Article Commentary
Richard A. Shweder, “What About ‘Female Genital Mutilation’? And Why Understanding Culture Matters in the First Place,” Daedalus, vol. 129, Fall 2000. Copyright © 2000 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Reproduced by permission of the Russell Sage Foundation.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), or the intentional cutting and removal of the clitoris or vaginal lips, is an age-old ritual that is part of the cultural practices in a number of African countries and other countries around the world. Since this ritual has been brought to the attention of women all over the world, women's rights and human rights groups have stepped forward to declare it barbaric and violent, damaging the physical, mental, and sexual health of the young girls who undergo the procedure. In the following excerpt Richard A. Shweder takes a closer look at FGM and attempts to sort out the truths behind the practice. Ultimately, Shweder argues that FGM can be a safe procedure that is not demoralizing to girls and women. In fact, he asserts, women within cultures who practice FGM often desire to have the procedure performed. He believes that cultural differences have blinded many anti-FGM activists and have resulted in discriminatory views about the practice. Shweder is a writer and educator who has lived and taught in Africa.
Coming-of-age ceremonies and gender-identity ceremonies involving genital alterations are embraced by, and deeply embedded in the lives of, many African women, not only in Africa but in Europe and the United States as well. Estimates of the number of contemporary African women who participate in these practices vary widely and wildly between eighty million and two hundred million. In general, these women keep their secrets secret. They have not been inclined to expose the most intimate parts of their bodies to public examination and they have not been in the habit of making their case on the op-ed pages of American newspapers, in the halls of Congress, or at academic meetings. So it was an extraordinary event to witness Fuambai Ahmadu, an initiate and an anthropologist, stand up and state that the oft-repeated claims "regarding adverse effects [of female circumcision] on women's sexuality do not tally with the experiences of most Kono women," including her own. Ahmadu was twenty-two years old and sexually experienced when she returned to Sierra Leone to be circumcised, so at least in her own case she knows what she is talking about. Most Kono women uphold the practice of female (and male) circumcision and positively evaluate its consequences for their psychological, social, spiritual, and physical well-being. Ahmadu went on to suggest that Kono girls and women feel empowered by the initiation ceremony and she described some of the reasons why....

In the social and intellectual circles in which most Americans travel it has been so "politically correct" to deplore female circumcision that the alarming claims and representations of anti-"FGM" advocacy groups (images of African parents routinely and for hundreds of years disfiguring, maiming, and murdering their female children and depriving them of their capacity for a sexual response) have not been carefully scrutinized with regard to reliable evidence. Nor have they been cross-examined by freethinking minds through a process of systematic rebuttal. Quite the contrary; the facts on the ground and the correct moral attitude for "good guys" have been taken to be so self-evident that merely posing the rhetorical question "what about FGM?" is presumed to function as an obvious counterargument to cultural pluralism and to define a clear limit to any feelings of tolerance for alternative ways of life. This is unfortunate, because in this case there is good reason to believe that the case is far less onesided than supposed, that the "bad guys" are not really all that bad, that the values of pluralism should be upheld, and that the "good guys" may have rushed to judgment and gotten an awful lot rather wrong....

MORAL PLURALISM AND THE "MUTUAL YUCK RESPONSE"
People recoil at each other's practices and say "yuck" at each other all over the world. When it comes to female genital alterations, however, the "mutual yuck" response is particularly intense and may even approach a sense of mutual outrage or horror. From a purely descriptive point of view, that particular type of modification of the "natural" body is routine and normal in many ethnic groups. For example, national prevalence rates of 80-98 percent have been reported for Egypt, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and the Sudan. In African nations where the overall prevalence rate is lower—for example, 50 percent in Kenya, 43 percent in Cote d'Ivoire, 30 percent in Ghana—this is typically because some ethnic groups in those countries have a tradition of female circumcision while other ethnic groups do not. For example, within Ghana the ethnic groups in the north and the east circumcise girls (and boys), while the ethnic groups in the south have no tradition of female circumcision. In general, for both boys and girls the best predictor of circumcision (versus the absence of it) is ethnicity or cultural group affiliation. For example, circumcision is customary for the Kono of Sierra Leone, but for the Wolof of Senegal it is not. For women within these groups, one key factor—their cultural affiliation—trumps other predictors of behavior, such as educational level or socioeconomic status. Among the Kono, even women with a secondary-school or college education are circumcised, while Senegalese Wolof women—including the illiterate and unschooled—are not.

NATIVE VIEWS ON FGM
There are other notable facts about this cultural practice. For one thing, most African women do not think about circumcision in human-rights terms. Women who endorse female circumcision typically argue that it is an important part of their cultural heritage or their religion, while women who do not endorse the practice typically argue that it is not permitted by their cultural heritage or their religion.

