Female Genital Mutilation
By Julie Clawson
Recently, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a recommendation which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises. The Policy Statement “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors”, issued by the AAP on April 26, 2010, is on one hand intended to help protect young girls. The reasoning is that often families from certain cultural traditions will leave the country or find alternate sources to perform FGM on their daughters, so the AAP is suggesting that if doctors here perform a ritual prick or minor incision of a girl’s clitoris, it will prevent families from inflicting the harsher forms on their daughters.
This recommendation has of course been met with some outrage. FGM is illegal in the United States and a new law is currently being proposed to make it illegal to transport girls out of the U.S. for the purpose of FGM. While this is a cultural tradition for some, others see it as simply another form of violence against women. FGM is the removal of all or part of a woman’s genitalia for the purposes of controlling her sexuality and insuring she is a virgin until marriage. Women in cultures that practice FGM are often not accepted by their culture unless they have had it done to them. Advocates of women’s rights argue that women should be permitted to control their own bodies and be free to experience sexual pleasure as adults.
So it is shocking to many to hear the AAP’s recommendations. While the proposal is supposedly meant to protect young girls, it still sanctions the mentality that women’s sexuality must be controlled by men. The idea that doctor’s in America could do this to young children is abhorrent to those who fight to protect the voiceless.
Of course, this is only a recommendation from the AAP and may never become reality it raises some serious ethical questions. How do you react to this recommendation? Do you see this as protecting women or oppressing them?
Tags: AAP, Female Genital Mutilation, Sexuality, women's rights
May 8th, 2010 at 7:04 am
I was and am horrified by this announcement. How on earth could this be happening here, of all places?!?!?!!!!
Then I stepped back for a moment and thought as calmly as I could about it. Which was, admittedly, very little. And I remembered back to the first or second day of my son’s life when I rather unthinkingly had him circumcised. Not for any religious reason. But just because … that’s what boys have done in this country. Or did have done unless there was a religious/cultural reason and until very recently. Now the pendulum is swinging back the other way.
Of course, male circumcision does not effect sexual pleasure the way that female circumcision does. And, originally, was not performed for the same reasons. So I guess the analogy ends there. But the memory gave me pause. And opened up space to consider this from a wider angle.
In the end though, I still say that I disagree heartily with it. Because in the same manner that many parents are now choosing to not circumcise their male children so that those boys may choose for themselves later in life, so must the parents allow the girls to make those choices as adults. Religious faith and the disciplines that go along with it, must be chosen not imposed from infancy … otherwise it is not faith at all.
May 9th, 2010 at 8:09 am
[...] Julie Clawson at Emerging Women is reporting that the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a recommendation that pediatricians offer to perform “ritual nicks” on girls’ clitorises. The reason for this recommendation, which is tantamount to support for Female Genital Mutilation or FGM, is to prevent families from cultures that practice FGM from either taking their children out of the country for the procedure or having it done in some harsher way. Clawson is correct in pointing out that the supposed reasoning behind this suggestion is ludicrous on its face. Let’s protect young girls by sanctioning a practice that , even in the milder form advocated by the AAP, is based on the idea that women should not be in control of their own bodies. [...]
May 16th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Okay, I’m pissed–again. As usual the oh-so-politically-correct Clawsons’ just take another potential opportunity for honest dialogue and ruin it by not taking a stand. Oh, I forgot, we wouldn’t want to ‘offend’ any moslems who might be perusing the site; (for God know’s what…)so let’s approach this report of the possible mutilation and sexual ruin of inumerable moslem American girls as if we were discussing the weather for next week.
That little ‘ditty’ quoting Julie is hardly fodder for inciting a national outrage. So far, it seems as though there are a whopping 2 of us who care.
Really? Is that all you’ve got?
May 20th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Antoinette – there are many times I take a stand, other times I want to throw conversations out there for discussion.
June 3rd, 2010 at 7:58 am
I admit, I have not been on this webpage in a long time… however it was one more joy to see It’s such an critical topic and ignored by so quite a few, even professionals. I thank you to support making consumers more aware of possible issues.
June 10th, 2010 at 4:14 am
This is one of those issues where I truly don’t know the answer. The idea of accepting any part of this practice at all is abhorrent to me. I want to take a stand and go “No! You WILL NOT touch those little girl’s bodies!”. But if by taking hardline it results in that girl being shipped off to some country to have her body completely destroyed and her sexuality ruined forever (and probably with none-to-clean implements) then how does that help anyway. I rage against the implicit acceptance of the practice that comes with allowing a “prick”, but cannot bear to doom more girls to even worse for my ideals. The sin is on the person who does that harm, of course, but the fact is that a girl would still be hurt and devastated when a small action here could have prevented it. We truly do live in a fallen world.
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:30 pm
How many people that have responded to this, or written this, have mutilated the genitals of their sons?
June 25th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
We read this post and wanted to give you thanks personally. Very clear and helpful!
June 26th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Great question Jon. I’ll admit there are parallels, but the biggest factor is that circumcision of boys is not done as a means of controlling them sexually. Sure it is cultural and religious, but it does not remove from them the ability to be a sexual person so that they can be controlled by fathers and husbands.
August 1st, 2010 at 8:00 pm
You’re uninformed or a man hater. It takes away a huge spectrum of sexuality. It makes intercourse harder for YOUR sex! And it’s about female control over males “we can order a male done but males can’t order US done!” As long as males are hit with this violence, they WILL respond later by BEATING women, because the buried trauma is blamed on mothers who did not protect them, or actively WANTED them hurt!! Male circumcision hurts BOTH sexes! I see elsewhere at this site reference to “disorders” God help America to see that all psychiatry is bogus and NOT “medicine.”
September 17th, 2010 at 8:31 am
Wow… from the original recommendation, it would appear to be saving lives. I am concerned about who is behind the organization to promote this – does the government really care, and who is going to benefit financially from this? The doctors surely will, but the families who don’t have to take several weeks off work would also. My biggest concern is that we would be opening the door to full FGM, and who will monitor that? Obviously, there will be Moslem doctors who, for a few dollars more, will slice everything off. And how to do you stop it once it has begun?? My vote is NO.
October 10th, 2010 at 4:25 am
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October 29th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
You you should edit the blog subject Emerging Women » Blog Archive » Female Genital Mutilation to something more better for your content you create. I enjoyed the blog post still.
January 14th, 2011 at 10:56 am
great stuff. Do you have a RSS feed? And would it be cool if I put in your feed to a site of mine? I have a website which draws content by RSS feeds from a number of sites and I’d like to include yours, a lot of people really don’t mind because I link back and everything but I like to get approval first. Anyhow let me know if you could, thank you.