Female Genital Manipulation

Eunice Obeng

 2/14/2017

Patriarchy & History

        As far as the start of time for mankind, women have always been seen collectively as unequal to men. Women's mistreatment has been an issue for many years already, and does not seem to be coming to an end soon. Women are manipulated in many ways, through thoughts and beliefs and an overall expectation from society. However, we are going to look at a more literal aspect in women and genital manipulation (hysteria). Female Genital Manipulation is a procedure where the outer parts of a female genitals are totally cut or partially cut for non- therapeutic reasons. Female Genital Manipulation is usually done on girls at a very young age and it is a very painful procedure that seriously harms the health of a female. Men are more commonly circumcised, usually shortly after birth for a medical reason but for females, in some countries, they are mutilated as a form of punishment and for various social and cultural and religious reasons. It is believed in some countries that cutting the external parts of a female genital will insure that the girl conserves her virginity till marriage.  Nonetheless, there are no adequate reasons that rationalize FGM. There are severe psychological consequences that comes with this practice such as depression, high levels of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders as well as physical ramification such as infertility, extreme pain, excessive bleeding and death.

        Something should be done to stop this painful and cruel practice against females and it starts with us all. We as a community should raise awareness of FGM and aim to end this practice all over the world. FGM should be illegal everywhere. Women can be treated much more fairly, even though society has come a long way in human rights and trying to provide the

same benefits for both sexes. It will still be a real challenge and hopefully one day the issue of gender, won't have to be an issue ever again.

Works Cited

NHS. Female genital mutilation (FGM). 16 06 2016. 15 02 2017. .

Rigmor C Berg, Vigdis Underland, Jan Odgaard-Jensen, Atle Fretheim, Gunn E Vist. "Effects of female genital cutting on physical health outcomes: a systematic review and meta-analysis." BMJ Journals 4.11 (2014). 15 02 2017. .