Second, among members of ethnic groups for whom female circumcision is part of their cultural heritage approval ratings for the custom are generally rather high. According to the Sudan Demographic and Health Survey of 1989-1990, which was conducted in northern and central Sudan, out of 3,805 women interviewed 89 percent were circumcised. Of the women who were circumcised, 96 percent said they had circumcised or would circumcise their daughters. When asked whether they favored continuation of the practice, 90 percent of circumcised women said they favored its continuation....

Third, although ethnic group affiliation is the best predictor of who circumcises and who does not, the timing and form of the operation are not consistent across groups. Thus, there is enormous variability in the age at which the surgery is normally performed (any time from birth to the late teenage years). There is also enormous variability in the traditional style and degree of surgery (from a cut in the prepuce covering the clitoris to the complete "smoothing out" of the genital area by removing all visible parts of the clitoris and most if not all of the labia). In some ethnic groups (for example, in Somalia and the Sudan) the "smoothing out" operation is concluded by stitching closed the vaginal opening, with the aim of enhancing fertility and protecting the womb. The latter procedure, often referred to as "infibulation" or Pharaonic circumcision, is not typical in most circumcising ethnic groups, although it has received a good deal of attention in the anti-"FGM" literature. It is estimated that it occurs in about 15 percent of all African cases.

In places where the practice of female circumcision is popular, including Somalia and the Sudan, it is widely believed by women that these genital alterations improve their bodies and make them more beautiful, more feminine, more civilized, more honorable....

As hard as it may be for "us" to believe, in places where female circumcision is commonplace it is not only popular but fashionable. As hard as it may be for "us" to believe (and I recognize that for some of "us" this is really hard to believe), many women in places such as Mali, Somalia, Egypt, Kenya, and Chad are repulsed by the idea of unmodified female genitals. They view unmodified genitals as ugly, unrefined, and undignified, and hence not fully human. They associate unmodified genitals with life outside of or at the bottom of civilized society. "Yuck," they think to themselves; "what kind of barbarians are these who don't circumcise their genitals?"

CULTURAL VIEWS ON FGM
The "yuck" is, of course, mutual. Female genital alterations are not routine and normal for members of mainstream or majority populations in Europe, the United States, China, Japan, and other parts of the world, including South Africa. For members of those cultures the very thought of female genital surgery produces an unpleasant visceral reaction; although it should be noted that for many of us the detailed visualization of any kind of surgery—a bypass operation, an abortion, a sex change operation, a breast implantation, a face lift, or even a decorative eyebrow or tongue piercing—produces an unpleasant visceral reaction. In other words, merely contemplating a surgery, especially on the face or the genitals, can be quite upsetting or revolting, even when the surgery seems fully justified from our own "native point of view."

In the United States and Europe the practice of genital surgery has been disparaged as "mutilation." It has been redescribed as rape or torture and associated with the nightmare of some brutal patriarchal male (or perhaps a Victorian gynecologist) grabbing a young woman or girl, pulling her into the back room screaming and kicking, and using a knife or razor blade to deprive her of her sexuality. Various dramatic and disturbing claims have been made about the health hazards and harmful side effects of African genital operations, including the loss of a capacity to experience sexual pleasure.

Saying "yuck" to the practice has become a symbol of opposition to the oppression of women and of one's support for their emancipation around the world. Eliminating the practice has become a high-priority mission for many Western feminists (and for some human-rights activists in Africa, who, understandably enough, often, although not invariably, come from noncircumcising ethnic groups) and for some international health and human-rights organizations (for example, the World Health Organization, Amnesty International, and Equality Now).

Outside of Africa, especially in the United States and Europe, opposition to female circumcision has become so "politically correct" that until very recently most anti-anti-"FGM" criticism has been defensive, superficial, or sympathetic. The sympathetic criticisms are mainly critiques of counterproductive "eradication" tactics. They provide advice on how to be more effective as an anti-"FGM" activist....

In general, the purported facts about female circumcision go unquestioned, the moral implications of the case are thought to be obvious, and the mere query "what about FGM?" is presumed to function in and of itself as a knock-down argument against both cultural pluralism and any inclination toward tolerance.

SO WHAT ABOUT FGM?
So what about "FGM"? I shall treat this as a real question deserving a considered response rather than as a rhetorical query intended to terminate all debate. For starters, the practice of genital alteration is a rather poor example of gender inequality or of society picking on women. Surveying the world, one finds very few cultures, if any, in which genital surgeries are performed on girls but not boys, although there are many cultures in which they are performed only on boys or on both sexes. The male genital alterations often take place in adolescence and they can involve major modifications (including sub-incision, in which the penis is split along the line of the urethra). Considering the prevalence, timing, and intensity of the relevant initiation rites, and viewing genital alteration on a worldwide scale, one is hard pressed to argue that it is an obvious instance of a gender inequity disfavoring girls. Quite the contrary; social recognition of the ritual transformation of both boys and girls into a more mature status as empowered men and women is not infrequently a major point of the ceremony. In other words, female circumcision, when and where it occurs in Africa, is much more a case of society treating boys and girls equally before the common law and inducting them into responsible adulthood in parallel ways....

