Decolonizing Female Genital Mutilation: A Harmful Yet Identity-Affirming Practice

Abstract

Women have historically been the target of violence, especially in the situation of social flux; for instance, the Rwandan Civil War of 1994. It was observed that countries in conflict simultaneously observe an increase in Violence Against Women (VAW), particularly Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This article displays the historical context within which the practice developed, culturally significant facts and myths encouraging its continuation, to substantiate existing scholarship around FGM and colonial legacies, and its effects on gender discourse. I argue that colonial legacies of ethnic rivalry, unequal distribution of resources, and weak institutions have dominated postcolonial scholarship, few have zoomed in on the role dehumanization played. I claim that colonial legacies and power dynamics correlate to the frequency and resilience of harmful practices such as FGM, as the ritual itself could be perceived as an anti-colonial act. I conclude that for harmful practices to be eradicated, cultural and moral absolutist arguments, which justify cultural impositions to ‘save’ “brown women from brown men,” should be made obsolete. Instead, I recommend that the international community ought to recognize the identity-affirming capacity FGM possesses, and acknowledge its relationship to colonial legacies before attempting to counteract it.

1. Introduction

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a practice that involves the partial or complete removal of female exterior genitalia for cultural, religious, and socio-political beliefs and motives. The practice is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “all procedures that involve … injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons” [1]. The term “Female Genital Mutilation” was first espoused in 1990 by the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, and in 1991 the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the term and terminology be adopted by all international organizations, especially the UN [2]. This practice, with its peculiarity, has been attributed to divergent and competing interests within the country-specific socio-economic and political configuration. In most cases women are the target of violence, especially in the situation of social flux; “Throughout the world, sexual violence is routinely directed against females during situations of armed conflict. This violence may take gender-specific forms, like sexual mutilation, forced pregnancy, rape, or sexual slavery. Being female is a risk factor; women and girls are often targeted for sexual abuse on the basis of their gender, irrespective of their age, ethnicity or political affiliation” [3].

There are four identified types of FGM, as depicted in the diagram below: 1) Clitordectomy, which includes the partial or complete removal of the clitoris or the clitoral prepuce; 2) Excision, which includes the removal of the labia minora and/or labia majora and the clitoris; 3) Infibulation, which includes sowing/narrowing of the vaginal opening and excision of the clitoris and labia; and 4) other harmful procedures of non-medical necessity that involve the female genital such as piercing, scraping, and cauterizing.

The procedure is performed on women between the ages of 0–15 by traditional practitioners, such as midwives, and is concentrated in African and Middle Eastern countries and migrant communities in Europe, Australia and North America. Somalia (98%), Guinea (97%), Djibouti (93%), and Egypt (87.2%) rank among the top countries with the highest percentage of women circumcised/mutilated in Africa and the Middle East [4]. More than 200 million women and girls in over 30 countries on five different continents have undergone the procedure with an estimated three million women and girls expected to undergo it each year [5]. According to the European Parliament Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality [6] an estimated 500,000 women and girls living in the European Union (EU) have been subjugated to the practice, among which 180,000 women and girls are born in the EU that may be at risk of subjugation. The resolution of the committee states “these figures are underestimated and do not take into account second-generation or undocumented migrants” (Point B: P7_TA: 2012).

FGM has been on the agenda of international organizations for over 70 years. Many International Organizations (IOs) such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Women, and the World Health Organization, inter alia. as well as Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) such as #28TooMany, Daughters Of Eve, END FGM European campaign, and the Desert Flower Foundation, inter alia have convened summits and conferences elaborating on the tragedies followed by atrocities found in many developing and underdeveloped countries.

The United Nations in 1948, within the context of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) – adopted by the UN General Assembly in the same year –, condemned the procedure and labeled it a Human Rights violation ([7], p. 198; [8]). The declaration transcended and transformed into Human Rights Law after its adoption by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) in 1966. Additionally, in 1984, The Convention against Torture, and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Torture Convention), The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), andThe Convention on the Rights of the Child [9], prohibit the physical or mental trauma and injury of women and children through FGM and raises awareness of its harmful and socially damaging side-effects. All three Conventions partake in a legally binding international law for all signatory states, therewith redirecting responsibility for the protection of vulnerable and socially marginalized groups onto individual states with the expectation that the governing bodies will adhere to the laws agreed upon and protect their nationals.

In 1994 the Declaration and Program of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) urged countries to provide, monitor, and allocate relief funds and administrative social support for NGOs and Civil Societies targeting the protection and prevention of FGM. In addition, ICPD set out an action plan for awareness campaigns that were meant to be appropriated by every country to secure cultural sensitivity and approachability, hence ensuring the effectiveness and responsiveness of different societal and cultural backgrounds. Shortly after, in 1995, The Declaration and Platform for Action of the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, listed FGM as a form of economic and sexual exploitation and exhibited robust action to eradicate it [10, 11].

The deformation, alteration, and mutilation of female genitalia have grave physical and psychological consequences which qualify it as a human rights violation. The physical magnitudes include prolonged and difficult menstrual cycles, hemorrhage, septicemia, complications during childbirth and/or injury to the newborn, internal bleeding, urinary and bladder control issues and infections, sexual dysphoria, and, in severe cases, death of the subject [12, 13]. The psychological and emotional consequences can include but are not limited to, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety, depression, and suicidal tendencies [14]. The physical and psychosexual trauma resulting from the cutting has been analogized with the complete amputation of the penis for males, potentially leading to the incomprehension of one’s sexual and social identity [15].

