… the New York Times (scroll down to the Celia Duggar statement) will now refer to this practice as Female Genital Reaccommodation.
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A thoughtful review of terms.
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“You were born into a female body which automatically labeled you a defect[ive] human being in need of reconstruction.”
Fascinating, lengthy, follow-up in the Atlantic to a cultural relativist’s take on don’t-call-it-mutilation.
I feature the above comment because it reminds us that in many pro-mutilation cultures, it’s not just removing the clitoris and tying up the labia of three year old female bodies; it’s about hiding those bodies under burqas and punishing their misbehavior with honor killing.
Honor killing is too brutal a term for it, though, isn’t it? It will only alienate these communities. UD proposes honor cutting.
April 25th, 2017 at 10:49AM
Way back in the 1990s, the Women’s Studies courses here had a major unit on FGM. Not any more. I suggest that the folks who do this awful practice be trans-cultured by academics for purposes of discussion into white Anglo-Saxon Protestants or white Euro-Catholics.
April 27th, 2017 at 2:26PM
One approach to the excusing of atrocities in the name of cultural relativism was exemplified by General Sir Charles Napier. When this British official was told that the banning of Suttee was a violation of Hindu custom, his response was:
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”
April 27th, 2017 at 3:45PM
David: I was just watching – for the umpteenth time – The Aristocrats – which features Napier’s parents…