM complications.
■ In Chad, girls have begun to seek FGM without pressure from their immediate family, believing that to be "sewn up" proves they are virginal and clean. The fashion has led to uncircumcised girls being labelled "dirty".
Female circumcision will be inflicted on up to 2,000 British schoolgirls during the summer holidays – leaving brutal physical and emotional scars. Yet there have been no prosecutions against the practice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/ ... ritish-law
Like any 12-year-old, Jamelia was excited at the prospect of a plane journey and a long summer holiday in the sun. An avid reader, she had filled her suitcases with books and was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when her mother came for her. "She said, 'You know it's going to be today?' I didn't know exactly what it would entail but I knew something was going to be cut. I was made to believe it was genuinely part of our religion."
She went on: "I came to the living room and there were loads of women. I later found out it was to hold me down, they bring lots of women to hold the girl down. I thought I was going to be brave so I didn't really need that. I just lay down and I remember looking at the ceiling and staring at the fan.
"I don't remember screaming, I remember the ridiculous amount of pain, I remember the blood everywhere, one of the maids, I actually saw her pick up the bit of flesh that they cut away 'cause she was mopping up the blood. There was blood everywhere."
Some 500 to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be genitally mutilated over the summer holidays. Some will be taken abroad, others will be "cut" or circumcised and sewn closed here in the UK by women already living here or who are flown in and brought to "cutting parties" for a few girls at a time in a cost-saving exercise.
Then the girls will return to their schools and try to get on with their lives, scarred mentally and physically by female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that serves as a social and cultural bonding exercise and, among those who are stitched up, to ensure that chastity can be proved to a future husband.
Even girls who suffer less extreme forms of FGM are unlikely to be promiscuous. One study among Egyptian women found 50% of women who had undergone FGM "endured" rather than enjoyed sex.
Cleanliness, neatness of appearance and the increased sexual pleasure for the man are all motivations for the practice. But the desire to conform to tradition is the most powerful motive. The rite of passage, condemned by many Islamic scholars, predates both the Koran and the Bible and possibly even Judaism, appearing in the 2nd century BC.
Although unable to give consent, many girls are compliant when they have the prodecure carried out, believing they will be outcasts if they are not cut. The mothers believe they are doing the best for their daughters. Few have any idea of the lifetime of hurt it can involve or the medical implications.
Jamelia, now 20, who says her whole personality changed afterwards."I felt a lot older. It was odd because nobody says this is a secret, keep your mouth shut but that's the message you get loud and clear." She stopped the sports and swimming she used to love and became "strangely disconnected with her own body". Other girls have died, of shock or blood loss; some have picked up infections from dirty tools. Jamelia's mother paid extra for the woman to use a clean razor. It is thought that in the UK there are one or two doctors who can be bribed by the very rich to to carry out FGM using anaesthetic and sterilised instruments.
Comfort Momoh works at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, in one of the 16 clinics up and down the country who deal with FGM and its health repercusssions. Women who have had much of their external genitalia sliced off and their vaginas stitched closed, but for a tiny hole, also come to be cut open in order to give birth.
There are four types of female circumcision identified by the World Health Organisation, ranging from partial to total removal of the external female genitalia. Some 140 million women worldwide have been subjected to FGM and an estimated further two million are at risk every year. Most live in 28 African countries while others are in Yemen, Kurdistan, the US, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Canada.
The UK Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985 makes it an offence to carry out FGM or to aid, abet or procure the service of another person. The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003, makes it against the law for FGM to be performed anywhere in the world on UK permanent residents of any age and carries a maximum sentence of 14 years imprisonment. To date, no prosecutions have been made under UK legislation.
"Obviously in summer we get really anxious. All activists and professionals working around FGM get anxious because this is the time that families take their children back home. This is the time when all the professionals need to be really alert," said Momoh.
"There is no hard evidence in figures about what is happening in the UK because it's a hush-hush thing. It's only now that a few people are beginning to talk about it, which is good because change will only come from within and the numbers coming forward are rising. But there is a lot of family pressure. When I first started in 1997 we had two clinics in the country, now we have 16."
