Do we really have the right to speak up about female genital mutilation, cutting, or circumcision? In Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s article, Under the Western Eyes, she critiques the western feminist literature. In her article, she points out that these feminist literatures tend to assume that all women are the same globally. After rereading Mohanty’s article as well as articles by Richard Shweder and Christine Walley, I was able to compare them to the sources Georgina and I used for our class project. I came to the conclusion that Mohanty’s critiques on feminist literatures are true. After reading both sides of the debate on FGM/FGC, I think Mohanty would be an author who would agree that Western feminists do not have the right to judge those
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Shweder’s article, “What About ‘Female Genital Mutilation?’ and Why Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place,” he talks about the cultural understanding of FGM in which, again, anti-FGM literature fails to include in their argument. Shweder mentioned Carla Obermeyer, a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist at Harvard University, who concluded that “the anti-‘FGM’ movement are highly exaggerated and may not match reality” (Shweder, 213). This is a statement that I’ve mentioned earlier in which these movements provide us with lots of health risks but no evidence. Corinne Kratz, who wrote about the Okiek, was also mentioned in Shweder’s article. Kratz “tells us that the Okiek ‘do not talk about circumcision in terms of dampening of sexual pleasure or desire, but rather speak of it ‘in terms of cleanliness, beauty and adulthood’” (214-15). In fact, Sandra Lane and Robert Rubinstein brought to our attention—in the same article—that in a discussion, out of the fifty women who had the procedure done, only two of them resented and are upset about being circumcised (Shweder, 215). The majority of those women didn’t consider the procedure as “mutilation” but rather “improvement over female genitalia in their natural state” (215). This, I feel is important to remember because we must learn to know and understand why the procedure is done in a cultural perspective. Just because women on the Western hemisphere may not agree with it, doesn’t mean that women on the other side of the world are disgusted by the procedure as well. Shweder proved to us that there are women out there who are completely in agreement with the
Shweder’s article, “What About ‘Female Genital Mutilation?’ and Why Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place,” he talks about the cultural understanding of FGM in which, again, anti-FGM literature fails to include in their argument. Shweder mentioned Carla Obermeyer, a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist at Harvard University, who concluded that “the anti-‘FGM’ movement are highly exaggerated and may not match reality” (Shweder, 213). This is a statement that I’ve mentioned earlier in which these movements provide us with lots of health risks but no evidence. Corinne Kratz, who wrote about the Okiek, was also mentioned in Shweder’s article. Kratz “tells us that the Okiek ‘do not talk about circumcision in terms of dampening of sexual pleasure or desire, but rather speak of it ‘in terms of cleanliness, beauty and adulthood’” (214-15). In fact, Sandra Lane and Robert Rubinstein brought to our attention—in the same article—that in a discussion, out of the fifty women who had the procedure done, only two of them resented and are upset about being circumcised (Shweder, 215). The majority of those women didn’t consider the procedure as “mutilation” but rather “improvement over female genitalia in their natural state” (215). This, I feel is important to remember because we must learn to know and understand why the procedure is done in a cultural perspective. Just because women on the Western hemisphere may not agree with it, doesn’t mean that women on the other side of the world are disgusted by the procedure as well. Shweder proved to us that there are women out there who are completely in agreement with the