Seven years ago, in the first year of my undergraduate degree, I attended a lecture on Female Genital Mutilation. It was not a topic I had heard of before, and certainly something that I had ever discussed with any body or heard discussed. That lecture affected the way in which I viewed the world, and certainly changed the course of my academic life.
I was shocked, when doing the pre-lecture reading, to hear about such a barbaric act. As a young, fiery tempered teenage feminist, my natural inclination was to blame the men in the society in question. It was obviously their fault- they must perpetuate this vile and degrading practise. I remember being absolutely shocked in the lecture to find out that in most cultures which practise FGM, it is a female lead practise. Sometimes the men don’t even know what is anatomically meant by the term “Female Circumcision.” I was intrigued and fascinated with the idea that these women, having had such a painful and barbaric act forced upon them, could then willingly inflict the same pain on their own daughters.
That lecture lead me to one of the most interesting years of my academic life. I was determined to write my dissertation about FGM. The dissertation morphed into an essay entitled “The Perfect Vagina: A comparative study of Female Genital Mutilation and Cosmetic Gynaecology.” It was a fascinating and interesting labour of love, and I discovered so much. That was five years ago, and since then FGM has become more and more present and discussed in our lives. Yesterday an amazing woman named Hibo Wardere visited the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2. I was thrilled to learn that Jeremy and the team at Radio 2 had taken on such an important and fascinating topic in prime time and think that this was such a brave topic for them to cover. I’ve included the link at the bottom of this post- go to 1:12 in and listen to her. She has such a calm, collected way of discussing FGM in amongst a sea of those who are angrily shouting.
Hibo Wardere made the excellent comment that Education is the key to stopping this horrendous act, and I couldn’t agree with her more. There are so many voices out there calling for a ban and whilst something needs to change in legislation, I don’t think a blanket ban of FGM is the answer. The problem with a blanket ban is that this phenomenon is culturally rooted in tradition. It will continue to happen if a ban is all that is put in place and if FGM is made illegal those affected will be far less likely to come forward to seek either medical help or mental support with dealing with the problems. Putting a ban on FGM straight away silences many of these girls because they will be frightened to speak out, not wanting to get family members in trouble or get into trouble themselves. It also means that family members are less likely to seek medical help if something goes wrong, for example if any of the wounds become infected, because they are worried about the trouble they could get themselves in.
We need to educate not only those people from these cultural backgrounds, but those people in this society who are most likely to deal with the problems faced by women with FGM. There are three types of FGM, from the “least” severe to the worst. Type One is known as a clitoridectomy and involves the removal of part or all of the clitoris and the clitoral hood (prepuce). In some rare cases, only the prepuce is removed, known as sunna circumcision. This is the most commonly performed form of FGM and is, at least physically, the least extreme. Type two is known as excision and is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and hood, as well as the part or whole removal of the labia majora (the outer labia.). Type three is widely considered to be the most extreme form, and involves the procedures as above in type two and type one as well as the removal of the labia minora (the inner labia) and the narrowing of the vaginal opening which achieved through the repositioning and stitching together of what remains of the genitals. This type is known as Pharaonic or Infibulation.
Any one of these three types of FGM can cause multiple medical complications. Possibly the most dangerous of these occurs when women who have been infibulated attempt to give birth. I will not go into much physical detail, but Hibo Wardere speaks very candidly and fluently on this topic in the clip below. One of the major problems with this is that midwives and those of the medical profession do not know how to deal with the situation when they are faced with it, and therefore are not educated well enough to deal with the problem. Often, especially in the 1990’s when FGM was rarely known about, pregnant women can reach full term and begin going into labour before their medical professionals realise that there is an issue.
Language is also a huge barrier to the stopping of this barbaric practise. Women from the countries were FGM is a cultural tradition rarely speak English well, and even those who do would struggle to find the words to describe what has been done to them. They aren’t likely to be taught words like “labia” or “clitoris”, much less likely to know and understand what is meant by “infibulation” or “excision”. This is another part of the struggle where education is key to preventing this from happening. These women need to be given a voice, they need to be given the words to describe what has happened to them. However, there is no use equipping these girls and women with the language when the professionals who are dealing with them may not even understand it. Anyone who is likely to come into contact with these women and girls need to be spoken to candidly about what FGM is, what it looks like, how to spot it, and how to talk about it. This education needs to range from those in the medical profession, doctors and nurses, paramedics, etc to those who have a duty of care to girls who may be vulnerable to FGM such as teachers, social workers, police officers, even customs officers and airport workers.
With all of this in mind, it is important to note that it is not just the language that these people need, but an understanding of what FGM and is and why it occurs. I spent two years doing research to try and find the social and cultural origins of the practise. What I found was that, contrary to popular belief, FGM is not rooted in religion. It is not something which is practised only by those of a certain faith. I’m not saying that within certain cultures it isn’t attributed to religion, but that we can’t be blinkered in our dealings with it- there is no solution in religion. FGM is cross-cultural. Many different people with different social and cultural backgrounds practise it. In my opinion, it is almost anthropologically unique in that way. There are many theories as to why it exists, but I found during my research that the most probable is a self- sustaining ideas about the importance of the practise. As I mentioned above this is generally a practise perpetuated by the female members of a society and therefore it is these women’s perceptions of what a vagina should be and what it is for that plays a massive role in the practise continuing. This combined with the importance placed on tradition and upholding traditional values, lead to a practise which is rarely questioned.
One of the other problems which causes this phenomenon is the taboo about the vagina. This is a taboo which I have spoken about before in my post about the Tampon Tax, and it is one of the reasons why I admire the Jeremy Vine program for discussing FGM on their midday show. Vaginas make people uncomfortable. The social perceptions of the female genitals are almost universally negative or crude. In western culture we use many slang terms for the vagina as insults- in fact, a word which is widely considered to be the “worst swear word” is a word which means vagina. In places like the Sudan, researchers hear rumours that death can occur merely by touching the clitoris. These rumours and derogatory connotations in both countries lead to women believing the vagina should be something which is unintrusive, smooth, and beautiful- which is absolutely unachievable naturally.
Talking about vaginas in a candid and normal way would also help to educate the men of all cultures to understand what is going on and why it is so wrong. If vaginas were spoken of candidly to be what they are- not perfect, not uniform, and certainly not flat and smooth, then maybe men would stop expecting that kind of vagina. It’s a whole other essay to discuss influences of things like pornography and the influence that has, but we need to be able to speak more openly about the vagina and the female sexual/reproductive organs and what they are for and what they do and what they look like.
If you have reached the end of what has turned into an essay I salute you. Not only for your perseverance with my attempt at writing something which is in the least slightly informative, but for making the effort to educate yourself about the social phenomena that is FGM. Share it with your friends, with your colleagues, with your Granny.
The way to end FGM (and the stigma surrounding the female genitals in general) is through education and frank conversation. I believe that with all my heart.
For the Hibo Wadere article on Jeremy Vine follow the link below:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b071sbd5
for Hibo Wadere listen from 1:10
Incurably Curious 