In light of the aforementioned and explicit complications and traumatic results of the practice, FGM directly violates articles two and five of the UDHR where “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national or social origin, property, birth or another status (Article 2)” and “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 5)” [16]. Following the orientation of the UDHR one can understand why FGM is a human rights violation. It subjugates, exploits, disadvantages, and tortures young women and girls by stripping them from any sense of security and basic freedoms, treating them as non-sentient objects of desire and manipulation, and if the “body is our hold of the world” as Simone de Beauvoir said then women’s worlds have been forcibly broken apart to create a universal ideal of a woman that is passive, docile, and silent [17].

There are a myriad of reasons why FGM is performed, including psychosexual, cosmetic and religious ones (discussed later). The reasons FGM is performed seem to all serve the patriarchal structures by subjugating and oppressing women through their bodies. I am interested in understanding the extent to which FGM has been shaped by the patriarchal structure and colonial legacy. This chapter problematizes FGM, to answer the following question: Is FGM a political tool of patriarchy designed to subjugate women, or is it a cultural practice that emerged from patriarchal hierarchies and understandings in the developing world? To better unpack the issue, this chapter relies on Martha Nussbaum’s concept of Dehumanization. The chapter argues that FGM, much like pornography, is a practice that is culturally embedded and socio-politically reproduced to cater to the male sexual gaze. While the practice may have arisen for other purposes, such as protection from an infection brought on by extreme hot and sandy weather in ancient Egypt or as a sacrifice to the divine [18], the practice has been absorbed by the patriarchal structure to control women’s bodies and lives. Controversially, in this chapter, I argue that FGM has been exacerbated by colonization as an identity-affirming practice to counteract colonial influence and cultural imposition.

2. Less than: the colonial legacy of dehumanization

For centuries, male hegemony has been assumed as the natural state of the world. Abrahamic religions, particularly, have favored this status quo depicting exclusively male figures as the ‘saviors’ or ‘prophets’ and preaching the role of men in society as the protectors of fragile and weak women. Politics, needless to say, has been male-dominant perpetuating the social roles of women as homemakers belonging in the private sphere, and men as providers belonging in the public sphere [19]. Religion has oftentimes been “routinely blamed for promoting derogatory views of women” ([19], p. 146). Yet, scholars that presume the inherent misogyny of religious doctrines do not account for the fact that it was not until the 18th century that the Enlightenment sentiment of “all men are created equal” came about [20]. The idea is that the “rights of man result simply from the fact that they are sentient beings, capable of acquiring moral ideas and of reasoning concerning these ideas … women having these same qualities must necessarily possess equal rights” [21]. The fact that women do not possess equal rights is therefore a direct reflection of how women are perceived as less than human, denied their inertness, and subjectivity, labeled as objects of sexual desires, and oppressed by the patriarchal system to be socio-politically subservient sheds light on how women have been systematically dehumanized.

In the aftermath of the enlightenment, we saw great pioneers of gender irrelevance, like Condorcet, Judith Drake¹, Jean-Jacques Rousseau², John Locke³, Mary Astell⁴, et al, Mary Wollstonecraft⁵, and later John S. Mill⁶ and Sarah Margaret Fuller⁷, who believed that socially constructed roles are beside the point in philosophy and scientific inquiry of human life and rationality. As Laquer [20] put it, scholars have realized that women are:

Undifferentiated in [their] desires, interests, or capacity to reason. In striking contrast to the old teleology of the body as male, liberal theory begins with a neuter body, sexed but without gender, and of no consequence to cultural discourse. The body is regarded simply as the bearer of the rational subject, which itself constitutes the person. The problem for this theory then is how to derive the real world of male dominion of women, of sexual passion and jealousy, of sexual division of labor and cultural practices generally from an original state of genderless bodies. The dilemma, at least for theorists interested in the subordination of women, is resolved by grounding the social and cultural differentiation of the sexes in biology of incommensurability that liberal theory itself helped bring into being.

Biological differences between women and men remain the dominant discourse to justify and rationalize women’s inferiority. Violence Against Women (VAW), to which FGM belongs, was only discussed on a global scale after the establishment of the United Nations (UN) in 1945. The UN’s General Assembly passed Resolution 217A in 1948, which is now commonly known as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), in which the right of individuals, regardless of sex, gender, age, color, religion, political affiliation, nationality, race, and ethnicity, were clearly stated. Articles 5⁸, 12⁹, and 30¹⁰ of the UDHR manifested the efforts of the 51 initial member states to restore the world after WWII. The initial 51 members sought to set forth new international customs that protect individuals from all forms of violence they may be subject to intra-state or interstate and all forms of human degradation and humiliation. It was not until 1993 that the UNGA proclaimed resolution 48/104 now known as the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women¹¹.

However, while the UN, and its predecessor the League of Nations, proclaim their mission is to maintain international peace and security, promote cooperation, and resolve international conflicts and disputes, the organization utterly dismisses the colonial past of its members and does not account for the colonial legacies which plagued the territories they occupied and systematically undermines the effects of imperialism on the socio-cultural, political, and economic (under) development of former colonies. Inhumane practices, the encouragement of ethnic enclaves and promotion of ethnic rivalries, the unequal distribution of resources, and subjugation of the “barbaric and savage peoples” [29, 30, 31, 32]. The dehumanization force [33] which rationalized colonization, promoted the “white man’s burden” [34], and propagated the “civilization mission” [35], all contributed to the structural and institutional arrangements of former colonies, in which FGM is most commonly practiced, and perpetuated the notion of male hegemony in public and political life. The colonial influence cannot be sidestepped, particularly as weaponizing women’s bodies was a notorious colonial tool to subdue what they labeled ‘unruly savages’. Acquitting themselves from their role in institutionalizing Violence Against (colonized) Women, only served to maintain the colonial influence over nations of the global south.

