Female Genital Cutting (Elizabeth Heger Boyle)
Female Genital Cutting (Elizabeth Heger Boyle)
Female Genital Cutting (Elizabeth Heger Boyle)
CONTENTS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Preface
ix
ONE
Introduction
TWO
THREE
FOUR
International Mobilization
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
Conclusion
Notes
152
157
References
Index
181
165
24
60
99
PREFACE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Last spring I was ipping through television stations and came across
the show 48 Hours. The title of the segment I caught was Not Tonight
Dear: Low Sex Drive in Women Can Be Treated with Hormone Therapy If Properly Diagnosed. 1 The show began with interviews of two
couples with small children. With both of the couples, the women
had become less interested in sex after having babies. One woman
conded: I have no sexual drive all of a sudden. My libido isis
disappearing. The other woman stated, I dont desire it at all anymore, at all. Itsits weird because before I did, and now I dont.
The reporter then noted that experts estimate that nearly one-half
of all American women have sexual dysfunction. These womens
most common complaint is a loss of desire, which may be linked to
a reduction in testosterone during pregnancy. The reporter then explained how hormone medication could cure the problem: Shell
have a choice in how she takes her hormone therapya pill, patch,
or creams. To prevent side eects, like unwanted hair, the dosage is
adjusted.
As I watched, I was struck by how the show turned a naturally
occurring period in a womans life into an illness. If many women have
a reduced sex drive right after giving birth, then perhaps it is normal
and not pathological to have a reduced sex drive right after giving
birth. Even if they do not resort to medication, the presumption that
something is wrong is very stressful for women. For example, during
the program, a tearful woman confessed: At 3:00 in the afternoon
Id be thinking, Hes coming home in a couple of hours. It hasits
been a w you know, two weeks, you know, and I would just try to,
you know, mentally prepare for it. The message of the program was
x PREFACE
P R E F A C E xi
having sex frequently or deriving sexual pleasure may take a secondary role to childrearing.
This is very dierent from the United States, where sex is often
about individual fulllment and the relationship between sexual partners. The explicit message of the 48 Hours show was that something is
wrong with a woman whose interest in her newborn baby outweighs
her interest in sexual relations with her spouse. What is problematized
as a lack of sexual desire by the show could be seen as a good thing
and labeled rarely sexually frustrated. The true problem is not the
womans lack of sexual desire but the mismatch in the partners level
of sexual desire.
I raise these contrasting examples to forestall a problem common
to research on female genital cutting: ethnocentrism. Improving the
lot of women means not only eradicating the practice of female genital cutting but also critically assessing the social construction of sex
and the family in multiple contexts. The key to overcoming ethnocentrism is recognizing that cultural learning should not be a onesided phenomenon. All cultures of the world can learn from all other
cultures. This is true even in the study of a practice as condemned as
female genital cutting.
There are many individuals who made this book possible. The rst
group includes my African colleagues, students, and friends (these
are overlapping categories!) who shared their knowledge with me,
especially Professor John Arthur, Lucy Jalonga, Switbert Kamazima,
Colman Titus Msoka, Patricia Neema, and Fortunata Songora. These
individuals provided important reality checks on my characterizations of social and political circumstances. However, I take full responsibility for any errors in the current text. If they exist, they will
arise in sections about which I did not consult with these individuals.
Second, over the years, a cadre of enthusiastic research assistants
and article coauthors have provided both intellectual and motivational support for this project: Kristin Carbone, Mayra Gmez, Andrea Hoeschen, Dongxiao Liu, Barb McMorris, Gail Foss, Sharon
Preves, Fortunata Songora, and Hui Niu Wilcox. Various combinations of the ten of us have published articles in Law & Society Review,
xii P R E F A C E
P R E F A C E xiii
F E M A L E G E N I TA L C U T T I N G
ONE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Introduction
Virtually every ethnography and report states that FGM [female genital
mutilation] is defended and transmitted by the women. The mothers who
have this done to their daughters love their children and want the best for
them.
Gerry Mackie, Ending Footbinding and Inbulation, 1996
Female genital cutting (FGC) is an issue that touches on many of the
complexities of politics in the modern international system. It sparks
debate over gender equality, cultural autonomy, and human rights
and has lead to charges of postcolonial imperialism. It has been the
object of international mobilization since the late 1970s, and its eradication is an international goal. State responses to FGC are therefore
an important illustration of how policymaking and resistance play out
in the context of global cultural conict.
Indeed, one of the clearest implications of the controversy over
FGC is that cultural conict is global. In the modern world, activists and policymakers do not simply identify and correct problems in
their own neighborhood, city, or nation. They also address problems
in other parts of the world. They align themselves with international
organizations and circulate their messages around the globe. Certain
principles are assumed to be universal: the world will be awed until
they are fully implemented everywhere. Thus, governments in the
modern world take action with many principles and pressure groups
in mind, acting in response to pressure that extends well beyond the
territorial boundaries of their countries.
