Scandinavia steps up the fight against genital mutilation

wow.

Are you attempting to make a point rickm8 or just trying to stir the soup, so to speak?

Hi there,
What does one thing has to do with another? I am pro-life, but I am a realistic person. In the USA abortions are legal, thus women have the rigtht to chose. If you make it illegal people are still going to perform abortions. I do not see how torturing and mutilating a little girl can be compared to having the right to chose. While I am at it, women have to have the right to chose because men do not want to be responsible for their actions. Having a baby or not should take two people not just the woman.

Pardon my sarcasm, I was not trying to imply that original poster (or anyone else on current.com) is either socialist or racist.

http://current.com/items/90992395_new-game-racist-or-socialist.htm

Thats what soap and water is all about..keep it clean, no problems.

Exactly Tyr!

Hi there,
This is not about how you feel this is about little girls being abused by their own families.

no it was invented to control the masses dont revolt because your life is shitty things will be better int he after life just toe the mark

Yes, but in controlling sex they help control the masses. Keep enjoyment out of our hands until after we're dead and earn our 'reward'. Carrot and stick approach to life!

I hear you, but I have a somalian friend (her family left and this never happened to her) and from the way she describes it, this would equate with cutting half of the man's penis off not just the foreskin (sorry for the image!). They not only remove the clitoris, but the outer labia as well, and sew it up leaving a hole just big enough to urinate and menstruate. Lucky husband gets to break through, and sex is either painful or joyless for the rest of your life- and I don't even want to think about childbirth.

Lily,

I understand your reference as to the difference in the severity of the genital mutilation. I hope I didn't come across as implying that it is a decent practice. It most certainly is not. FGM routinely goes on in East and West African countries. Additionally, in Sudan cliterectomies are performed so that the woman can have no pleasure. It's barbaric.

Hi there,
At least there is a good/health reason for the circumcision on a boy.

Yellow,
Historically you are correct. But with the ability to bathe daily it is not medically necessary.

It also had to do, historically, with Victorian principles of propriety. Parents were taught that it would be improper for them to pull back the foreskin and wash the penis head thoroughly for their young boys. It would be too close to some weird notion of masturbation, it might excite the boy to have that done. I am not saying that it actually would, but the fear in the minds of the parents gave them an out, by having their kid circumsized. Problem solved...."then I don't have to put too much attention on my child's penis."

Jubal,

Important point on the Victorian values! Thank you.

You cannot compare clitoral mutilation to circumcision. Maybe castration, but not circumcision. I understand what you are saying, but no.

Hey I have seen some circumcisions that went way wrong. OUCH.

Very good points as always Nephwrack

kevin who do you think has power in these cultures? Does Islam have female leadership? (And, yes, I'm well aware that this is not a tenant of Islam..but for all intents it is only islamic cultures practicing it). The men are afraid of women's sexuality. This is a way of controlling their 'sensual natures'.

While women definitely have a role in it, for starters they are the ones literally holding the girls down, HP, is right. Watch the Vanguard special on this practice. Many women hate to have it done to their daughters, but they know they would be considered 'worthless' and no man would want to marry them if they didn't undergo the butchering.

It is nice that you don't want YOUR woman to be a prude lol, but a woman's worth has been tied to her chastitiy for centuries in most cultures. It was customary in ancient times for example to display the conjugal sheets for blood proof that the marriage had been consumated. This just takes that sentiment to an extreme place most of us don't even want to imagine.

Actually...men are encouraging this. I did some research on this subject in college. When a girl is circumcised, her bride price increases. This is because she has no clitoris. And if she has no clitoris she can not experience sexual pleasure, which means she is less likely to have an affair with other men.

Furthermore, many cultures who practice this believe that the clitoris is dirty, increase a woman's life expectancy, makes women more physically attractive, and allows her to have a healthier child birth.

