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Sara Corbett: A Cutting Tradition [LINK-ZUM]

When a girl is taken - usually by her mother - to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals. Sponsored by the Assalaam Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl's genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she's given a small, celebratory gift - some fruit or a donated piece of clothing - and offered a cup of milk for refreshment. [...] These photos were taken in April 2006, at the foundation's annual mass circumcision, which is free and open to the public and held during the lunar month marking the birth of the prophet Muhammad. [...] According to Lukman Hakim, the foundation's chairman of social services, there are three "benefits" to circumcising girls. "One, it will stabilize her libido," he said through an interpreter. "Two, it will make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband. And three, it will balance her psychology."

[...] As Western awareness of female genital cutting has grown, anthropologists, policy makers and health officials have warned against blindly judging those who practice it, saying that progress is best made by working with local leaders and opinion-makers to gradually shift the public discussion of female circumcision from what it's believed to bestow upon a girl toward what it takes away. "These mothers believe they are doing something good for their children," [Laura Guarenti, an obstetrician and WHO's medical officer for child and maternal health in Jakarta] told me. "For our culture that is not easily understandable. To judge them harshly is to isolate them. You cannot make change that way."

[Article continues at link. Ihave three comments on this article. First, female genital mutilation is an Islamic practice. To attack FGM is to attack Islam. I am in favor of attacking Islam. This practice should be outlawed in every nation and those who practice it should be punished to the full extent of the law. That doing so will tred an ancient sacred traditional Islamic practice underfoot does not matter, at all. These women should be judged most harshly, isolated (to keep them from continuing the practice), and no regard whatsoever should be given to the practice because it is part of a culture. Second, it is (as far as I know) always adult women who practice female genital mutilation on girls. What does this mean for the Western notion of feminism and its idea of who oppresses who? Third, let me propose a thought experiment. This is something to think about, not to actually do. Really, don't do this. Get a large piece of wood and strike as many Muslim women in the face with it as you can. This will break their noses. There will be a little blood. Very, very few will die from the process. It will change how they look and breathe, but they will survive. Say that you needed to do it as part of an ancient, sacred tradition. Muslim women do not need to volunteer to have their faces smashed in, any more than girls need to volunteer to have their genitals mutilated before they can understand the consequences of that proceedure. If you object to my thought experiment, you must object to female genital mutilation. - Trevor Blake]

Labels: islam, sex, theocracy