Post-independence many of the nations where the “oversexed” brown and black women were subjected to violence and abuse, outlasted the colonial powers, as much as ethnic rivalries in Rwanda did. This encouraged the epistemic community to seek answers as to why the practice of FGM persists and hypothesize the rationality of people performing it. The debate among scholars sheds light on cultural and religious aspects that have led to the continuation of the practice, including but not limited to, the belief that it is religiously mandated by a supreme being or higher power. Other perspectives perceive it as a facet of patriarchy that, like Adam Smith’s invisible hand, perpetuates and reproduces the socio-political status quo through subtle means of systemization and institutionalization of FGM disguised and propagated as religious submission. Scholars, such as Gruenbaum and Olenick, have correctly observed discontinuation between countries with a Muslim majority and the practice. They have accurately noted that in Egypt, a country with a Muslim majority, the practice is widespread among people of different faiths, while a country such as Saudi Arabia, also with a Muslim majority, experiences close to zero percent occurrence rates [36, 37, 38]. The contrast between countries suggests that there are more cultural reasons for the practice than religious ones, which does not negate the significant influence of religious fundamentalism on FGM, but at least subdues the argument and shifts our attention to the root causes of VAW beyond religion.

A study conducted at the International Institute of Social Science, the Netherlands, concluded that the practice persists to exist because it “societal interest in preserving culture, association with the religion despite lacking concrete evidence, [and] the assumed pleasure [author’s emphasis] of men to enjoy sex via this form of man-made virginity” ([39], p. 40). The study also showcased that there is a need to deconstruct the claim that FGM is male-led, by highlighting the complexity and structural nuances of FGM’s resilience. Andarge further argued that “FGM is apparently mainly pushed by women who internalize the cultural need of FGM … Women are obediently scarifying their bodies, life, and dignity to satisfy the control and apparent sexual interest of men as the women obey rules of female virginity and chastity” (ibid). These conclusions highlight Deniz Kandiyoti’s predictions that in contexts where classical patriarchy can be observed, like in most Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMCIs), women will oftentimes “adhere as far and as long as they possibly can to rules (…) that result in their active collusion in the reproduction of their own subordination” ([40], p. 289). Kandiyoti predicted this would arise as a response to inferiority internalization and historical repetition, which in turn allowed certain practices to be mythicized over time, and later socially institutionalized, as tradition and cultural practice. Therefore, deconstructing the origins of those myths could help in improving our understanding as to why a practice such as FGM is resilient against change.

Some common myths and facts about FGM have elucidated the continuation of the practice. From the available data, we can deduce that the rationalization of FGM is multilayered and mutually inclusive. It is important to distinguish between motives, the facts and myths people have reported as justifications, and modes of analysis, successive theories that are used for outsiders to better understand and hypothesize the reported justifications. One can reduce the rationale/motives behind it into four categories: 1) religious, 2) sociological, 3) esthetic, and 4) psychosexual. Scholars have had trouble determining the morality of FGM. Yet three modes of analysis can be used to determine and analyze the intention behind the practices: 1) compositional differences, which account for the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics influencing the decision to mutilate; 2) particularized theologies, which refer back to religious texts and distinguishes between text and interpretation of the text to account for the decision and value ascribed to mutilation; and 3) group identity, which considered all other variables which cannot be accounted for by compositional differences and particularized theologies, such as the unique group identity and collectivist construction of social order to which the value of participants and members of the society are measured and judged.

2.1 Religious

Religious purposes include, especially among Sunni¹² Muslim communities, following the instruction of the Prophet Mohamed. A lot of debate in the Muslim scholarly community surrounds two Hadiths¹³; “Do not go to the extreme in cutting; that is better for the woman and more liked by the husband.” (narrated by Abu Dawood) and “The fitrah¹⁴ is five things – or five things are part of the fitrah¹⁵ – circumcision, shaving the pubes, cutting the nails, plucking the armpit hairs, and trimming the mustache.” (narrated by [42], p. 256). In a study conducted in Burkina Faso to see the relationship between religion and FGM, the decision to circumcise girls was asserted by mothers and thus the social and religious context of the mothers were crucial for the investigation [43, 44]. The study concluded that sociodemographic differences are not statistically significant among practitioners, rather religious convictions, in conjunction with group identity, have amplified the seeming ‘necessity’ for the practice [44]. When questioned about the reasons for the belief that it is religiously mandated, Muslim interviewees referred back to the aforementioned Hadiths, while Christian interviewees cited ‘preservation of purity’ as their main motive. In 2006 a conference organized by the German human rights group TARGET, in Cairo-Egypt, Islamic and Coptic¹⁶ Christian scholars deemed FGM ‘un-Islamic’, against basic human rights, and declared it as a practice that predates both religions [46].

