HPIA
Hofstra Papers in Anthropology
Volume 8, Article #1, 2013
Forbidden: How Immigation Impacts Female Genital Cutting
by Emily Weaver
Immigration in the United States has impacted the lives of not only native-born citizens, but also the lives of the thousands of immigrants and refugees that come into the country every year. Many of these immigrants bring with them traditions and beliefs from their home countries and regions. One example of these traditions is that of female genital cutting, a procedure in which a young woman has either part or all of her labia and/or her clitoris removed or cut. This procedure has caused a great deal of controversy within the United States, where many Westerners who do not fully understand the procedure have attempted to pass legislation with the purpose of criminalizing those that both perform female genital cutting and who have the procedure performed on their daughters and female relatives. Because this issue impacts the movement of people around the world and how different groups of people relate to and live alongside one another, female genital cutting can be considered a “world problem,” and needs to be addressed using anthropological concepts and intercultural dialogue in order to reach a resolution.
The frequent portrayal of Africa as a land of brutes and backwards practices has plagued immigrants, refugees, and citizens with African ancestry living in the Western world for centuries. This includes the demonization of the practices of African cultures and practices through Western media and within Western culture, where positive images of Africans are few and far between. One of these practices in particular, that of Female Genital Cutting, or FGC, has begun to pick up speed amongst do-gooders of the United States. Often without consulting African women’s groups, American legislators have passed laws with the intent to demonize and judge a delicate practice that is rooted in tradition rather than the child abuse as they believe it to be. Often referred to as “female genital mutilation,” the simple renaming of the procedure to FGM serves to set apart African women who have had the procedure, rather than accomplishing the tricky goal of changing women’s perceptions about having the procedure performed on their daughters and other female relatives. Language and legislation is a powerful tool in the hands of the right people, and it remains to be the goal of many women of African origin to cease the judgment and discrimination and reclaim their bodies for themselves, something that many of those that advocate against female genital cutting have failed to do.
In order to educate the truth about female genital cutting and to end the judgment that many African women immigrants, refugees, and citizens face, it is important to clear up the often critical language surrounding what is not one procedure, but can be one of several different ones. Female genital cutting can be divided up into four distinct procedures. The first, a clitoridectomy, involves the partial or complete removal of the clitoris. The second, excision, includes both the partial/ total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora and, in some cases, the labia majora as well. Third, infibulation, involves the narrowing of the vaginal opening “through the creation of a covering seal,” (WHO) and can possibly also involve the removal of the clitoris. The fourth is an extra category for what the World Health Organization describes as, “all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping, and cauterizing the genital area.” Interestingly enough, the World Health Organization refers to female genital cutting instead as “Female Genital Mutilation,” a term that has been rejected by some women’s groups because the use of the term “mutilation” carries too much weight and impedes the chances of a non-judgmental conversation regarding challenging or ending the procedure for women.
It is worth nothing that, simply because more African women’s groups are advocating for understanding of female genital cutting does not mean that they condone the procedures. Instead, these groups wish to be certain that the procedures are being challenged for the right reasons. They believe that education about female genital cutting should be done with the intention of aiding African women and girls rather than making a spectacle or reducing them to the status of their vulvas and clitorises. The women that have had the procedure performed on themselves do not want to be set apart by not only being ridiculed by medical personnel who are unfamiliar with what a circumcised woman’s genitals looks like, nor do these women want to be accused of simply giving into what their husbands and male relatives want. Clare C. Robertson has stated that, “Legal discourse constructed African women as helpless victims of infamous practices, while the United States was being presented as a liberated paradise for Africans.” (Robertson 2002: 75). Robertson’s critique does not advocate against helping African women, but rather challenges the notion that African women are an oppressed group as a whole, and that in order to function in the world they need to be “liberated” by those, specifically males, that have sought to control their bodies with little to no regard to the notion that legislators in the United States are doing exactly what they have opposed.
The impact of immigration on recipients of female genital cutting has been immense. The current law against female genital cutting in the United States, 18 USC § 116, reads:
Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title of imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.