One woman told the Observer how a midwife examining her had raced retching and crying from the room. She had no idea she was "abnormal" before that happened. There is a clear need for women who have suffered FGM to be able to visit health professionals who understand what has happened to them. Momoh said that for those who wanted it, some surgical reversal work could sometimes be done on women with the most severe FGM procedure, Type III. For those with other types, counselling and support is all that can offered.
"Periods are agony – you get a lot of women who are determined to have reversals while they are having their period but then when the pain has stopped they lose their nerve again," said Leyla Hussein, 29, who has had to have years of counselling to cope with her own anger and distress at what was done to her as a child. It has helped her forgive her own mother's complicity in the mutilation she endured, though the older woman could not understand why Hussein would not have her own child, now aged seven, cut. But Hussein has vowed that she will be the last generation of women in her family to suffer.
"It was my husband who said on our honeymoon, 'We are not going to do this thing to any child of ours.' I was quite shocked, I hadn't questioned it. But I now realise a lot of men are not in favour of FGM, not when you tell them the woman is not going to enjoy herself."
Hussein is among a slowly but steadily growing band of women who have reacted against what happened to them with courage and a determination to stamp out FGM. Hussein has run support and discussion groups for affected women and for men, and formerly worked at the African Well Women's Centre in Leyton, east London.
"I can really relate to some of the women who are very angry, but how do you blame your mother, who loves you yet planned this for you? There is a lot of anger and resentment. Many women blame themselves and of course there are flashbacks to deal with. I had blackouts – anytime I had to have a smear test, I would pass out because lying in that position brought it back to me, but the nurse is used to me now and allows a little more time with the appointment."
"The new generation, born and raised here in Britain, they are used to expressing their views and it will be a lot harder to shut them up. Last month was the first ever march against FGM [in Bristol where 15 to 16 mothers protested] and that is a sign of something new."
Asha-Kin Duale is a community partnership adviser in Camden, London. She talks to schools and to families about safeguarding children. "Culture has positive and negative issues for every immigrant community. We value some traditions, and most are largely good.
"FGM is not confined to African countries. It has no basis in Christianity, it has no basis in Islam; none of Muhammad's daughters had it done. For some parents it is enough to let them know that and they will drop it completely. Everyone needs to understand that every child, no matter what the background or creed, is protected by this law in this land."
She said there needed to be an understanding of why FGM took place, although that was not the same as accepting that the practice had a cultural justification.
"FGM has a social function and until this is understood by social services and other bodies they will never stop it. It is a power negotiation mechanism, that women use to ensure respect from men. It prevents rape of daughters and is a social tool to allow women to regain some power in patriarchal societies. With girls living in the UK there is no need to gain the power – it has to be understood that girls can be good girls without FGM."
For Jason Morgan, a detective constable in the Met's FGM unit, Project Azure, the solution lies with those girls themselves: "Empowering youth, giving them the information, is the way forward. They are coming from predominantly caring and loving families, who genuinely believe this is the right thing to do. Many are under a great deal of pressure from the extended families.
"Sometimes it might be as simple as delivering the message of what the legal position is; sometimes we even give them an official letter, a document that they can show to the extended family that states quite firmly what will happen if the procedure goes ahead. The focus has to be on prevention."
Project Azure made 38 interventions in 2008, 59 in 2009 and 25 so far this year. For Morgan those statistics are just as important as getting a conviction. "We know it happens here although we have no official statistics, but we have seen very successful partnerships and we don't want to alienate communities through heavy-handed tactics.
"While a prosecution would send out a very clear message to practising communities, really it is very difficult and you would be relying on medical evidence, and in turn that would all hinge or whether the child consents to an examination."
But Naana Otoo-Oyortey is not so content with the softly-softly approach: "We have anecdotal evidence that it is being done here. So someone is not doing their job: it's an indication that the government has been failing to protect children. The commitment is hollow."
Head of the leading anti-FGM charity Forward UK, Otoo-Oyortey said people value the FGM tradition as something which holds a community together and gives it structure. "It's seen as a party, a cutting party because it's a celebration – people expect it as a way of welcoming a girl. A lot of women will mention to us that there have been no prosecutions here so why do we worry about the law? At the end of the day who will know?