The practice of FGM is adjacent to predominantly Muslim communities in North- and Central Africa. The literature examined, in quasi unison, highlights that the practice does not seem to be religiously mandated [36, 37, 47, 48], yet many studies, in juxtaposition, have reported that participants cite religion as the chief ground for execution [49, 50]. Nonetheless, a study surveyed 318 Somali women to better understand the reasons behind the continuation of the practice. The study revealed that 74% of participants exclusively perform FGM for traditional and cultural reasons, compared to only 20% citing Religion as the motivation ([51], p. 34). In another study, Werunga [52] sought to examine the relationship between migration to Canada and the likelihood of practicing FGM, found that refugee women who themselves have been subjected to FGM did not desire to perform it on their daughters. Most notably, however, the study highlighted that among the Muslim refugee community in Canada:

“Participants who identified as Muslim seemed to agree that Islam, the religion which is usually associated with FGC, did not specifically sanction the practice but that the religious excuse had somehow been passed down generations and become embedded within cultures whereupon people now regarded it as an important part of their cultures” ([52], p. 111).

Where did the miscommunication occur? Is the reason for the misinterpretation politically motivated or is it illiteracy and the lack of awareness? Tamale [53] posited that the lack of methodological and theoretical inclusivity of formerly colonized persons into the mission of decolonization could be able to “explain how the male-dominated pan-African Movement or the predominantly heterosexual women’s movements on the continent unwittingly uphold the very forms of domination that they seek to dismantle” (Tamale, 68).

These questions are significant in order to understand why the practice continues to affect so many young, innocent, girls in Africa and the World. Are women being punished for something they were not conscious of committing? Are women being punished by virtue of being born female? Who is accountable for this atrocity? Mothers? Fathers? Religious clergy? The society? History? Answers to these complex questions must be approached interjectionally and qualitatively. While this falls beyond the scope of this research, it is significant to note that in utilizing Social Convention Theory “public statements about the topic is complex and that the taboo permeating the practice remains intact even outside of Africa” ([54], p. 1153).

2.2 Sociological

Sociological reasons differ from one community to another. In some communities, like in Kenya and Sudan, FGM is a rite of passage where a female transcends from “girlhood” into “womanhood” [55]. A woman who does not undergo FGM can suffer from grave social consequences. Over precedent, the young lady might be ostracized by her family and, on a few occasions, will most likely be unable to wed. The inability to endure the pain of the socially-enforced practice can prompt different social pressure from family and friends. Lamentably, many women who have been subjected to FGM emphatically have it performed on their girls. It shocks many to know that someone of a marginalized, socially inferior, and oppressed minority can consciously choose and will to perpetuate the same system that made her a minority and a victim; Stockholm Syndrome might be one explanation for it. Society as a whole contributes to the practice by setting socially constructed gender roles, ascribing value to traditional practices, and setting forth gender-based goals that men and women are supposed to strive for, leading to “all members of communities practicing FGM have a role in perpetuating it. Families of girls or women who undergo FGM support it because it makes their daughters marriageable—the operation ensures that their daughters will have ready suitors and a satisfactory bride price” [56].

Communities practicing FGM have justified the practice by claiming the right to protect their tradition and heritage, even if their arguments could be refuted and demystified “in societies where illiteracy and poverty prevail, where women believe that FGM is universal, where the social pressure is tight, the justifications for FGM are the reality of life for the women in FGM practicing countries” [57]; the key word here being a reality. Women who have undergone FGM have been socialized to believe that it is the only standard of beauty. In a critique of society and culture, for example, Theodor Adorno stated “the commodification, fetishization, and standardization of its products, together with the authoritarian submissiveness, irrationality, conformity, ego-weakness and dependency behavior of its recipients” [58]. Applying this to FGM victims and practitioners, one can see that women have commodified themselves and in the case of FGM, have rationalized the role of mothers, the main executors, and perpetrators, as a form of protecting the heritage and social norms of the society [49].

A study conducted by the WHO on exiled societies¹⁷ concluded that assimilation into a novel society does not necessarily mean that the respective persons will abandon their conceptions of femininity and masculinity, ergo for exiled persons whose social construction, more or less, dictated that FGM is directly correlated to femininity and beauty, that person will perform FGM on their female offspring irrelevant of the social and legal framework they are in [1].

Naomi Wolf hypothesized in The Beauty Myth that “Our society does reward beauty on the outside over health on the inside. Women must not be blamed for choosing short-term beauty “fixes“ that harm our long-term health, since our life spans are inverted under the beauty myth, and there is no great social or economic incentive for women to live a long time”. Although, Wolf is referring to extreme dieting, bulimia, and starvation techniques used by women to look thinner, her conceptualization of the lengths women go to in order to be ‘beautiful’ can be used to explain the request of mutilated women to undergo re-infibulation postpartum [59, 60], Women who have expressed the desire to be re-infibulated say that they feel “naked” and “ugly” and reported anxiety and fear that their husbands would not be attractive for their husbands without it [61].

The overwhelming critique is that women of Africa lack social awareness, literacy, and agency, and suffer from internalized inferiorities, where they define themselves by their male counterparts and not by their innertness and subjectivity [62]. Nonetheless, critics of FGM, who condemn women of Africa who choose to mutilate their daughters and/or choose to be re-infibulated, claim that a woman should not put her body through excruciating processes to become more desirable for a man. However, those same critics are more often than not comfortable and tolerant of vaginal rejuvenation/reconstructive surgery¹⁸, assuming that it is a conscious decision and not a forced one. Conversely, is it really agency when one is indirectly pressured or expected to look/act/behave in a very specific way to maintain a relationship with a sexual partner?

In an attempt to add an African discourse to FGM for ‘foreigners and outsiders’ scholars – academic as well as public figures – have narrated the cultural significance for their societies. It is of the highest priority to note that the practice is located predominantly African-Former-Colonies, which gained independence after the creation of the UN in 1945, and the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted by General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of 14 December 1960 [64]. More than 750 million colonized people suddenly gained their independence, but without the philosophical, political, social, or economic reason to navigate this newly acquired status of ‘self-determinate, independent agent’.

