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Loading... Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: DISPUTING U.S. POLEMICSby Stanlie M. James
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Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood is a much-needed response to the ethnocentric and arrogant Western perceptions surrounding female genital cutting (FGC), often referred to as either female genital mutilation or female circumcision, but including a variety of practices of varying history, severity, geographical distribution, and consequences. In five provocative essays, the contributors to this timely volume challenge representations of FGC through a range of perspectives: history, human rights, law, missionary feminism, cultural relativism, anthropology, and the intersex movement. Balancing feminist ideals with culturally conscious approaches, they dispel sensationalized and widely accepted concepts that influence Western media, law, and feminist thought on FGC, including the ignorance and oversimplification of African history, cultures, and religions, and an exaggeration of the extent and geographical distribution of the various procedures performed. The assumption that FGC does not occur presently in the United States is also considered. From Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar's documentary film Warrior Marks to mainstream media and prime time television, Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood critiques the sources that perpetuate the harmful myths that all African women have been mutilated and promote doing so to their children, that those who perform it are barbaric, and that families who allow it are abusive. With sensitivity and clarity, the contributors to Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood provide necessary and alternative suggestions for the eradication of the most harmful procedures--which they feel can only occur when the leadership of African women in the ongoing campaigns is acknowledged and supported, and when income generation for African women and education of the U.S. public, rather than criminalization, become primary strategies. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)392.14Social sciences Customs, Etiquette, Folklore Family, Courtship, Marriage and Sex Birth customs: christening, circumcisionLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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Especially interesting was the last chapter which showed through first hand account that the same feminist actors leading the charge against African clitoridectomy take no interest in the same procedure in our own society performed on unconsenting infants in order to enforce gender norms on the intersexed. "'Their' genital cutting is barbaric ritual; 'ours' is scientific. Theirs disfigures; ours normalizes the deviant." Because the target is not female genital cutting, but only female genital cutting by Africans, the strident paternalistic appeal by Westerners is understandably unappreciated. ( )