Female Genital Mutilation or Modification? - Sarah O'Neill

'The socio-legal connundrums of the international zero-tolerance approach'
CIVIS GENDER STUDIES NETWORK (CGSN), 17 May, 2023, h. 5 pm
civis.eu/en/ev...

[@throwawayname4805]

Fantastic talk, it goes into all of the biases and assumptions that the international community makes regarding FGC. I agree with the international community that FGC is wrong and there should be an age limit, but the way they go after Muslim/African people and ignore Western women who want to do cosmetic surgery, and they ignore MGC and IGC, they have revealed their hand. It's not just a humanitarian issue, it has cultural imperialism and ethnocentrism mixed in

[@fritnat]

Interesting talk. The gynacologist in Egypt justifies the surgery in the same way a Western medical professional does when cutting boys ie on the basais of purported health benefits and that it is merely "extra skin" being removed. In other words it is not alone Western medicalisation of cutting that has won influence but also the justifications for it. There is very little understanding for the Western feminist cutting narrative of making a sharp distinction between cutting boys and cutting girls in communities where the practice is gender inclusive. This is generally seen as cultural imperialism with the West trying to force non Western countries to adopt their cutting practice instead of their own.

[@throwawayname4805]

Agree, the funny thing is that Westerners have very little experience with FGC and they assume that it always destroys sexual sensation, but when you ask them about MGC, they say it has no impact on sexual function. The whole thing is a drive to confirm their own preexisting biases. "What we do is good, what foreigners do is barbaric and harmful".

[@fritnat]

@@throwawayname4805 I wouldn't say it was an assumption, its the result of a very deliberate tactic from Western feminists, a pillar of their FGM narrative making a very sharp distinction between cutting girls and cutting boys. It should be remembered that the pioneers of this narrative were a small clique of women where cutting male newborns was and still is, an inculcated part of their cultural identity. Most prominent among them, Fran Hosken had a son who she almost certainly had cut on the eighth day of life.