~ Walker, Alice and Pratibha Parmar. Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1993.
~ Bryk, Felix. Circumcision in Man and Woman: Its History, Psychology and Ethnology. New York: AMS Press INC, 1974.
~ Foster, Charles. On the trial of a taboo: Female circumcision in the Islamic world. Contemporary Review. Vol. 264 p 244 (1994)
~ Moen, Elizabeth Williams. Genital Mutilation: Everywoman's Problem. Michigan: Michigan State University, 1983.
~Toubia, Nahid. “Female Circumcision as a Public Health Issue.” The New England Journal of Medicine Vol. 331 p 712 (1994).
~ McLean, Scilla, and Stella Efu Graham, ed. Female Circumcision, Excision, and Infibulation: The facts and proposals. London: Minority Rights Group, 1980.
~ http://www.fgmnetwork.org/index.html
~ http://www.who.int/frh-whd/fgm/
~ http://www.feminist.com/resources/artspeech/inter/fgm.htm
Self Mutilation ~http://wso.williams.edu/~atimofey/self_mutilation/definition/what_isnt/cultural_practices.html
~ http://www.geocities.com/bnl_jgk/mainpage.html
~ http://www.focusas.com/SelfInjury.html
~ http://www.focusonmenshealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7826&track=otmh1
~ http://www.aap.org/advocacy/archives/marcircum.htm
~ http://www.jewish.com/askarabbi/Lifecycle_Events/Birth/Circumcision/
~ http://sres.anu.edu.au/associated/fire/ecol/as36.htm
~ http://hsc.csu.edu.au/pta/scansw/dinka.htm
~ http://www.angelfire.com/nv/ifadutch/page20.html
~ http://www.austmus.gov.au/bodyart/scarring/indigenous.htm
There are four main types of FGM, the acronym for Female Genital Mutilation. The first of these is Circumcision or Sunna, which involves the cutting and removal of the tip or hood of the female clitoris, but the body of the clitoris remains unscathed. The second type is called Excision or Clitoridectomy, which is the cutting and removal of the whole clitoris and part or all of the labia minora. The third is Intermediate, which includes the cutting and removal of the whole clitoris, all of the labia minora and part of the labia majora. The last is called Infibulation or Pharaonic, which involves the cutting and removal of the whole clitoris, the whole labia minora and much of the labia majora. This type also involves the sewing or stitching together of the remaining parts of the vulva with catgut or thorns and the closing of the vagina all except for a small slit from which to pee or menstruate.
FGM is practiced in countries around the world, but we most often find it in West Africa. It is practiced on girls usually between the ages of five and fifteen. The reasons for this practice vary depending on the situation or tribe of the woman. Some African societies use FGM as a rite of passage into marriage for women. Women who are cut are excellent marriage material because their virginity is guaranteed. In most cases their vaginas are sewn together so that they will not have sex before marriage. On the wedding night, the husband either tears through the sewn vagina with his penis or cuts it open with a knife. Another reason it is practiced is for fidelity within a marriage. If a husband has planned to go away from his wife for a period of time, sometimes the wife will be cut and sewn up to maintain fidelity.
FGM is also practiced to take away any sexual pleasure that a woman may receive during intercourse. This is why the clitoris is completely cut off in most cases, it being the central pleasure point on a woman’s body. Since most of these girls are so young when the procedure is performed, they have no choice in the matter. They are often tricked into getting cut by their mothers or grandmothers who tell them lies and feed them sweets. They are told that this is the only way for them to become wives someday. Sometimes tribes perform FGM to find out weather or not a girl is a witch. They perform FGM on the girl and wait to see if she survives. If the girl dies, she is said to have been a witch. If she lives, she is cleared of the accusation. The distressing part of this is that some girls do die from this procedure. Because FGM is not performed in a clean environment and the instruments used for cutting are usually broken glass, rusty razors and dull knives, there are several life long effects besides death. These include but are not limited to shock, unstoppable hemorrhaging, tetanus, scarring, infertility, urinary and uterine infections, frigidity, painful intercourse, problems with menstrual cycle, and problems with mother and offspring at childbirth. Areas where FGM is practiced have the highest childbirth mortality rates of any other places in the world. These numbers include mothers and children.
1a. physically performed on the vaginal area
1b. physically performed on the breast area
2a. usually performed on girls ages 5-15
2b. performed on infant girls
3a. involves cutting, tearing, and/or sewing
3b. involves singeing, searing, or burning
4a. several reasons why FGM is performed
1a. initiation into womanhood
1b. initiation into warrior hood
2a. necessary to be successful in society and marriage
2b. necessary to be successful in war
3a. tradition of the tribe
3b. tradition of the tribe
4a. performed by another woman of the tribe
4b. performed by another woman of the tribe
5a. takes away part of a woman’s femininity (sexually and physically)
5b. takes away part of a woman’s femininity (physically)
Male circumcision is a practice that is performed worldwide in several different countries, but mostly in the United States. Circumcision involves the cutting and removal of the foreskin and is usually performed shortly after birth. The most common reasons that parents chose to have their baby boys circumcised are for religious rites, cultural values, health and cleanliness issues, and personal preference. Physical benefits of this procedure include less risk of urinary tract infections and STD’s, reduces chance of penile cancer in the male and cervical cancer in the female from sexual intercourse, reduces risk of developing Smegma, and prevents both balanoposthitis and phimosis, both of which are caused from having a foreskin. Physical risks include pain, damage, infection, and irritation to penis, and risk of developing Meatitus.
