KAFR AL MANSHI ABOU HAMAR, Egypt — The men in this poor farming community were seething. A 13-year-old girl was brought to a doctor’s office to have her clitoris removed, a surgery considered necessary here to preserve chastity and honor.
The girl died, but that was not the source of the outrage. After her death, the government shut down the clinic, and that got everyone stirred up.
“They will not stop us,” shouted Saad Yehia, a tea shop owner along the main street. “We support circumcision!” he shouted over and over.
“Even if the state doesn’t like it, we will circumcise the girls,” shouted Fahmy Ezzeddin Shaweesh, an elder in the village.
Ninety-six percent of Egyptian women have undergone clitoridectomies. And the cultural attachment to the procedure is hard to break.
The challenge, however, rests in persuading people that their grandparents, parents and they themselves have harmed their daughters. Moreover, advocates must convince a skeptical public that men will marry a woman who has not undergone the procedure and that circumcision is not necessary to preserve family honor. It is a challenge to get men to give up some of their control over women.
A challenge indeed.
However, things in Egypt are improving — and the country has lots of brave women to thank:
But the religious discourse concerning genital cutting has changed, and that is credited to Ms. Assaad’s strategy of reaching up to people like Mrs. Mubarak and out to young women like Fatma Ibrahim, 24. When Ms. Ibrahim was 11 years old, she said, her parents told her she was going for a blood test. The doctor, a relative, put her to sleep and when she woke, she said she could not walk.
The memory haunts her now, and though she says that her parents “will kill” her if they find out, she has become a volunteer in the movement against genital cutting, hoping to spare other women what she endured.
“I am looking to talk to the young, the ones who will be parents in 10 years,” she said. “This is my target group. I talk to the young. When I get married, inshallah, I will never, ever circumcise my daughter.”
Read the whole article. It’s excellent.
The last time this topic came up, I was fascinated to find out via Google that FGM may date back to the ancient Egyptians, which is one of the reasons (a) Egypt tends to perform some of the most extreme versions and (b) it’s been so difficult to uproot. It has nothing to do with Islam — Islam is used to justify an existing practice of several thousand years’ standing.
That’s part of the problem with uprooting it — while Muslim scholars and authorities in other countries are against FGM, the authorities in Egypt are so immersed in the cultural practice that they find justifications for it.
Maybe when we stop circumsizing the bulk our baby boys with no religious or medical reasons, we can have standing as a country to really speak out about this situation and have some influence. Log in anyone’s eye around here?
Wow, only two comments in and we’ve already got a comparison to male circumcision.
This thread is about female circumcision. I don’t agree with male circumcision, but the two are generally not comparable.
No kidding, not in terms of medical risk nor loss of ability to experience sexual pleasure.
Even aside from all the potential horrific medical consequences of FGM, I read a figure like this 96% and just want to cry for all those women who have had their sexual pleasure STOLEN from them, FOREVER.
I really just want to cry.
Any man ever died in childbirth due to his being circumcised?
[...] on the growing and vibrant anti-Female Genital Cutting1 movement in Egypt in the Times. (Curtsy: Feministe and Sly [...]
Honestly, just stop. I’m not Jewish, but I’m circumsized (sorry ’bout the disclosure), and you know what? I’m doing just fine. I can get erections. I can have orgasms. In other words, my equipment still works just fine. Is it really a huge problem in this country, men not experiencing enough sexual pleasure? Really?
There’s no comparison whatsoever. None. Cutting away parts of your daughter’s genitals should qualify you for summary execution. End of story.
Actually, circumcized women can experience orgasms too. Orgasms aren’t coming from the clitoris alone, if the damage is done early enough, parts of the brain responsible for interpreting the tactile sensations will rewire to get them from other nearby parts.
Ugh, Farhat, that’s such a falsity. Look, there are circumcised women who can orgasm. But the vast majority who undergo any circumcision more serious than the splitting of the clitoral hood cannot orgasm. Ever. They have difficulty even feeling sexual pleasure. That’s the whole point of circumcising them.
Please, it shouldn’t be that hard to stay focussed. FGM is one issue, it’s something that’s done to women and girls, let’s not wander off into men’s issues for just a moment..