Hyper-nationalism and Pan-Africanism radicalized and anti-colonial propensities were rejected by regression into one’s cultural traditions in an effort to rebuild a nation and not just a state. The first and former president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, for example – an anti-colonial activist and conservative politician – struggled and fought to apprehend cultural, economic, and political liberation for his people, which, to him, included cultural preservation. In an attempt to shift discourse and narratives to favor the underrepresented perspective of former colonies and accommodate African voices, he defended the integral social and institutional aspect of FGM. In his book, he hinted at its necessity for the transformation and armament of social configuration “The operation is (still) regarded as the very essence of an institution which has enormous educational, social, moral and religious implications, quite apart from the operation itself. Presently, it is impossible for a member of the tribe to imagine an initiation without clitoridectomy (FGM). Therefore, the abolition of the surgical element in this custom means to the Gikuyu the abolition of the whole institution” [65]. This view was recapitulated by cultural/moral relativists, which will be discussed in further detail later.

2.3 Esthetic

Esthetic reasons are intertwined with hygienic myths. The belief that a women’s genitalia will carry bacterial infections if not circumcised is the most common one. However, in some cultures, the belief is that female genitalia are esthetically unpleasant. This conviction has led to the perpetuation of the practice to ensure marriage for the daughters. Some men have reported disgust and worry from the appearance of the clitoris, arguing that its “poisonous” disposition will harm their penis. Others, supporters of infibulation, argue that a tighter entry helps in reproduction and assists in childbirth. In some societies it is even believed that if circumcision is not performed the clitoris and labia will grow into a penis-shaped external organ, making a woman virtually unmarriable and unfit for reproduction [66, 67]. One might argue that those beliefs are not motivated by common sense or scientific evidence, but by the individual desire to dominate, self-interest, and fear that serve the social hegemonies to maintain the status quo within a given society. In some societies it is even believed that if circumcision is not performed the clitoris and labia will grow into a penis-shaped external organ, making a woman virtually unmarriable and unfit for reproduction [66, 67]. Clearly, those beliefs are not motivated by common sense or scientific evidence, but by socio-political narcissism and fear that serve the social hegemonies to maintain the status quo within a given society.

Furthermore, it can be hypothesized that in agrarian tribal and developing countries, especially those in Africa, folktales have a cultural and traditional significance. It can be assumed that in the 19th and 20th centuries news of the Khoikhoi women¹⁹ circulated among other communities in Africa. One possible influential figure is Saartije (Sarah) Baartman (1770–1815)²⁰, a Khoisan woman, who was showcased in 1810 in London, United Kingdom, by Hendrik Cesars and Alexander Dunlop as a wonder that “combined science and the freak show, and alluded to the public interest in the figure of the prostitute” [70]. Conceivably, Baartman’s genitalia (depicted below) could have aggravated the urban myth, galvanizing the practice of FGM in African countries. Although these are hypothetical assumptions, it is probable that “the oral tradition not only provides an important bridge to the study of narrative strategies in written form, but it is elemental in the definition of a group’s aesthetic and psycho-social dynamics” [71] meaning that they function as validation of cultural practices by the society. Folklore is consequentially an expression of world views and social paradigms and thus operates as a source of cultural complexities (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

(A) a Bushwoman (the famous 'Hottentot Venus'); (B) a Korana woman; (C) the external genitalia of a Bushwoman, standing upright; (D) the same, of a Bushwoman lying down with the labia minora separated and turned aside. Source: A, from Cuvier; B, from Friedenthal; C and D, copies of coloured engravings by Lesueur, reproduced by Blanchard [72]. Source: Baker, J.R. [73], “The ‘Hottentot Venus’” http://www.heretical.com/miscella/baker4.html

2.4 Psychosexual

Psychosexual justifications for FGM-practicing societies, as elaborated by Leigh Trueblood, is the conviction that “women are fundamentally sexual creatures and naturally promiscuous; thus the purpose of FGM is to prevent women from succumbing to these impulses and to protect them from the aggression of others” [74]. In many cultures the argument is reinforced by the victim-blaming environment surrounding sexual harassment and assault in which the claim is repeatedly made that “she asked for it”, “she wanted it”, and “she did not say no”. Naomi Wolf asserts, although in a different context, that there is a biological reason behind desiring and striving for women’s lack of sexual pleasure. Her argument is that sexual relief/orgasms increase the levels of testosterone in a women’s body making her more assertive and vocal. Pleasurable and “successful” sexual encounters, she claims, release cortisol, oxytocin, and dopamine “which boosts the chemical construct of confidence, motivation, focus, all of these feminist qualities. Goal orientedness. Assertiveness” which many women are deprived of. Additionally, the psychological component of being socialized and treated as an object to which you can add or deduct something that does not appeal to you intensifies the inferiority complex²¹ many women suffer from [75].

Additionally, in some societies, for instance, the Kenyan society, the conviction that controlling sexuality is essential for the survival of tradition was amplified in a rally held by the former president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta. In a rally defending FGM as a cultural and socially-preserving practice that is, as he states, an essential and defining feature of Kenyan society, states “the natives have a strong feeling that it is as shameful for a girl to be uncircumcised as for the boy. They regard the two operations as entirely parallel and homologous. In the same word, IRINO (Djagga) describes both of them (…) As regards the physiology of the matter there is a general conviction that whereas circumcision makes a boy sexually more libidinous, the girl becomes less so after the operation. So that parents are said to be keen on the operation so as to keep their daughters chaste” [65]. While scientific evidence is still conflicting with regard to the effects of FGM on physical sexual pleasure for men and women, the former president’s sentiment speaks volumes about the restrictions imposed on women’s sexuality via social conventions. Kenyatta’s statements hint toward a bigger issue regarding female sexuality and the inclination of some societies to control it [76, 77, 78].