Unlike male circumcision that is performed today, sources say that Amazons thought of men as lesser beings and therefore physically maimed any male child that was born unto the tribe. In the following excerpt we get a true sense of mutilation that is practiced simply to make men the weaker sex physically. The Amazons wanted the men to perform domestic duties and the women to go to war. Diodorus of Sicily (first century BC), World History 2.45 "Now in the country along the Thermodon river, as the account goes, the sovereignty was in the hands of a people among whom the women held the supreme power and its women performed the services of war just as did the men. Of these women one, who possessed the royal authority, was remarkable for her prowess in war and her bodily strength, and gathering together an army of women she drilled it in the use of arms and subdued in war some of the neighboring peoples. And since her valor and fame increased, she made war upon people after people of neighboring lands, and as the tide of her fortune continued favorable, she was so filled with pride that she gave herself the appellation Daughter of Ares, but to the men she assigned the spinning of wool and other domestic duties as belong to women. Laws were also established by her, by virtue of which she led forth the women to the contests of war, but upon the men she fastened humiliation and slavery. And as for their children, she mutilated both the legs and the arms of the males, incapacitating them this way for the demands of war, and in the case of the females they seared the right breast that it might not project when their bodies matured and be in the way: and it is for this reason that the nation of the Amazons received the appellation it bears.” In this excerpt we see the ultimate abuse of male children: Justin (third century A.D.) 2.4 ”They relinquished all thought of marrying with their neighbors, saying it would be slavery, not matrimony. Venturing to set an example imitated through all generations, they established their government without the aid of men, and soon maintained their power in defiance of them. And that none of their females might seem more fortunate than others, they put to death all the men who had remained at home. Having thus secured peace by means of their arms, they proceeded, in order that their race might not fall, to form connections with the men of the adjacent nations. If any male children were born, they put them to death. The girls they bred up to the same mode of life as themselves, not consigning them to idleness, or working in wool, but training them to arms, the management of horses, and hunting.” In some sources, Amazons didn’t abuse or mutilate the male children at all. Instead they gave them up to the fathers of the children, the Gargarian men. We see this type of abandonment in the following passage: Strabo, Geographika ”The Gargarians also, in accordance with an ancient custom, go up thither to offer sacrifice with the Amazons and also to have intercourse with them for the sake of begetting children, doing this in secrecy and darkness, any Gargarian at random with any Amazon; and after making them pregnant they send them away; and the females that are born are retained by the Amazons themselves, but the males are taken to the Gargarians to be brought up.” Another example of abandonment of children is in the Spartan society. Spartans were very concerned with the health and future of their civilization. Because of the importance emphasized on Sparta’s future, all children were tested for strength and health directly after birth. Children thought of as unhealthy, weak, or sickly were disposed of immediately because they would not contribute to society. In some instances, if there were too many female children, they would be disposed of as well. The mother/child bond was strongest between a woman and her son. Healthy sons were thought of as the greatest asset to Spartan society.
*Estimated that there are over 2 million chronic self-mutilators in America now
*Forms of self-injury include carving, cutting, scratching, biting, hitting, pulling hair, burning
*Self-injury is a result of a need to erase other pains by creating physical pains
*Self-mutilation and suicide are 2 different things; mutilation doesn’t necessarily mean suicide
*Reasons why one self-mutilates are: http://www.geocities.com/bnl_jgk/thedistortionwithin.html
Tribal Scarring and Cutting
*In African Dahomey society there is a cutting ritual where a girl has to go through a series of 12 cuts, and if she makes it through all 12, she is considered a commendable and worthy woman. A primary source link for this topic: http://people.uncw.edu/deagona/amazons/dahomey_3.pdf
*The Dinka, an African tribe, cut and scar boys in their society to signify maturation into
man-hood. They are initiated out of boy duties and take on responsibilities as men of the tribe.
*Here is an excerpt from a sacred text of the Dutch Church of Ifa titled Ese Owonrin Meji:
“All tribal marks are gathered now,
some faces here have thirty carvings,
horizontally: that's called abaja
Some others here have twenty
chevrons on their face: that's keke,
and others still have fifty lines
that we call woro-woro, vertical."
*Scarring and cutting that takes place in Aborigines societies is done to remember special
events, stories, and characteristics of the person being carved. There is a meaning behind every cut.