In those cases of female genital alteration with which I am most familiar (I have lived and taught in Kenya, where the practice is routine for some ethnic groups), the adolescent girls who undergo the ritual initiation look forward to it. It is an ordeal and it can be painful (especially if done "naturally" without anesthesia), but it is viewed as a test of courage. It is an event organized and controlled by women, who have their own view of the aesthetics of the body—a different view from ours about what is civilized, dignified, and beautiful. The girl's parents are not trying to be cruel to their daughter—African parents love their children too. No one is raped or tortured. There is a celebration surrounding the event.

What about the devastating negative effects on health and sexuality that are vividly portrayed in the anti-"FGM" literature? When it comes to hard-nosed scientific investigations of the consequences of female genital surgeries on sexuality and health, there are relatively few methodologically sound studies. As [Carla] Obermeyer [a medical anthropologist and epidemiologist from Harvard University] discovered in her medical review, most of the published literature is "data-free" or else relies on sensational testimonials, secondhand reports, or inadequate samples. Judged against basic epidemiological research standards, much of the published empirical evidence, including some of the most widely cited publications in the anti-"FGM" advocacy literature (including the influential Hosken Report), are fatally flawed. Nevertheless, there is some science worth considering in thinking about female circumcision, which leads Obermeyer to conclude that the global discourse about the health and sexual consequences of the practice is not sufficiently supplied with credible evidence....

In other words, the alarmist claims that are a standard feature of the anti-"FGM" advocacy literature that African traditions of circumcision have "maimed or killed untold numbers of women and girls" and deprived them of their sexuality may not be true. Given the most reliable, even if limited, scientific evidence at hand, those claims should be viewed with skepticism and not accepted as fact, no matter how many times they are uncritically recapitulated on the editorial pages of the New York Times or poignantly invoked in a journalistic essay on PBS....

The real facts, I would suggest, are quite otherwise. With regard to the consequences of genital surgeries, the weight of the evidence suggests that the overwhelming majority of youthful female initiates in countries such as Mali, Kenya, and Sierra Leone believe they have been improved (physically, socially, and spiritually) by the ceremonial ordeal and symbolic process (including the pain) associated with initiation. The evidence indicates that most of these youthful initiates manage to be (in their own estimation) "improved" without disastrous or even major short-term or long-term consequences for their health....

This is not to say that we should not worry about the documented 4-16 percent urinary infection rate associated with these surgeries, or the 7-13 percent of cases in which there is excessive bleeding, or the 1 percent rate of septicemia.... What I do want to suggest, however, is that the current sense of shock, horror, and righteous "Western" indignation directed against the mothers of Mali, Somalia, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, the Gambia, and the Sudan is misguided, and rather disturbingly misinformed....

FGM IS NOT AN OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE
Imagine an African mother living in the United States who holds the following convictions. She believes that her daughters as well as her sons should be able to improve their looks and their marriage prospects, enter into a covenant with God, and be honored as adult members of the community via circumcision. Imagine that her proposed surgical procedure (for example, a cut in the prepuce that covers the clitoris) is no more substantial from a medical point of view than the customary American male circumcision operation. Why should we not extend that option to the Kono parents of daughters as well as to the Jewish parents of sons, for example? Principles of gender equity, due process before the law, religious and cultural freedom, and family privacy would seem to support the option....

I have also suggested that merely posing the question "What about FGM?" is not an argument against cultural pluralism. With accurate scientific information and sufficient cultural understanding it is possible to see the (not unreasonable) point of such practices for those for whom they are meaningful. Seeing the cultural point and getting the scientific facts straight is where tolerance begins. Our cherished ideals of tolerance (including the ideal of being "pro-choice") would not amount to very much if all they amounted to was our willingness to eat each other's foods and to grant each other permission to enter different houses of worship for a couple of hours on the weekend. Tolerance means setting aside our readily aroused and powerfully negative feelings about the practices of immigrant minority groups long enough to get the facts straight and engage the "other" in a serious moral dialogue. It should take far more than overheated rhetoric and offended sensibilities to justify a cultural "eradication" campaign. Needless to say, the question of tolerance versus eradication of other peoples' valued ways of life is not just a women's issue.

The controversy over female circumcision in Africa is not an open-and-shut case. Given the high stakes involved, I believe it is a responsibility of cultural pluralists—both men and women—who are knowledgeable about African circumcision practices to step forward, speak out, and educate the public about this practice. There are many African women who, out of a sense of modesty, privacy, loyalty, or a well-founded sense of fear, may hesitate to speak for themselves. And it is a responsibility of everyone, anti-"FGM" activists and cultural pluralists alike, to insist on evenhandedness and the highest standards of reason and evidence in any public policy debate on this topic—or at least to insist that there is a public policy debate, with all sides and voices fully represented.