"And we cannot just blame the women as the men are silently supporting it by paying for it. The new government's lack of a position on FGM is very worrying. We don't know what they will do, but we do know that the summer holidays are here again and we will be left to pick up the pieces in a few weeks' time."
And for those who will be "cut" this summer, the effects will be lifelong. Miriam was six when she had her cutting party at her home in Somalia, two years before war arrived to force her family out.
When she was 12, doctors were horrified to find that what they thought was a cyst in her body was actually several years of period blood that had been blocked from leaving her body. Unable to have children, she now lives and works in England and worries about other girls. "I'd seen so many people circumcised, all my neighbours, so I knew one day it was going to happen to me. We knew what was happening," Miriam said.
"The little girls who were born in Europe have no clue. They will be traumatised a lot more. The only thing they know is that they are going away – that's what they say, 'We're going on a holiday'.
"Then her life and her head are going to be messed up. It's amazing how many people are in mental health care because of their culture. Don't get me wrong, I have religion and culture and I love where I'm from and I love what I stand for. But culture should not be about torture.
"Why would anyone want to go and cut up a seven- or eight-year-old child? People need to wake up — you are hurting your child, you are hurting your daughter, you're not going to have a grandchild, so wake up."
Female genital mutilation: the facts
■ Female genital mutilation, also known as cutting, is practised in 28 African countries. The prevalence rate ranges from 98% of girls in Somalia to 5% in Zaire. It also takes place among ethnic groups in the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, the US and New Zealand.
■ Until the 1950s FGM was used in England and the US as a "treatment" for lesbianism, masturbation, hysteria, epilepsy and other "female deviances".
■ A survey in Kenya found a fourfold drop in FGM rates among girls who had secondary education.
■ Reasons for the practice include conforming to social norms, enhancing sexual pleasure for men and reducing it for women, cleanliness and chastity.
■ No European country accepts the threat of FGM as a reason for asylum.
■ In Sudan, 20%-25% of female infertility has been linked to FGM complications.
■ In Chad, girls have begun to seek FGM without pressure from their immediate family, believing that to be "sewn up" proves they are virginal and clean. The fashion has led to uncircumcised girls being labelled "dirty".
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
:thumbup:
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
Thanks for posting this. I think the points I quoted are particularly relevant.
FGM, the whole history of "treatment" for "female deviances," and the desired outcomes of enhancing sexual pleasure for men and reducing it for women, speak VOLUMES about the patriarchal world in which we live - past and present. Even women's sexuality has historically been, and obviously still is in many ways, male-centric.
It used to be believed that the uterus was an independent being, like a parasite, that lived inside women. This provided the scientific rationale for the belief that women are defective, lesser beings than men. So not only were most issues a woman could have (e.g. headaches or depression) attributed to this "wandering womb," but so were any social issues that could be ascribed to them (e.g. not wanting to have kids, wanting to enjoy sex, or not wanting to be forced to have sex with your husband any time and any way he wanted it). This condition was called hysteria, after hystera, the Greek word for uterus. Though there were many "treatments", the ultimate cure, then, was to remove the uterus - a hysterectomy. Even in more modern times, the uterus was still thought to be the source of women's health issues and "female deviances". Sex and childbearing were thought to be the appetites of the uterus and inactivity was thought to fuel an overactive uterus, so the primary treatments were marriage (as soon as puberty hit, with lots of sex with your husband), motherhood (constant pregnancy), housework (to the exclusion of intellectual pursuits) and, as a temporary fix, manually-induced orgasm by a medical professional. Hence the invention of the vibrator. It was originally designed as a medical device for doctors to induce orgasm (they could see more patients and make more money with this technology). The first vibrator, invented in 1869, was steam-powered, but an electric one was invented by the 1880s. Though they were huge contraptions designed only to be used in doctor's offices, the turn of the century brought the small electric motor and home appliances. The vibrator was the 5th electrical appliance to be introduced into the home. Still meant as a medical device, it only became taboo once films started showing women actually enjoying their use. The idea that women would desire or achieve sexual pleasure was considered wrong and obscene.
I just realized that I think I've gotten off on a tangent.