All four justifications for FGM (religious, sociological, esthetic, and psychosexual) can be analyzed using Nussbaum’s [62] objectification and dehumanization concepts. Nussbaum argues that there are seven ways in which women are treated as an object, which through a process of repetition, subjugated and oppressed women and attribute a “less-than-human” status to them. Firstly, women are dehumanized for their instrumentality, i.e., they are a tool for the objectifier to do with what they please. Secondly, denial of autonomy, by virtue of being regarded as a tool, women are perceived as lacking the secondary faculties necessary for self-determination and therefore autonomy. Thirdly, inertness is an organic consequence of women being perceived as tools lacking secondary faculties, alleging that the objectified woman must lack agency. From there. Fungibility, i.e., “the object is interchangeable with other objects of the same type” and violability, i.e., “the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as [in] something that [one is] permissible to break up, smash, break into” ([62], p. 257), appear as natural consequences. These dehumanizing features ascribed to women lead to sentiments of ownership where women are perceived as commodities and objects, that the “owner” can buy or sell. Naturally, denial of subjectivity arises out of the processes above. If a woman is a tool that lacks secondary faculties and thus cannot exercise self-determination, autonomy or agency, is something someone can break, easily replace, buy, and sell, then how can that being have or develop the capacity of emotional intelligence? It cannot. Colonies have not merely been dehumanized to rationalize their occupation, oppression, and subjugation, but the women of those societies, which have historically been marginalized, have been made to believe in their ascribed social roles, and the necessity of catering to the male gaze and the submitting to male control.

Yet, the dominant perpetrators of FGM are in fact mothers, making mothers “complicit in reinforcing gender norms and practices that support violence against women” [79]. Mona ElTahawy [80] in her book Headscarves and Hymens problematizes the issue of mothers and female relatives perpetuating and subjugating their daughters to the same horrors they themselves have been victimized by. ElTahawy asks “why do those men hate us”, and her answer is:

They hate us because they need us, they fear us, they understand how much control it takes to keep us in line, to keep us, good girls, with our hymens intact until it’s time for them to fuck us into mothers who raise future generations of misogynists to forever fuel their patriarchy. They hate us because we are at once their temptation and their salvation from that patriarchy, which they must sooner or later realize hurts them, too. They hate us because they know that once we rid ourselves of the alliance of State and Street that works in tandem to control us, we will demand a reckoning.

ElTahawy further argues that cultural relativism is as much damaging for women of the developing world as it is for women everywhere, stating “When Westerners remain silent out of ‘respect’ for foreign cultures, they show support only for the most conservative elements of those cultures. Cultural relativism is as much my enemy as the oppression I fight within my culture and faith” [80]. Appropriating her work into the context of this chapter, ElTahawy’s statement introduces the dimension of cultural relativism to the question of women’s oppression. So what ethical and moral framework are perpetrators of FGM operating under which portrays mutilation as pro-social behavior?

Philosophical disagreements among scholars have led to a prolonged discussion without a clear and distinct answer to recapitulate a global or national action plan. The two major schools of thought are cultural relativism and cultural absolutism. Cultural Relativists attempt to situate “group rights” into the multicultural liberal context, arguing that intersectional viewpoints will inevitably lead to different conclusions and thus divergent interests that should be equally valid. Moral and legislative norms ought to accommodate for differences and inspire tolerance and acceptance of “the other”, in the hopes that this would decrease conflict. Cultural Absolutists, on the other hand, argue for a transcendent morality that is a priori to all human beings, thus its universality supersedes cultural beliefs. The extent of both is limited and debatable and in any situation that involves human subjects there is not really one right answer, but multilayered, individualistic, and situational solutions that dictate courses of action.

Cultural relativism can arise when subjects of diverse cultural backgrounds exist within the same jurisdiction, like in the same country, where public policy and legislative decrees are both comprehensive and affect all constituents, yet allow for cultural norms to be practiced by minorities safely [81, 82, 83]. The idea behind cultural relativism and its accompanying policies is to ensure the protection of minority groups from harassment, social, legal, and political prosecution and exclusion, and to foster an environment of tolerance and understanding for difference and social egalitarianism. Yet cultural relativism does have its drawbacks as there are cultural practices, such as FGM, honor killings, body piercings, and polygamy, inter alia, that are widely regarded as violations of human rights, yet the argument can be made that those are cultural practices ought to be protected by the liberal state under the concept of minority group rights. The role of culture thus poses an issue for exiled communities who may want to assimilate into their host society but are still bound to their indoctrinated cultures and traditions. Culture, therefore, can be often associated with identity, especially for exiled communities, which cannot be dismantled. In defense of the necessity of multiculturalism and its need to be adopted by liberal states, Will Kymlicka [84] says:

The state does not oppose the freedom of people to express their particular cultural attachments, but nor does it nurture such expression—rather […] it responds with ‘benign neglect’ [….] The members of ethnic and national groups are protected against discrimination and prejudice, and they are free to maintain whatever part of their ethnic heritage or identity they wish, consistent with the rights of others. But their efforts are purely private, and it is not the place of public agencies to attach legal identities or disabilities to cultural membership or ethnic identity. This separation of state and ethnicity precludes any legal or governmental recognition of ethnic groups, or any use of ethnic criteria in the distribution of rights, resources, and duties.

Similarly, Chandran Kukathas, a cultural absolutist argues for the liberal states’ responsibility – based on a libertarian laissez-fair system – ought to choose cultural absolutism over liberal feminism, essentially arguing that no matter how patriarchal or misogynistic a minority group may seem and/or is, they must be protected and permitted to practice their beliefs freely and uninterruptedly without state interference by pursuing “politics of indifference” [85, 86].

In juxtaposition, cultural absolutists argue for the necessity of a legislative and legal forum that encourages assimilation and draws on universal rights and obligations to which exiled communities have to adhere if they wish to assimilate into their host societies. Cultural and moral absolutists contend that having a universal legislative framework to which all members of society must adhere, fosters harmony, unlike cultural relativists, who are heavily criticized for fostering a ‘multi-cliquery’ [87] where integration is virtually impossible. In recent years, cultural relativism has functioned as a proxy for political, social, and economic issues, especially by conservative and populist parties, who scapegoat issues of social unrest and dissatisfaction onto cultural uniqueness to disguise xenophobic notions and ideologies [88, 89, 90]. Cultural absolutism, therefore, seems to have transformed into cultural imperialism, where “the sum of processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominant center of the system” [91]. Simplified, this critique accentuates the sentiment that some cultures are superior to others and thus have the right to dictate actions and ascribe moral values to certain behaviors. So how can we evaluate practices that contradict our moral beliefs without being accused of imperialism?

FGM is still a heated topic, with some cultural and moral relativists claiming that the practice should be preserved under the assumption of cultural rights, while others, cultural and moral absolutists, have expressed discontent and called for the abolishment of the practice. The main distinction between both lies in philosophical juxtapositions concerning morality. Moral relativists, such as Gilbert Harman²², David B. Wong²³, and Chris Gowans²⁴, argue that cultural practices, beliefs, and practices should be regarded with respect and tolerance, hence “Metaethical Moral Relativism (MMR). The truth or falsity of moral judgments, or their justification, is not absolute or universal but is relative to the traditions, convictions, or practices of a group of persons” [100]. Contrastingly, moral absolutists, argue that some practices possess an absolute truth where they can either be right or wrong; perspectives, attitudes, and customs ought not to have an effective and significant weight on some issues deemed to be universal. The idea that certain actions are objectively right/wrong and abide by an a priori universal law – “Two things awe me the most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me” [101] – in contrast to the idea that the moral value ascribed to action is subjectively right/wrong – “man is the measure of all things” (Protagoras in Plato’s Meno); “One and the same thing can at the same time be good, bad, and indifferent, e.g., music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good nor bad to the deaf” (Baruch Spinoza in Ethica, 1677) i.e. no action or practice can be inherently good or evil – makes moral judgment with regards to a practice such as FGM difficult. So how can we evaluate FGM?

On the one hand, we must concede that essentializing women’s experiences under an umbrella of ‘womanhood’ is neither productive nor critical. The idea that women of the global South have been essentialized by the women of the global North, specifically white Western feminists who look upon women of color with a patronizing and paternal gaze – as passive, oppressed, fragile, illiterate, and in dire need of saving [102] – has lead scholars to dismiss their arguments altogether. Kalev, for example, recites the conceptual reaction of Western feminists to FGM, who she argues think “An adult woman accepting the practice voluntarily is seen as comparable to a battered wife who stays with her husband: she is misguided and acts out of fear” [57]. Although she agrees that FGM should be abolished, she supports the narrative that cultural relativist and cultural pluralists posit [81, 82, 83]; FGM is as much a cultural practice which ought to be protected under “group/minority rights”, therefore people should be allowed to perform FGM on their daughters if they so desire. Many policies have been enacted in the past years to account for the rights of migrants for the representation and preservation of their culture. Some of the policies enforced were ‘affirmative action’ to ensure representation, exemptions from legal obligations that violated a cultural or religious belief, and legal protection against prosecution by individuals and/or institutions, inter alia,

On the other hand, assimilationist and bifurcationist policies have been repeatedly proposed as public strategies especially in ‘migration haven’ countries such as the United States. Policymakers have called for a distinction between the public and the private sphere, indicating that culture is a private matter and therefore should not occupy space in the public sphere. It has also been argued that bifurcationist policies have promptly endorsed uniformity in the public sphere, where difference is regarded as divergence and thus assimilation and conformity into the host society are not only expected but socially and, covertly, coerced [103, 104].

Moreover, cultural and moral relativists, such as Juliet Rogers, have adopted a social constructivist lens for analyzing issues that may seem on the outskirts to be culturally born. Rogers [105] believes that the picture of a girl undergoing FGM has been hyper-romanticized and determined that the “truth” is relative and subjective. She insisted that this thought process, mainly carried out by Westerners on behalf of people of the global south, is patronizing and ‘outrageously’ inflated the harmful effects of FGM. She carries on to state that to “offer the ‘truth’ of female genital mutilation as a coupling of an image of a child being mutilated … This speech recruits the tropes of a Western subjectivity that supports freedom, choice, desire, and an agency defined by sexual freedom, and frames the subject of mutilation as lacking in these capacities” [105]. In her notes, she explains that even the usage of the term ‘mutilation’ is a western-born term; therefore, she prefers the term ‘cutting’ to signal its cultural heritage and ‘correct’ intention. Rogers’ arguments make sense for any person proud of their own culture and heritage, however, it gravely misrepresents and naively considers the intention behind FGM. By downplaying the practice and claiming it is ‘not as bad as the West makes it seem’ she has systematically dismissed and silenced the voices of women whose right to childhood, freedom, liberty from any form of violence, and agency have been stripped away from them under the name of ‘culture’, using social media and online platforms to voice themselves (e.g. 28toomany.org, endfgm.eu, UNICEF Connect, etc.). One cannot deny that some women pride themselves in being circumcised, but the dominant data suggests otherwise [8], and supports the claim that no one has the right to deform another individual. To sum up, the cultural relativist position states that: One cannot project their own cultural beliefs, morally coerce those beliefs on others, or morally victimize subjects.