Too true, Nephwrack. Wish the days of these idiots having any sort of power were long behind us.

troubling... if religion is good, shouldn't religious extremism be awesome?

Like God is good, too much God even better?

more than obvious in today's world. every inhumane act against our own species considered "God's" work or "religiously necessary" goes to show us that.

too much God is certainly not necessary. Muslims and their terrorism in "the name of Allah" is an example or the hate towards homosexuals from mega-Christians and take a look at Ann Coulter and her desire to "perfect" Jews.

It was a very good book; though I definitely read it when I was too young and had nightmares. It's fiction, but it definitely brought this barbaric, inhumane custom to light in Western culture, written in like 92 or 93 I think.

you can't just decree that this is barbarism. it is painful and scars these women in many ways, yes. but it seems you've missed the entire deeper conversation happening under the video. it might be difficult for you to swallow if you've only had a superficial exposure to the issue like the article or video above but it's really just immature to make such comments like this one and others here.

i feel pukey too.

Here guys puke in this Bucket (hands over bucket) I will make soup with it later

Nice to tie into acontridiction's post. That post was worthless.

It might not be a tenant of Islam but what cultures, that have a different religious orientation, do it? Elaborate.

It's an animist african tradition. Several of the areas animist shamen do it as well.

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that Islam has nothing to do with this. 90% of the women in Sierra Leone have this done, and the population is 60% Muslim, so while Islam may not advocate for this practice, the underlying principles of Islam that advocate that women must be concealed, protected from sexuality and restricted in both education and public life do contribute. It is not unlike the practices of Mormons that have been condemned in the US, but nonetheless, are a queer perversion of Christian principles in certain sects of Mormonism. While Christianity does not advocate for multiple wives and underage marriages, certain attitudes towards women and sexuality (case in point, the thesis of a candidate for governor in Virginia) are not entirely without connection to these types of perversion, particularly when female education is neither encouraged nor promoted across the culture. This practice, as well as the practice of marrying underage girls in some Mormon sects, could not occur without the complicity of the women, the mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts, and as long as women are restricted in their access to education and public life, you are going to find women who participate in their own oppression.

But then, that isn't something that is gender exclusive, else we wouldn't have so much support in this country for the GOP.

your point is covered in the second of the links I posted. Also it seems you missed the Easter eggs reference. Were you raised a christian? Did you ever hunt for Easter eggs? It's not a practice followed my all Christians you know, just those of European, and by extension, American descent. If you grew up a Coptic in North Africa you'd probably never have heard of it. heck, the biggest contingents of Anglicans these days are in Africa too, rather than England, and I don't know if they even do it. I don't know if the Eastern Orthodoxies do it or not.

went back and read your links, interesting. I was actually responding to your first post, and I think we both posted around the same time, so didn't mean to ignore your follow-up links, but thanks for pointing me to them.

You may have also got ninja edited. I added them when I removed the ranty bit earlier.

acontradiction, as usual you are so bright and witty. Way to ignore the whole article and somehow turn it, as usual, to how liberals are screwing up. Hmmm....issues, perhaps?

maybe we should go into these countries with the Marines. I know how strong you feel about this and be willing to lead the way. The NRA and Fox Noise can help you drum up support for the cause.

It's NOT a Muslim custom.

This has nothing to do with Islam at all.

I couldn't have said it better myself! Europe doesn't need to over throw the oppression of christianity only to accept the oppression of islam.

Are you absolutely daft? FGM is not exclusively practiced in Islamic societies, and is condemned by various Islamic organizations. Please try to compare your preconceived notions and prejudiced views with the facts.

A moslim and also some certain tribes who are not necessairly Moslim.

I really hate mans insecurity. How some leaders of the past would implement such techniques to keep there women or what ever from having temptation or desire. Do they really think that will suppress the human spirit. I think the two men should be castrated and any others that practice this, as a mater a fact, castrate all
of them, that practice this act, and spade the dog like woman that go along with it, (and in time they will die off)!