Anyway, the drop in FGM rates among girls with secondary educations is just another example of how educated women are better able to control their reproductive health. I believe it was the World Bank that has noted that the most important thing we can do to improve the condition of people in the world is to educate girls.
Oh yes, and I agree that it seems oxymoronical to disapprove of female circumcision but approve of male circumcision. I wonder what that says about our belief that our Western traditions are more valid than those of other cultures. Or maybe it's because male circumcisions happen on babies, who don't remember the experience and go on to tell the horrible tale.
Also, regarding the girls story above about all the blood, my friend delivered a giant baby recently who tore his mom all the way through her clitoris. The clitoris has such a large blood supply that this patient almost died from all the blood loss. Moral issues aside, FGM seems like a public health issue to me.
Apply to own countries as well.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
i think there is a major, major difference between a snip of the foreskin and the systematic destroying of the female genitalia...
culture and history are no excuse and should not trump ethics and basic human rights...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
But isn't your perception based on what you think of as 'normal'. Some would also see it as a form of mutilation.
Being from the UK my perception is different someone in the US where male circumcision is routine (you could argue culture/tradition in the US). Here it is usually linked to religon and would not be routine outside the Jewish and Muslim faiths.
Personally I would be against either form of circumcision.
This alone is mind boggling
Neanderthals, just no light in there, no light to their souls. No humanity in their hearts.
Something so intimately shared between two people. The act of love itself and a union to bring another soul into this world.
Any man supporting these practices should rot in hell.
It's a mans world still, it is men who need to help stop this and woman who must say no to barbarism.
God made us the way we are for a reason. To share love, key word share.
This is so alien to me. I cannot imagine any mother having her daughter go through this, especially when the do it knowing that it's wrong, so they are going to the lengths of having it done back in their native country, or during a cutting party they clearly know is illegal.
the article also says that this "procedure" or "rite" predates the bible and the koran and that it is NOT based on religion, rather than family/society pressure and choice. i just do not see a point in condemning a young girl to a lifetime of being unable to enjoy sexual intercourse. the clitoris is cut out of her for god's sake.....
i don't know about most of you, but i believe that sexual health and a healthy sexual relationship with your partner is something that all of us should be entitled to.
i think we as the human race could stand to be a little better to one another. we are capable of such great things while at the same time being capable of such barbarism...
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
There are MANY 'traditional' practices that are there to control and subjugate women in the world. Obviously, not all of 'mutilation', but the spirit is the same. These traditions were there in the days when women were nothing and, in some cultures, women are still second class citizens and are there for the man's benefit (to take care of him - ie cook, clean, etc., for sex and for reproduction). And you don't have to go to 'those' countries either, the western world have their fair share of communities where women are subjugated.
Also, entitlement to a healthy sexual relationship is a rather new concept in the western world. Not all over the world.
I think you may have misunderstood my post ... I am with that large percentage ... my post was more to do with the way male circumcision was not being seen as mutilation.
There is also a large percentage of the world that do not view male circumcision as 'normal'
There is no where in my post where I show any support for female circumcision. Like I said in my original post I am against both female AND male circumcision
I do have to agree with those who feel the same way about male circumcision
I believe that it should not be routine upon the birth of a son
and that it should be the informed decision of a young man upon maturity
There is no medical reason at this point in time for the practice of male or female circumcision
Formerly concerned with disease and cleanliness in males, this is not a modern problem
And in the case of female circumcision, in my opinion, it is religious zealously and ignorance of
the sexual role of a woman in the family and husband/wife as a team
in many cultures, as some of you have said, there is no recognition of the role of the woman in sexuality
except as a pleasure to her husband
In either case, since no medical necessity exists in modern age
It should be the sole informed decision of either, male or female,
dependent upon religion, customs and personal preferences
and not to be decided at any age, birth or maturity, by any other person
other than the one directly affected
unfortunately, in the areas where these practices occur, there is no respect to the wants and or needs of the individual, and as we've seen, generations have been brought to understand that this is the proper and just thing to do, to or FOR their daughters, in their eyes, regardless of the personal suffering they have themselves undertaken
this, in our society, is totally unfathomable, but there...it is what it is .....we can only hope for enlightenment in these societies in the very near future
and yes, since i know i will be asked, i did allow circumcision of my son at birth....i was young and naive, and i too was brought to believe that this was the best thing for health and other reasons. i cannot answer as to whether or not it was the right thing to do then.
i can only suppose that would be a discussion between uncircumcised vs circumscribed men, and the women who love them.
i can only say that i would not have allowed it to be done were my children born now.
