Female Circumcision or FGM?

When I first moved to Kenya about 25 years ago someone told me about female circumcision. I was perplexed (remember this was before what is now often referred to as “female genital mutilation” was something people were talking about). What’s to circumcise on a female, I asked? Most readers will know the answer to that question. The procedure can involve anything from a nick on the clitoral hood to removal of everything recognizable as a female sexual organ. In the most radical version, known as infibulation, the girl is sewn back together leaving only a small hole for passing urine and menstrual blood. A straw placed in the gap during healing keeps the final opening from scarring over. Health effects can include recurrent infection, cysts, pain at intercourse and childbirth, complications during pregnancy, and even death. There are no health benefits.

Let me quickly say this blog post is not a diatribe against female circumcision, although I am certainly opposed to the practice, and I hope it completely disappears. This post is about my objections to the international community’s approach to its eradication. 

First, some background. In many sub-Saharan African cultures the foreskin of boys is cut as a rite of passage. In  a swath of countries across sub-Saharan Africa, of which Kenya and Uganda are at the southeastern edge, some (by no means all) ethnic groups have also traditionally cut the clitoris as a rite of passage for girls. This can happen at various ages, but in east Africa it’s usually sometime between 13 and 18. Boys are circumcised and they become men; girls are circumcised and they become women. 

European and African Americans maybe don’t relate too well to the idea of formal rites of passage. We realize that Jewish boys and girls among us go through bar and bat mitzvah around age 13, and in recent years as the Latino/a population in the U.S. has grown non-Latino Americans have become more familiar with Quinceañera. But many Americans have nothing like that of our own. I can remember a Kenyan friend asking incredulously, “But don’t you have any kind of formal rite of passage for your children? What about getting a drivers’ license? Or prom, maybe? How do you mark the point at which a boy becomes a man?” Um. We don’t. Not really. Their 18th birthday cake? The thing is, circumcision was more than an individual surgery. It has traditionally been done in groups, with all of the young people who were circumcised taken out to the bush together for days of training about their role as new adults as they healed. When they returned to the community they found expectations of them in terms of responsibility and maturity had noticeably changed. In these ethnic groups no self-respecting girl would marry an uncircumcised guy and no guy would marry an uncircumcised girl.

 (Aside #1: Evidence that male circumcision is a strong protective factor for HIV has made uncircumcised men less plentiful than they used to be.)

(Aside #2: Our children, having grown up in Africa, understood this concept from a young age. On one occasion when we were back in the U.S. visiting our extended family, my then 8-year-old daughter was heard arguing with her male cousins. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re probably not even circumcised.” The adults in the room were nearly rolling on the floor with laughter but unfortunately for Joanna her cousins were oblivious to the insult.)

So what happened when the international community latched onto this issue?—and here I grow a bit heated, sorry—the renaming says it all. With a single rhetorical stroke they reduced a rich tradition to a biological horror. From “female circumcision” or the vernacular equivalent, the practice was now “female genital mutilation.” As some anthropologists have pointed out, African parents who wanted to follow cultural practices could now be labeled mutilators of their own children. In recent years the more descriptive term “female genital cutting” has been introduced in some circles, which is an improvement, but it still doesn’t capture the fact that in most cultural groups the practice was in parallel to male circumcision. It wasn't designed specifically to subjugate women. Therefore “female circumcision” is the term I prefer.

I am not arguing that Kenyan and Ugandan communities that practice female circumcision should continue to do so. For example, the daughter of some dear Masai friends of ours, Neema Ntalel (see photo and website below), was the first girl in her village not to be circumcised. She has shared this publicly so I am not breaking a confidence here. It is a beautiful milestone. I am arguing that Westerners need to take a step back from issues like this and be sure to understand and respect before we attempt to import change from the outside. If we import change from the outside. I don't throw this term around lightly, but I think we Westerners are frequently guilty of health neo-colonialism. Feminist theorist Obioma Nnaemeka, herself a vehement opponent of the practice, observes that in the term "female genital mutilation" there is "a subtext of barbaric African and Muslim cultures and the West's relevance (even indispensability) in purging the barbarism." Amen. One is tempted to ask when we will ever learn.

For a contrasting example of a visionary grass roots approach to change on this issue, see http://tanaritrust.org . Muhia and Marcy Karianjahi incorporated Muhia’s experience with NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership Schools) in Kenya and created an alternative to negative aspects of rites of passage like female circumcision. Primarily working with kids who are about to enter high school, the biblically based program they started has become a popular option for many Christian parents in Nairobi. Our older daughters were upset when they missed going through the experience with their age set because we happened to be in the U.S. the summer before they went to high school.

Photos below: 1, 2. Tanari Trust (photos from Tanari Trust Facebook site)

3.  Neema Ntalel, also now an award-winning gospel/RnB musician. Photo is from her website: http://neemantalel.com/Welcome.html. Those of you interest in global music, will want to listen to her gorgeous, rich voice.