Conference turris::womannotes-v1

    
    I think the problem Maggie is contemplating comes from narrow 
    mindedness, plain and simple.
    
    Blame it on religion, just an excuse.
    
    Blame it on upbringing, another excuse.
    
    Truth is, people just see the wall and know that they want to go
    through it.  Instead of taking the time to find the many different
    ways around the wall, they just see *one* way - ramming speed!!
    
    Education takes too long.  Send them BCPs or cut off their sex organs.
    Or blame it on somebody else.
    
    Just my opinion.
    
    CC
    

Clitoridectomy is the removal of a woman's clitoris, usually performed 
a girl reaches puberty.  The operation may include removal of all
external genitilia: outer and inner labia down to the pubic bone.  The
remaining opening is then stitched together, with a minimal opening left
for menstruation.  On her wedding night, the young woman is usually
deflowered amid considerable agony.  Since the operation is usually
performed in "traditional" settings, without antiseptics or anesthesia,
girls often become infected and may die. 

This custom is traditional in many parts of Africa and the Middle East.  
It pre-dates the coming of Western colonialization by quite a bit. 
Although the Christian missionaries have always made a big deal of
suppressing polygamy (causing converts to throw their extra wives out of
the house without any means of support), I'm not aware of an equal
amount of fervor addressed to this practice. 

The recent International Women's Conference had a big row over whether 
the practice should be condemned or not.  Some said to do so was to 
to show disrespect for a cultural tradition.

Personally, I make a sincere effort not to be a cultural chauvinist.  I 
do not generally feel that there is a single way in which to express 
human-ness, and am pretty accepting of human variation in thought, 
religion, and cultural expression.  HOWEVER, about this matter I am 
afraid I become quite inflexible.  It it too horrible a mutilation to be 
allowed to take place among human beings on this planet.

The UN has essentially outlawed slavery in the world, and doing so has
no doubt caused some "traditional" cultures to make a lot of changes.
No one berated the wisdom of doing this, but somehow, daughters that 
could just as easily have been yours or mine if we had been born in 
another place have this unspeakable horror done to them, and we debate 
if it's un-liberal to condemn it!

Why is it acceptable to make slaves of women (wrapped in purdah, 
confined to the house, burned on funeral pyres when their masters die,
genitally maimed), and debate the delicacies of challenging these
"traditions"?

    While I've heard of this practice before (and think it's pretty
    horrible and strange) I'm not really well informed on it.  Does
    anyone know WHY they do it?  I mean, while I don't agree with it,
    I'd like to know what the point is, before I can decide whether
    or not another society has the right to make them stop.  Does anybody
    know?
    
    Lynne

re: .4
                            -< Why do they do it? >-

> Does anyone know WHY they do it?  

My sentiment is I don't care WHY they do it, it's just too wrong and 
horrible to be allowed for any reason.  The basic reason is it's just 
"traditional", it's what decent people do (like marriage, white wedding 
dresses, virginity, monogamy...).  I think I've heard some myth or other 
about how a "hill" had to be removed to make the earth fertile, or some 
such crap, but that kind of thing is justification after the fact.  The 
real reasons are rooted in the sickness of patriarchy and female 
exploitation.

    It's done to remove sexual pleasure and therefore desire in women, 
    plain and simply.  The men of the culture fear that a woman with
    desire may desire someone other than him.  Horror of horrors for 
    fragile, male egos!  Thank heaven WE'VE come such a long way from
    that!  ;-)
    
    Women perform the mutilation for the same reasons many women do things
    against their better judgement - to please men.  You have to please
    men to live in some cultures, (like ours).  It's no different than
    wondering why women hate taking the time to make up their faces
    yet do it - why we bemoan the pain of high heels yet wear them.
    
    Pleasing men wins you points in patriarchal cultures.  Not trying
    to please them is often interpreted by men as women "thumbing their
    noses" at men.  That's why men are so afraid of gay women - because
    since they don't have any need to please men, men know there is
    no way they can control them and dominate them.  And controlling
    and dominating women is a mark of manliness in our culture.
    "Henpecked" is the shudder-producing label given to any man, no
    matter how "masculine" if he cannot control and dominate the women
    in his life.
    
    So cutting out her sexual organs is the same as the chastity belt,
    the same as the labels whore and slut  - to keep women in line and
    to keep their sexuality under male control and for male enjoyment
    only.

Gloria Steinem devoted a chapter in "Outrageous Acts and Everyday
Rebellions" to the problem of female genital mutilation. (I might have the
title of the book slightly wrong.) I think everybody should read it.

A few points, which I remember (probably imperfectly) from the above:

Female genital mutilation has been a tradition in (some parts of) Africa and
the Middle east for at least centuries. The tradition predates Islam, and
probably predates Christianity and Judaism.

