Female Circumcision: A Case Study

Gibeau, Anne M. 1998. "Female Genital Mutilation: When a Cultural Practice Generates Clinical and Ethical Dilemmas." Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing 27 (1): 85-91.

Female circumcision is based on gender oppression and degradation of women. It is the result of a patriarchal society trying to sexually control women. Women are stripped of their sexuality and their virginity is controlled until they are married. As in most patriarchal societies, marriage is essential to the economic survival of women. Therefore, in the minds of these people, the benefits gained from this operation for the girl and her family far outweigh any potential danger. They look forward to circumcision as a coming-of-age ritual, which is necessary to maintain health, virginity and family honor. Circumcised women are considered beautiful while uncircumcised women are considered ugly, unclean, and unfit for marriage. So when parents request a genital procedure for their daughter, they are only seeking to enhance their child's acceptance into their culture and assure her desirability as a wife.

Female circumcision has been a cultural tradition practiced in different parts of the world for many years in order to secure virginity until marriage. In Africa female genital mutilation tradition is a part of the Muslim culture and parts of the Middle East, for the women to be desirable by her husband. (JPEG) Consequently, girls the ages of 4 through 14 are to endure the severe pains of female circumcision in order to not betray their culture and family beliefs. (Ali, 2016) In the US, the estimated number of females between 15 and 49, who are either at risk of genital mutilation or who have already undergone a procedure, has reached more than 500,000, triple the amount reported in the 1990 national census. (Female genital mutilation in the US tripled in 25 years, 2015) This controversial practice performed on females lead advocates to believe that this is a form of female genital mutilation that must come to an end. (Ali, 2016)

Before today, I had not put a lot of thought into the issue of male circumcision; I did already know that male circumcision was important to some religions because I myself was religious and have seen it mentioned in the Bible. However, I assumed that most male infants in the United States were circumcised for one reason or another; I also did not know males would get circumcised after infancy too, like in the video. Today, through reading the article about the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) fact sheet, I would agree that male circumcision is beneficial for infant males.

Female circumcision will continue to be a terrorizing practice in Africa and will continue until laws are strictly enforced or certain religious practices are stopped.FC/GM is a practice that is hardly spoken of even though it is going on all around us. Just because it primarily happens in Africa does not mean women are affected in the Unite States also. Over 180 million women worldwide have been affected. Laws have been put in place but, they are hardly followed. This practice is strictly a religious based practice with no health benefits. If anything it causes more deaths. Survivors of FC/GM remember the procedure like it was yesterday and have terrorizing memories of. Over 20 years late one women is still horrified by her own memories and

It is not more of one than the other. Female Genital Mutilation is acknowledged worldwide as a defilement of the human rights of girls and women. It reveals established inequality between sexes, and institutes an extreme method of discrimination against women and girls.

Circumcision is a commonly performed and highly controversial medical procedure. This procedure is not new however, it has dated back centuries in humanity. “Circumcision is a surgical procedure that involves removal of the foreskin on the glans penis”(Hisley&Ward, 2009). There are many reasons this procedure is controversial including religious and social beliefs, medical risks and benefits, and personal opinions. The medical benefits of having this procedure done are not believed to be true by everyone which creates different opinions by medical professionals, although circumcision has become a very common procedure in the United States and is accepted by the majority of the population.

“Circumcision is an elective surgical procedure to remove all or part of the foreskin (prepuce) from the penis" (Jarvis, pg. 693, 2012). This nontherapeutic surgical procedure has small risk for complications such as pain, bleeding, swelling, or inadequate skin removal. Serious complications are rare and include excess bleeding, wound infection, and urinary retention (Jarvis, pg. 693, 2012). “The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states that current evidence…..shows that health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks. Male circumcision reduces the risk for men of acquiring genital herpes, genital ulcers, and oncogenic human papillomavirus (HPV). Female partners of circumcised men have a reduced risk of acquiring HPV, bacterial

Circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin of the penis. This practice of male circumcision was started century ago by Jewish people as part of religious ritual (Pillitteri, 2014). Today there is controversy with this practice. For this week's discussion, we are going to concentrate on proponents of the practice. Male circumcision has been a practice in various social groups in many countries around the world including Jewish people, Muslim, and even citizens of the United Stated of America (Chiringa, Ramathuba, & Mashau, 2017). Culture and religion have had a great impact on decision making regarding male circumcision.

Female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), is a major topic in the feminist spotlight. Based solely on the difference between the descriptions of the topic (circumcision vs. mutilation), it is easy to see there is conflict of opinions about the ethics surrounding the practice. While male circumcision is often easily accepted in modern day society, female circumcision is not. The common stereotype is that female circumcision is performed as a male dominance practice (Vestbostad & Blystad, 2014), however, there are many alternate traditions surrounding the practice. Therefore, I will investigate both sides of the story: the religious/traditional outlook, feminist/human rights outlook and why concern is placed on female circumcision over male.

The view of female circumcision to a functionalist would center on the thought that it keeps young girls virgins and wives faithful to their husbands. A propose for this is that it lessens the women’s sexual desire. What thy leave out is that many women find sex painful because of their circumcision. They also lave out the tools they use aren’t clean, and you rub dirt in it to heal you get nothing for the pain, and it can easily become infected. It keeps stability in the tribes so the women only reproduce with the men in their tribe, and it helps to minimize the spreading of sexual decease. What they leave out of the article is you are required to marry in your tribe or be considered an outcast, and your circumcision just enforces that their

I agree with you. Female circumcision is a violation on human rights, especially when it is done without the consent of the person undergoing the procedure. I feel out of cultural custom, if a young women wants this procedure done then that is fine as well yet, it should at least be done by a trained professional. In efforts to prevent infection and abnormal side effects that can be fatal for this particular individuals future, the procedure should be discussed in details about the health risks that can be applied later on. I also think that parents should not enforced this procedure on their children because that can cause the experience to be

I agree with you, Bianca, working in the medical requires one to have tolerance towards other cultures’ morals and practices. It is very difficult to respect practices in other cultures when they are viewed as moral wrong in another. In the book, they discussed the of practice female circumcision, which is morally wrong in western nations. These nations will attempt to educate the people, to demonstrate the immoral practice that are currently partaking in. One source from the book, Scheper-Hughes writes, “I don’t like the idea of clitoridectomy better than any other woman I know. But I like even less the western ‘voices of reason’ [imposing their judgment]”. (Pojman 21). This shows that although people in the culture disagree with an issue,

In this country, majority of people are Muslims : they solely live for Allah. The religion requires, as you can know, the circumcision of girls to celebrate the arrival of their periods and to mark the beginning of their life as a woman. It consists in removing the clitoris to prevent women from having pleasure their sexual romps and to tie up the vagina just to let a little hole to pee. This ritual is done coldly in the middle of the desert, on a rock, with a dusty razor blade and rope. Half of these children die of infection or bleed to death. Because in her head it was positive event, Waris pleaded her mom to get circumcised to be considered as a complete women. At the age of five, her Mama succumbed to her wish and Waris lived the hell

While each cultural practice, controversial or not, can be justified within its cultural content, it does not mean that it is appropriate and accepted. Take into account an international debate that has been going on over the issue of “female circumcision” discussed in the article “Searching for "Voices":