Female Genital Mutilation: Ascending Awareness Worldwide
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The issue of FGM has reached a stage where it has been freed from its taboo on the social level. Throughout the past 20-30 years, many individuals have invested their time in research and created numerous writings on this topic. The issue of FGM nowadays is more easily discussed than years ago and has reached the international level. Therefore, its sacredness has finally been removed to reveal the true reasons why it occurs. In October 2006 I conducted an interview with Mrs. Marie Assad, an ex-coordinator of the National Task force and veteran activist. She explained to me how about 20 years ago, when she first started to do research of FGM, she relied mainly on primary data and only a small number of secondary data. This was due to the way people viewed the issue of FGM, and how there werent many doctors and professionals who devoted their time on researching this social phenomenon. Nowadays, thanks to the many writings and studies carried out by Marie Assad, Nawal El Saadawi, Nihad Toubia among others, this issue of FGM is more widely discussed on all social, national and international levels.
The purpose of this essay is to select a number of writings on female circumcision which represent the different perspectives from which FGM is looked at, and which had an impact on changes of attitudes towards it. The different writings I selected look at it through anthropological, sociological, political and feminist views. Some of the perspectives are different and therefore view FGM from a different standpoint. Some of the writings are extreme and feminist, like Nawal El Saadawis book “The Hidden Face of Eve”, while other views remain more political and informative, like Nihad Toubias book “Arab Women; A Profile of Diversity and Change”. Anthropologists and sociologists share very similar techniques in their research and, therefore, the writings of Ellen Gruenbaum and Elizabeth Boyle look at FGM from a very similar perspective. One thing that links together all of these writings is that the authors seek its eradication.
Nawal El Saadawi is known for her feminist views in concern the Egyptian woman in her relation with many aspects of society, mainly sex and patriarchy. Apart from her famous fiction novels which depict real societal problems, she is also known for her research and long collaboration in the lives of real women. Her writings could be studied from a sociological/anthropological, feminist and political point of view. She breaks the boundaries of different perspectives to study the interconnection between women and sex to politics, culture, religion etc.
Saadawis book “The Hidden Face of Eve” deals specifically with oppression of women in society. In her chapter called Circumcision of Girls, Nawal begins by giving a background about the process, and then goes deep into minds of Egyptians to reveal their attitudes about the woman. First she begins her chapter by describing her experience when treating women who had undergone the procedure and provided an interview with a circumcised woman. Through her questions, she unveils layers of experiences that the woman went through, from the details of the operation to her sexual experiences during childhood. She also talks about how through her career, she found a very small number of doctors who were completely familiar with neurosis. Nawal describes how hard it was to find studies on female circumcision and its effects on women. At that time, the only thing she found was a joint article made of two parts written by Dr. Mahmoud Koraim and Dr. Rushdi Ammar. The first part was called “Female Circumcision and Sexual Desire” and the second part “Complications of Female Circumcision”. To summarize it, they came up with five conclusions.
1) Circumcision has harmful health effects and causes sexual shock to young girls. It also stops the woman to reach the peak of her sexual pleasure, and reduces desire for sex. 2) Education helps to limit the degree of circumcision practiced on women, and educated parents often refuse to perform it on their daughters. People who do perform it are uneducated due to their attachment to tradition, and their belief in it reducing the sexual desire of girls. Therefore, their chastity and virginity are preserved until marriage.3) FGM doesnt reduce the chances in cancerous diseases. 4) There are immediate complications after the operation that includes hemorrhage, swellings, cysts, and the obstruction of the urinary flow and the vagina. 5) Circumcised girls masturbated less frequently than the girls who werent circumcised. (38)
Some of the writings of Nihad Toubia look at FGM from a political view, while many other are concerned with female cirucumcision and the abuse of human rights. Although her writings arent radical and are on the large part informative, Toubia, like Saadawi,