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
+1
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
But unfortunately too many places still think it is.
the article clearly shows that the english law against this practice is not having an affect on it. how about instead of just relying on prosecution against it, we focus on education against it?
EDUCATION..yes
education is the key
to all things
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
http://womensrights.change.org/blog/vie ... university
what i'd like to know is how on earth somebody took it upon himself to determine that a young girl's clitoris, before the girl has even finished developing entirely, could be considered "abnormal," "enlarged," or would cause her "humiliation." and then goes ahead and personally runs stimulation tests on them himself.
don't mean to hijack your post, but I'm running with it...there is a PETITION attached ...this is the USA..Cornell University man, while they are not performing the stage 3 radical surgery performed in other cultures, they are, nevertheless, changing the anatomy and the self-image of young girls without their permission.
SIGN THE PETITION to Tell Cornell University: Stop Genital Mutilation Now
Targeting: Faculty Councils, Weill Cornell Medical College, Gerald M. Loughlin (Chair, Dept. of Pediatrics, Weill Cornell Medical College) and David J. Skorton (President, Cornell University)
Tell Cornell University and Medical School to stop sanctioning this procedure, clarify their position on female genital mutilation (FGM), and take actions against the Dr. Poppas and any associates who are peddling mutilation as medicine.
THIS PART IS MY OPINION: (below this will be the text of the petition)
Any such surgery should obviously be the chioice of the individual....not the parents
as long as the so-called "defect" is not obstructive, preventing function of the genitourinary system
who is to judge someone else's appearance
that just says to young girls..you were born "Wrong" and we have to fix you now
what do we expect that young girl will grow up feeling/thinking about her body/herself
IF you agree...click below to sign the petition against this awful practice!
http://womensrights.change.org/petitions/view/tell_cornell_university_stop_genital_mutilation_now
Petition Text
Dear Members of the Cornell University and Medical School,
Greetings,
The media has recently picked up on a story concerning Dr. Dix Poppas, a pediatrician and urologist at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York Presbyterian Hospital, who is performing surgeries on your girls to reduce the size of their clitoris. Dr. Poppas believes he can do this without nerve damage, and tests nerve damage after surgery with such devices as a vibrator on the young girls.
This is female genital mutilation, pure and simple. No child should be subjected to such a painful, potentially harmful, and psychologically scarring procedure; certainly, it is not the place of a leading hospital and pediatrician to create and recommend such a practice, when doctors who know how the body works should explain to anxious parents that their children's "abnormality" is nothing to be ashamed of.
The hospital needs to take serious and decisive action: apologize to the young girls it has harmed, end performing genital mutilation and young girls, take a proactive stance against FGM, and take action against Dr. Poppas for abusing his situation as a doctor to perpetuate this terrible process.
On a personal note, I can think of nothing more painful, humiliating, and psychologically as well as physically damaging than to undergo such a procedure. One that teaches girls from a young age to sacrifice pleasure for "image," that they are only as good as what they look like on the outside, that there is only one "normal" way to exist.
Sincerely,
jo
http://www.Etsy.com/Shop/SimpleEarthCreations
"How I choose to feel is how I am." ~ EV/MMc
"Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness and they live by what they hear. Such people become crazy, or they become legends." ~ One Stab ~
Listen to the pettiness of this Dad: "That's the look I'm going for."
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8212662920114237112# (13 minutes)
And I can shine a little light on your dismissal of male foreskin:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1482347046642439341# (19 minutes)
The foreskin is a miracle of physiology designed solely for sexual pleasure. Whoo hoo!!!
Knowledge is power. Wisdom is understanding.
Love, Brynne
Good God. Couldn't watch the whole thing. THAT is why we didn't do that to our son.... NO. WAY.
IMO. THAT. IS. MUTILATION.
Maybe not as "bad" as FGM... but unnecessary and painful mutilation. :evil: