Cultural Approval Of Female Genital Mutilation example essay topic

Female circumcision is a horrifying procedure that can be defined as the removal of the clitoris on the body of a female. The surgery is often accompanied by ceremonies intended to honor and welcome the girls into their communities. It can be observed in parts of Northern Africa and Southern Arabia where many girls undergo ritual surgery involving removal of parts of their external genitalia. About eighty million living women have had this surgery, and an additional four or five million girls undergo it each year (Kuba and Masher). This tradition is prevalent and deeply embedded in many countries, including Ethiopia, the Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Chad, Gambia, Liberia, Mali, Senegal, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Upper Volta, Mauritania, Nigeria, Mozambique, Botswana, Lesotho, and Egypt (Abdalla). It is usually performed between infancy and puberty.

From a Western point of view, it may seem unnecessary and vulgar. However, these ancient practices hold significant meaning to the people who practice it. They are supposed to promote chastity, religion, group identity, cleanliness, health, family values, and marriage goals. Although it is conducted with good intentions, tragically, the usual ways of performing these surgeries deny women sexual orgasms, cause significant morbidity or mortality among women and children, and strain the over-burdened health care systems in these developing countries. These practices are often referred to as 'female circumcision', but those who wish to stop them increasingly use the description 'female genital mutilation'. My paper will explore the various forms of female genital mutilation, it's deep association with the patrilineal system in Africa, and the efforts to stop this tragedy.

Impalpable cultural clashes explode when people from societies practicing genital mutilation settle in other parts of the world and bring these rites with them. For example, it is practiced by Muslim groups in the Philippines, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Europe, and North America (Kluge). It is obvious that when different cultures are forced to live a similar life side by side, differences will occur. However, it is difficult to observe and accept any form of physical, mental or emotional abuse.

In this particular case, the issue is addressed towards female genital mutilation which is strongly involved with all the forms of abuse. It is most common for parents to use traditional practitioners but there are some who seek medical facilities to reduce the morbidity or mortality of this genital surgery. These doctors and nurses perform the procedures for large fees but they state that they are more concerned about the unhygienic techniques that traditional practitioners may use. In the United Kingdom, where about two thousand girls undergo the surgery annually, it is classified as child abuse. These accusations show us that in our day and age, we cannot accept female genital mutilation as part of the human culture.

The fact that most of Africa is based on the patrilineal system has strong and deep associations with female genital mutilation. The patrilineal system is based on a lineage system that is continued from generation to generation by the male's last name. These societies mainly view the male as a superior figure when compared to a female. Most women in cultures practicing female genital mutilation, when interviewed by investigators from their culture, state that they do not believe that such practices deprive them of anything important (Sherwin 78). They do not think that women can have orgasms or that sex can be directly pleasing to women but assume that their pleasure comes only from knowing they contribute to their husbands' enjoyment (El Dareer 27). These beliefs coincide with the idea that men are superior then women.

Women put their needs last in order to satisfy the men. Some critics argue that women who hold such beliefs cannot be understood to be making an informed choice (Sherwin 82). But what they fail to recognize is that their society has a belief system that centers around the oppression of women; thus women are continuing to "suffer". Accad portrays a story about a woman who is working to eliminate the practice.

She is a thirty-year-old Sudanese teacher who believes that determination will help end mutilations in her country. She spends days devoted to the topic in hopes to form an association whose aim is to bring about awareness. Nearly every researcher who investigates the issue asks the purpose of this ritual; nearly every response is that it is tradition and therefore must be continued. Her tireless effort to stop this tragic ritual has been making progress. She has gained the support of a female member of the Sudanese government's Ministry of Education and through this association, they were able to receive a grant though the minister of education for health education in the rural areas of Sudan. National workshop, midwives and community leaders have been made more aware of the lack of necessity of the practice of mutilation.

Her association also tries to educate the public by radio plays and televised discussions of the practice. They gathered "together a medical doctor, a religious man, and someone in education to all talk about the effects of female genital mutilation (Accad 47). In response, it has affected a lot of families on their decision whether to proceed with the surgery or not. "It was women's suffering which made me feel very strongly about the problem. Women are suffering a lot from circumcision. From childhood to adulthood, they are always suffering.

The percentage of women circumcised in the Sudan is ninety to ninety-four percent. In the city, it is less than sixty percent" (Ibid). Although some progress has been made, it is evident that more time and effort is needed to end the brutality. They have stopped debilitating infibulation, but still have a long road ahead to end female genital mutilation completely. Their program now targets rural areas, where the problem is most severe because of less access to the influences of the outside world.

They supply the programs for which the people have asked-literacy classes, ideas of how to generate income, and hygiene and health. Because it is difficult for the association to travel from village to village preaching against the practice, the health education program gives them an advantage: to address the rural area as a whole on a more personal level (Ibid)". The physiological effects are clear to them. The unhygienic aspects are easier to explain to them. In the city, people are likely to say: I will take her to a doctor or to a clinic, and I will have it done under hygienic circumstances" (Thompson 17). It is frustrating for the public to read statements of such, however, it must be understood that it is part of their culture.

It is difficult for anyone in this world to suddenly change a ritual that has been practiced for numerous years. Of the response of the programs by the people to whom they are presented, the association leader says that rural people are easier to convince into change than are the more educated. The reasons for the continuation of the practices are primarily social. Still, in many areas of Sudan, a female's lack of mutilation is a source of ridicule, and to the extent that marriage is difficult for a "whole" female. A women who has had her external genitals surgically removed as a child and then sewn closed cannot help but be a virgin. The initial procedure involves rarely any anesthesia of any kind.

Her claim of being a virgin can only be supported by superficial physical examination. The seal that has been made makes the deflowering of the weeding night a double one: the surgical closing frequently requires a corresponding surgical opening. This is usually accomplished by a sharp object at hand (Wynter 32). There have been (and still exist) international discussions, criticisms, and condemnation of female genital mutilation. They have helped activists who struggle to change these rites that are thoroughly embedded in their culture.

The response is not surprising: people who want to continue these practices resent such criticisms, seeing them as assaults upon their deeply embedded and popular cultural traditions (Ibid 10). Although the external world is allowed to hold their own feelings and opinions with the matter, it raises another moral controversy. Does praise or criticism from outside a culture or society have any moral authority within it? That is, do the moral judgments from one culture have any relevance to judgments about what is right or wrong within another culture? According to some versions of ethical relativism, to say that something is right means that it is approved of in the speaker's culture; to say that something is wrong means that it is disapproved. If this is correct, then there is no real basis for establishing across cultures that one set of culturally established moral values is right and the other one wrong.

The only people who have the right to judge such issues are the people from that particular culture or that particular society. The right action is one that is approved by the person's society or culture, and the wrong action is one that is disapproved y the person's society or culture. Deeply related are moral truths; truths that are determined by the norms of the society. In this particular paper, then, the cultural approval of female genital mutilation means that the practice is right; disapproval means that it is wrong.

Female genital mutilation takes three forms. Perhaps the least mutilating type and has the highest probability of not intervening with sexual orgasms in later life is type A. It is commonly observed in Southern Yemen and Muscat-Oman. Type A involves pricking or removing the clitoral hood. This surgery is usually performed in infants and small children.

Involved with this surgery is the complication of removing additional tissue in infants. The genitalia are small on infants which makes the procedure more dangerous. These procedures are commonly conducted with pins, scissors, razors, and knives (Abdalla 11). However, in African countries, type A is often not regarded as genuine circumcision. Only about three percent of the women in one east African survey had this type of circumcision, and none in another where all the women surveyed had been circumcised (El Dareer 23). Type B, also known as intermediary circumcision', is a procedure that involves removal of the clitoris and most or all of the labia minora.

In type C circumcision, or infibulation, the clitoris, labia minora, and parts of the labia majora are removed.