The only exception, as outlined in subsection (b), would be that the procedure is either necessary to the health of the person it is performed on, or that it is performed on a person in labor or has just given birth. In both instances, a medical practitioner, or midwife in the case of the second accepted instance, may perform it. This criminalization puts both non-resident parents and circumcisers at odds with U.S. immigration policies, and immigrant parents with citizen children run the risk of being questioned about their motives for taking or sending their child out of the country, regardless of their actual motives.
Overall, the issue with criminalizing female genital cutting and making criminals out of those that perform it or parents who condone it is not a matter of whether or not it should be criminalized, but who it is that is making the decision to criminalize it. Soon after federal bills were passed and a law was formed in California against female genital cutting, Isabelle R. Gunning discussed how a she and a Los Angeles group held meetings that included local African people and African women activists. More meetings were held with local refugee and immigrant African communities in Los Angeles and San Diego. Gunning also describes how, though some members of the group supported FGC and others did not, by the end the general consensus was to support the law, though not the language within it (Gunning 2002: 118). She states that: "Some felt that FGM was the correct characterization of the procedures and the proper political symbol. Others felt that the term mutilation would offend many in the immigrant and refugee African communities and repel them from seeking education and health information. Ultimately, the group agreed. The term female circumcision would be more appropriate."
And so, one of the major issues regarding the female genital cutting debate in the Western world is not so much whether or not the procedure should be performed, Gunning states that the consensus in her group was support for the law. The issue was with where the law was coming from, whether or not those that had proposed them and eventually passed these laws had done so out of a true concern for women, or simply to perpetuate stereotypes of African women, and whether what would come out of these laws was helpful or would only end up further alienating African immigrants and refugees. After all, how many African women had been consulted about the national or California laws? Did Congress pass them because of what African women actually wanted, or what they were perceived to want, to go back to the notion that African women only have the procedure done under the pressure of men. Or, worse, were African women considered too biased to know what was “right” for them, and so Congress went ahead and did as they thought was best?
Holism is one of the tenets of anthropology, the belief that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When applied to the criminalization of African women and of female genital cutting in Western countries, it is that we must, and cannot, address female genital cutting simply by passing sweeping laws banning the practice. The laws serve not only to isolate African women who have undergone the practice, but also plays a part in the continuing marginalization of African immigrants and refugees in the Western world, this idea that they are practitioners and proprietors of “barbaric” practices, that they “mutilate” their children and must be punished for doing so. Female genital cutting in the world needs to be addressed through education, not incarceration. Many African women are interested in advocating against female genital cutting in their communities, but often find themselves silenced in favor of the opinions of white, Western women and politicians. The second issue in this matter is that, when criminalization of female genital cutting is the only option, many African women feel as though they are being reduced to only their genitals, that their value is only in whether or not they have had the procedure, or want it done for their daughters or female relatives. By bringing holism into the female genital cutting debate, we are addressing the multifaceted aspects of female genital cutting: the different cultures that practice it, rather than lumping all African communities into one indistinguishable lump, the tradition surrounding it, developed over thousands of years, and most importantly, the personal reasons as to why women either have the procedure performed on their daughters or why they aren’t afraid to speak out about their own experiences. The culture in the Western world that needs to arise from these kinds of conversations will help to cease the othering of African women, removing the stigma that they are either heartless matriarchs more interested in upholding an outdated practice, or as voiceless victims who are too simple to understand that what they are doing is “wrong.”
Another anthropological concept that needs to be brought into the discussion about female genital cutting is pragmatics, or the study of how we use language in the context of its use. Female genital cutting, depending on the motivations on the person who is studying or addressing the practice, may be called female circumcision, female genital mutilation (FGM), female genital cutting (FGC), or by one of the four labels that reference the specifics of the procedure that a woman can undergo (clitoridectomy, excision, infibulation, or “other”), and these are just the labels of the English language. The language that a person uses to refer to a certain event, activity, or action can reveal a lot about what they think about it and, more importantly, what they want other people to think of it. The use of the term “female genital mutilation,” is considered harsh and exclusive because it attempts to make a judgment on the procedure before it can even be discussed. The term “mutilation,” brings violent imagery to mind, women cut open and bleeding, and the notion of “mutilating” a child is enough to make ones blood boil. The question here is, do Westerners who have not gone through this procedure nor have links to its origins have the right to not only pass this harsh judgment onto the procedure, but then pass that judgment onto their uneducated peers? Because of this, it is essential that educators remain firm in their push away from polarizing terms, and should educate others to use neutral language that communicates facts, not opinions.