I argue that, from a postcolonial standpoint, the relativity of cultural understandings of persons practicing FGM ought to be respected. This is not in any way a statement of support for the practice, but instead a postcolonial argument about the necessity of eradicating the “white savior” complex. As Spivak [106] argued, we need to abolish the colonial idea of “white men saving brown women from brown men”, particularly as the WHO’s ([79], p. 6) “fathers were less supportive of FGM than mothers, and were often crucial to decisions not to subject their daughters to the procedure” Adopting a postcolonial perspective when it comes to discussions of FGM is thereby necessary, whereby cultural practices are respected but harmful practices are eradicated. To achieve this, the ambitious and, rather unrealistic, project of global wealth distribution ought to occur. Power dynamics between the “core” and the “periphery” need to be challenged by the “periphery”. For that to occur, the entire international system needs to be abolished and restructured so sovereign states, which the UN claims are all equal, are in fact equal. Then, and only then, might we see a shift in cultural practices which are harmful to those already marginalized and victimized. So long as the” core” benefits from the “underdevelopment” and “dependency” of the “periphery” we will continue to see practices, such as FGM, which are objectively harmful, persist.

3. Conclusion

A post-colonial perspective could assist in reformulating and reconstructing the perception of sexuality especially that of “the woman whose very womb is claimed by the irresolvable contesting narratives of ‘church,’ ‘paternity,’ ‘economy,’ and ‘liberal polity’” [107]. Michel Foucault, for instance, rebelled against the idea that people of the world have become more liberal when it comes to sexuality and sexual relations, while in fact a medicalization of sexuality and restriction on its fluidity was imposed to control societies and the minds of people by the 1%. The “relentless” science of sexuality, argues Foucault, counteracted the ancient erotic art of the Romans, Chinese and Japanese, whose focus was to increase pleasure and encourage the pursuit of lust by replacing it with an understanding of sex in the name of modernity. He drew comparisons between the medicalization of sex and Catholic confession to highlight that modernity did not bring about the liberation of sexuality, but rather repression, by treating it as a ‘secret’, ‘shameful’, and ‘private’ sin that one ought to be ‘controlled’ and ‘redeemed’, but also as a tool to assert control over someone. Foucault [108] wrote:

Instead of adding up the errors, naïvetés, and moralisms that plagued the nineteenth-century discourse of sex, we would do better to locate the procedures by which that will to knowledge regarding sex […] caused the rituals of confession to function within the norms of scientific regularity: how did this immense and traditional extortion of sexual confession come to be constituted in scientific terms? […] To say that sex is not repressed, or rather that the relationship between sex and power is not characterized by repression, is to risk falling into a sterile paradox […] (sexuality) has been linked from the outset with an intensification of the body – with its exploitation as an object of knowledge and an element in relation to power.

Similarly to Nussbaum, I conclude that “the instrumental treatment of human beings, the treatment of human beings as tools of the purpose of another, is always morally problematic” ([62], p. 289). The international community ought not to regard FGM as a harmful practice exclusively, but needs to recognize that the practice is in as much an identity-affirming practice as it is a traditional practice. The colonial legacy of the nations practicing FGM needs to proceed with the discussion of how harmful the practice is and whether the international community ought to intervene in the name of humanitarianism. We should acknowledge that FGM is a rational practice for those subjected to it, by challenging the narrative that “suggests that practitioners are somehow less rational than people in ‘modern’ societies and justifies a heavy-handed approach that strives to teach … people who are seen as ‘ignorant’” ([109], p. 16). This cultural and absolutist approach will only serve to radicalize those practicing it, as the mere notion of moral imposition is almost automatically challenged by colonies who had to fought for their right to exist as humans during colonization. Underestimating the damaging impact of colonial rule, and the national sentiment of the formerly colonized to rid themselves of colonialism will serve the narrative which allows for harmful practices to continue.

Lastly, we need to recognize the central function of FGM as an identity-affirming practice that, people who engage with it, utilize as a means to reclaim control over their lives. As Coyne and Coyne [110] argued “the decision of people to engage, or to refrain from engaging, in the practice of FGM affects not only the identity of the decision maker, but also broader social group”. Thereby, the postcolonial approach serves to understand how power structures are challenged through the practice. As Wagner [111] in her cross-section study of thirteen African nations posited, ethnic identity is fueling the practice, particularly as FGM is believed to be “an important source of my social identity. It’s what links me with my mother, my grandmothers my aunts, my female ancestors. It celebrates our history, our connection” ([112], p. 46). As colonized persons have been victimized, dehumanized, and systemically undermined by coercive means, the practice is a way of rebelling and reaffirming their own identity and power as rational actors. Any attempt by the international community to villainize the practice or intervene in the internal affairs of the nation, will most likely, result in its exacerbation.