The practice is still widespread, although almost universally covered up.

We have few if any qualms about interfering in the political processes of
foreign countries, the question is how much (e.g. trade sanctions are OK,
bribery is questionable, and assasination is out) and for whom (e.g. contras
v. sandinistas.) Why do we stint at cultural interference? Only becuase the
victims are women.

    Another reason women continue to do this to women in such cultures
    is because they had it done to them.  Sort of like the ugly parts
    of an initiation: this is a humiliation we all have to suffer.
    There is a serious hatred by the perpetrator against the
    about-to-be-initiated that is only satisfied by exacting the same
    humiliation and pain.  

    <--(.8)
    
    I think Lisa's got it:  the same sort of bloody-mindedness that
    says "I had to suffer to get where I am so by God *everybody* has
    to suffer!"  Understandable, really, in a world that positively
    doesn't give a bfra about other people's sacrifices.
    
    						=maggie

Mary Daly has talked about the role of "token torturers" in her book,
_Gyn/Ecology_.  For one thing, the mutilation re-inforces and 
internalizes self-hatred.  Most of these women are truly convinced of 
their "uncleanness" in their natural state, and their lack of social 
power is driven home most effectively.  The only way in which a woman 
can escape her evil destiny is to join the oppressors.  She is given a 
kind of token power over others, giving her an opportunity to redeem her 
own inferiority by inflicting it on others.  The power she has in no way 
threatens the patriarchy, but serves it and helps to crush any 
expectation of women exercising power outside the system.

    Its stupid, ridiculous and should be condemmed... regardless of
    cultural differences.  Some traditions don't deserve to survive.
    It would serve them right if no female babies were ever born there
    again.  Test tube sons would be less challenging to their egos anyway.

    Female mutalation has a counterpart in other aboriginal socities.
    Joseph Campbell in _Primitive_Mythology_ describes a process performed
    upon men called subincision. This is a pretty horrible process so
    I won't describe it. Mail me if you want an explaination.
    
    Both mutilation and subincision seem to be initiations or rites of
    passage for women and men. Both are steeped in ignorance and
    superstition. Both mutilations involve power struggles. Both should be
    outlawed on this planet. 

    I remember discussing this issue in Women's Studies classes.  I
    think abuse like this is horrible and should not be perpetuated
    under the guise of "cultural autonomy". 
    
    But there is one other factor which hasn't been mentioned.
    
    Some women may be on power trips and want young women to have to
    go through what they went through.  In other cases, however, survival
    has been /is closely tied to being marriageable.  If being marriageable
    is defined as having bound feet or no clitoris, then those may be
    survival issues for the mother condoning it.  She may really believe
    that the risk and pain and abuse are far less of a risk than
    "condemning" her daughter to being unmarriageable in a culture where
    single women don't have many choices.
    
    So we can't *just* stop the abuse, or ask others to stop the abuse.
    The people in the culture will need to redefine attractiveness and
    marriageability before they are willing to stop the abuse.  And
    that's not easy.  
                                         
    How are liberal, educated, well off westerners ever going to understand
    enough about a culture which engages in these practices and also
    have enough rapport and credibility with the people to actually get
    them to change beliefs which to them are survival linked? 
                                                             
    In many cases, from what I have read, these types of abuse are so
    "sacred" that they just go underground but continue.  Anthropologists
    are often told one thing while the practices continue.
    
    (This is one of the subjects which keeps me awake at night.)
     
    Holly
    

    It's been 5 years since I read Cambell's _Primitive_Mythology_, 
    but I was pretty sure that
    subincision, although it sounds rather gruesome (and stupid, too),
    does not remove the men's ability to derive pleasure from intercourse
    or restrict their movements from then on.
    
    In "White Tigers" in Kingston's _Woman_Warrior_, when the general
    defeats the baron, she comes upon a room in which all the  women
    with bound feet have been trapped, helpless and abandoned and unable
    to walk.  She frees them and they leave, and the stories are that
    they do become warriors of a sort also.  
    They do not take men's dress, as she
    did...they do not rejoin families, as she did, but live apart and
    kill the men and boys they find.
    
    [I could not rest after reading "White Tigers"--this was just the
    sort of story I would tell myself when I was young, and to find
    it again, in someone else's words was energizing. But back to the
    point:]
    
    I would like to hope that other women may rescue these women, that
    their lives may not depend upon a husband.  I know it's a heated
    topic at women's conferences, but it shouldn't be dropped.  Even
    if the practice goes underground, there's a chance that even this
    may allow some to escape this mutilation.  The baron's women did
    not go back to their bound ways, and although I do not agree with
    their violence, I can understand their anger.