Female Genital Mutilation

I began my writing on Female Genital Mutilation knowing that I would be shocked by what I found and that I was also touching upon a very sensitive subject. This sensitive topic has made me think about the culture of others and how different our lives are. Beginning my research I was immediately horrified by statistics and the graphic images of young African children, their legs spread open on unsanitary medical tables. All of this seemed so foreign to me, it was unlike anything every practiced in an American hospital and thus I labeled it the way Americans have a tendency to label foreign things, negatively. The more research I did the more I realized that just because something is different doesn't mean that it is necessarily wrong. Is there even a right or wrong? If so, who decides this? This question has kept me tossing and turning in my sleep and occupied much of my thoughts. No one has the right to say a certain practice is wrong. America has a lot of odd traditions, some of them that are yes, harmful to us.

I look in the mirror and I realize that this is an argument for many people who are for female genital mutilation. The argument that we are a generation of piercings’, tattoos, breast implants, etc... But the two are not the same, and that is not an opinion that is simply fact. Piercings, tattoos, plastic surgery, and other common American body beatifications are a choice made by the person walking into the piercing parlor or into the surgery room. It is true that there are cases where girls who are going to be circumcised have a decision but often that decision is based on fear of the consequence of not having the procedure. Social values aside, the biggest difference between female genital mutilation and these American traditions I have described is health and the sanitation of tools being used.

Female genital mutilation, also known as female genital cutting, refers to procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Up to 140 million women and girls are estimated to have undergone such procedures, with 3 million girls at risk each year. (The Nation's Health, 38, 3. p.10(1))

Female genital mutilation is practiced in many African countries, as well as parts of the Middle East and Indonesia. In Africa there are three forms of female genital mutilation: clitoridectomy, excision, and infibulations (Beety, Wntr 2008). Female genital mutilation is performed with everything from tribal knifes, to thorns from the nearest bush, to glass picked up from the ground. These items cause a series of deadly and life altering infections that are often never recovered from. There is a certain western attitude to overthrow this practice because of its negative consequences. In my mind that is wrong and unrealistic. Female genital mutilation has been a part of certain cultures for hundreds of years and to take that away would be removing a sense of identification that no culture should be asked to give up.

What I think needs to happen is not a plane full of American doctors sent to replace African medicine men and traditional healers but a mix of the two where Americans can learn from these cultures