As a result, even in countries where nearly all families engage in
FGC, states uniformly oppose it. Because state actors in these coun-
2 F E M A L E G E N I TA L C U T T I N G
INTRODUCTION 3
gender equity. Egypt did not mention FGC in either of its rst two reports. In response to questions from the CEDAW committee in 1990,
Egypts representative implied that FGC was uncommon in Egypt and
was gradually dying out (United Nations 1990, 73). By 1994, however, Egypt was forced to take a position on FGC. In that year, CNN
broadcast live the circumcision of a ten-year-old girl in Cairo while
the city hosted an international population conference. A group of
American dignitaries met with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak
immediately after the lming. According to Representative Constance
Morella (Republican-Maryland), I asked him about female genital
mutilation, and he said that it does not happen, that its not legal in
Egypt. I said that [the law] must not be enforced . . . that Id seen the
CNN lm. [Mubarak] said its hard to get rid of the practice, but he
said he didnt think it was happening any more in Egypt. 1 The timing
of the telecast maximized international attention, and public outrage
soon followed.
Newspaper reports from all over the world disparaged the practice
and the Egyptian government for its inaction.2 Many individuals, even
some who had never been to Egypt and were unlikely to ever meet
a circumcised woman, felt a moral obligation to act. For example,
the lm spurred Senator Henry Reid (Democrat-Nevada) to ght the
practice (Dillon 2000). After seeing the lm, Senator Reid decided
to cosponsor a bill that would link U.S. foreign aid to FGC eradication eorts in countries where the practice occurred. In addition, the
CNN lming had a profound eect internationally. The strongest language opposing FGC in the history of the U.N. system emanated from
the Cairo population conference (Smith 1995).
Swept up in the international uproar but still immersed in a national culture that generally supported FGC, the Egyptian government oundered. The states immediate response to the international
attention was to arrest the freelance television producer who arranged
the lming, accusing him of damaging Egypts reputation.3 When this
action met with international criticism, Egypt released the producer,
arrested the circumcisor, and pledged to pass a law banning FGC.4
The controversy was far from over. One of the most prominent
Islamic clerics in the country, Sheikh Gad el-Haqq, issued a religious
decree ( fatwa) stating that FGC, although not required by Islam, was
4 F E M A L E G E N I TA L C U T T I N G
a religious ritual and an honorable deed for women. The fatwa recommended that local clerics encourage families to circumcise their
daughters, just as they encourage individuals to pray.5 Formal legislation was further impeded when a task force formed by the health
minister denounced the idea of criminalizing FGC (Dillon 2000). A
prominent FGC opponent in Egypt summarized this perspective: For
us, the struggle against FGM involves promoting the welfare of women
and their right to take full control of their lives, not conducting a
battle against women who circumcise their daughters (Seif El Dawla
1999, 134).6
When it became clear that the Egyptian parliament was unwilling to entertain a law against FGC, President Mubarak dealt with the
problem administratively.7 His health minister extended a 1959 health
decree to ban FGC in public hospitals. This did not last long. Sheikh
Gad el-Haqqs criticism of the hospital ban led the Egyptian health
minister to establish a compromise policy of setting aside one day a
week to perform circumcisions in public hospitals. The health minister told reporters that if people were allowed to come to hospitals,
they would be convinced by doctors that FGC is unwise and go back
home without insisting on the circumcision. 8
Although the health ministers eort pacied Islamic fundamentalists, it outraged activists opposed to the practice. The Egyptian
Organization for Human Rights sued Sheikh Gad el-Haqq, claiming
$150,000 for damages caused by his fatwa. The group claimed that
Gad el-Haqq was encouraging the government to execute activists opposed to the practice.9 The suit also charged Gad el-Haqq with misrepresenting the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed by equating the
circumcision of girls with that of boys.10 Eventually, a court dismissed
the suit, ruling that the members of the Egyptian Organization for
Human Rights had no standing.
Five months after the health ministers compromise position was
announced, another human rights group, Equality Now, disputed his
claim of reducing FGC. The group argued that hospitals were performing circumcisions daily instead of once a week, that doctors were
competing for opportunities to perform the procedure because of the
fees involved, and that no advisory committees were present to dissuade parents against the practice.11 That same month, hospitals were
INTRODUCTION 5
Theoretical Background
There are two very dierent perspectives on globalization. One group
of theories sees globalization as a phenomenon that occurs from the
ground up: Cultural change comes about as individuals are exposed
to the ideas of a vast variety of cultures and, peacefully or through
conict, sort out which mix of cultural values will govern future action. A contrasting theory that has become increasingly important
in the social sciences sees globalization as a top-down process. This
theory is sociological neoinstitutionalism (see Frank, Schofer, and
6 F E M A L E G E N I TA L C U T T I N G
Hironaka 2000; Boyle and Meyer 1998; Meyer et al. 1997; Powell and
DiMaggio 1991; Meyer, Boli, and Thomas 1987). According to this
perspective, historically derived realities are institutionalized in the
international community and shape action and beliefs around the
world. The consequence is that individuals and organizations aspire
(or know they ought to aspire) to a standard set of ideals. The focus,
then, is on homogenizing inuences in the modern world.