The role of imagined communities in the reasoning behind why women choose either for themselves or for their daughters to go through the procedure of female genital cutting differs between different countries, communities, and individual families. A young woman from Somalia was quoted as saying, “I was happy. Everyone would call you names, saying that you are now a grown woman. The ones who were circumcised had more honor. So you feel alone and ashamed if you’re not circumcised.” (Kratz 2007:169) Another woman from Kenya describes how at fifteen she ran away from home because her mother wouldn’t allow her to go through with the procedure: “All of my friends were getting circumcised. I felt that if I was left out I would become the laughing stock. So I ran away from home and went to stay with grand mum who gave me the green light to become a woman.” (Kratz 2007:169) The role of imagined communities here is the connection that young women who have been circumcised or otherwise go through female genital cutting feel with one another. They are connected in this one shared event, and see it as more of a rite of passage and a transition into womanhood than a grisly operation that’s stripping them of their rights. It’s worth asking that if the citizens and politicians of the Western world have the right to deny women who are interested in the procedure the right to go through with it on the grounds that it is damaging when Western youth similarly engage in risky procedures to fit in with their peers, doing everything from speeding, to piercing various body parts, to binge drinking. It is this common experience that forms a silent bond between a group of people, a bond that can influence both friendships and how one is viewed by their peers, and to draw a line in the sand and say that one risky procedure or action is too risky while the others are not, regardless of the reasons behind the action.
One of the overarching issues impacting anti-FGC laws in the United States is the notion that all women coming in from Africa are not only receiving the same, typically most intense, form of female genital cutting when that simply isn’t true. Some may receive anesthetics, some may not have the procedure done on their own children, and who have gotten the procedure done may oppose it. To paint all African women with the same brush is not only insulting, but also strips them of their individuality. Any and all laws passed regarding female genital cutting should be done so after a consultation with groups of African men and women, and should be approached with the intent to educate rather than criminalize.
In order to reach a common ground in regards of how to address female genital cutting in the United States, there needs to be dialogue between African women’s groups and U.S. policymakers as well as a cross-cultural understanding of differing beliefs that are now a part of the United States because of immigration into the country. The federal law that has been passed in the United States opposing female genital cutting has left immigrants and refugees stranded. The law isolates African immigrant and refugee populations, and many feel that the language within both the laws themselves and the discussions about the procedure has marginalized them, characterizing their traditions as incorrectly and isolating entire groups of women. Because of this, the approach taken to addressing female genital cutting and immigration in the United States and the Western world at large needs to be one that utilizes numerous anthropological concepts. Pragmatics, imagined communities, and a holistic approach are all tools utilized in anthropology to attempt to understand cultural differences, and can be used in a political setting to help understand other cultures and belief systems that may be different than those of another country. Issues surrounding female genital cutting can only be solved when the marginalization of African groups in the United States ends, and only then can new dialogues about women’s rights be opened.
References
18 USC § 116 - Female Genital Mutilation." LII. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 May 2013.
Female Genital Mutilation." WHO. World Health Organization, Feb. 2013. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
Gunning, Isabelle R. (2002) "Female Genital Surgeries: Eradication Measures at the Western Local Level--A Cautionary Tale." Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics, 114-125. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois.
Kratz, Corinne A. (2007) "Seeking Asylum, Debating Values, and Setting Precedents in the 1990s." In Transcultural Bodies: Female Genital Cutting in Global Context, 169ff. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Robertson, Claire C. (2002) "Getting Beyond the Ew! Factor: Rethinking U.S. Approaches to African Female Genital Cutting." Genital Cutting and Transnational Sisterhood: Disputing U.S. Polemics, 54-81. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois. 54-81.