Neoinstitutional theory is a contrast to traditional social science
theories that often miss the tremendous amount of conformity that
characterizes global reform by assuming the naturalness of institutionalized principles. Taking the principles themselves for granted,
proponents of these theories see a need to explain deviation from the
principles. For example, proponents of these theories might pose the
question Why hasnt China achieved gender equality? This question, typical of such theorists, fails to acknowledge that the assumptiongender equality is a good thingis itself a monumental global
accomplishment. Only a century ago, public consensus over such an
aspiration would have been inconceivable. For example, as recently as
1929, the British legal system was still debating whether the term person included women (Berkovitch 1999, 1), and as recently as 1970,
women could not vote in Switzerland (Ramirez, Soysal, and Shanahan 1997). There are a vast number of other historical examples that
suggest the idea of gender equality would have been dicult to even
formulate, let alone agree upon, one hundred years ago. The criticism
against traditional theories is that they must delve more deeply into
the social construction of those assumptions that guide the global
community.
On the other hand, neoinstitutionalism also has shortcomings.
Neoinstitutionalists tend to bracket what actually happens on the
ground, while other theoretical perspectives tend to have exactly the
opposite problem. Neoinstitutionalists emphasize that over long periods of time reform does tend to occur, because individuals, like
nation-states, are part of the institutionalized structures and beliefs.
Thus, neoinstitutionalists focus on policy aspirations and rarely take
dierences in individual reactions to policies seriously (but see Brinton and Nee 1998). Decoupling, or a lack of connection between
INTRODUCTION 7
policy and action, is natural because policies reect what the world
ought to be rather than what it is.
In fact, it is a mistake to take either the institutionalized principles
or decoupling from them for granted. It is time for a theoretical perspective that critically evaluates both the reality of the institutionalized principles and real actions on the ground. In other words, social science needs to examine the interaction of homogeneous global
policy with heterogeneous local actions. As Robertson notes, the true
problem is spelling out the ways in which homogenizing and heterogenizing tendencies are mutually implicative (1995, 27). In this way,
systematic connections between the two spheres of reality can be
bridged.
Throughout this book, I develop three arguments. First, I argue
that global institutionalized principles drive national policies as much
as local constituents do. For example, the Egyptian case challenges
the assumption underlying most current models of policymaking: that
politics is primarily a local phenomenon. Nation-states do not necessarily develop policies autonomously. Local elections, local social
movements, and local political coalitions may not be the primary driving forces behind policy reform. Nations are also responding to global
discourse and sometimes direct international pressure. Nation-states
are linked not only to their local populations but also to a global community of nation-states. Building on a long literature in sociological
neoinstitutionalism, I show that anti-FGC policies diused rapidly in
the 1990s (chapter 5). The nature of those policies suggests that local
factors were less important than global norms in spurring and shaping
reform.
Second, I contend that particular institutions aect particular
groups in dierent but predictable ways. In an important article, Jepperson (1991) argued that institutions and institutionalization vary
across places and levels. For example, one might claim that voting is
institutionalized in the United States but not in Haiti. Voting is embedded in many supportive and reproducing practices in the United
States and is not highly dependent on repeated international intervention for its deployment. The same is not necessarily true of voting
in Haiti. Thus, a practice may be institutionalized in one location but
8 F E M A L E G E N I TA L C U T T I N G
not in another. Perspective is also important in understanding institutions. The stock market is an institution to most Americans. To an
investment banker, however, the overarching concept stock market
may not be very meaningful; such a person may consciously reect
on each of the complex components that constitute the stock market.
Thus, processes institutionalized for some are not necessarily taken
for granted by all.
Building on this theme, I argue that the structural location of different groups in the international system aects their enactment of
institutions in predictable ways. I demonstrate that the institutionalized precept of sovereign autonomy interacted with the structural
location of dierent actors to uniquely aect the anti-FGC strategies
they adopted (chapter 4). Nation-states and international governmental organizations favored assimilative reforms because of their structural connection to sovereignty. In contrast, nongovernmental organizationsless constrained or impressed by notions of sovereignty
initially tended toward coercive reform. Over time, as consensus
developed that international intervention was appropriate, coercive
strategies became less common throughout the global community.
The same theme of predictable variation in the eect of institutions is borne out in chapter 8. There I show that social context greatly
inuences the explanations women give for opposing FGC. For example, international organizations emphasize human rights as their
basis for opposing FGC. Nevertheless, in areas where both Islam and
FGC are institutionalized, women are more likely to articulate a medical explanation than a human rights explanation if they oppose the
practice. Because a medical discourse is perceived as narrow and neutral, it is less threatening to local institutions than a human rights discourse. Once again, where one stands in relation to institutionalized
principles determines whether and how those principles will be deployed.
Third, I argue that institutional conict creates spaces for reform
and resistance. This is important because critics argue that theories
emphasizing institutions cannot explain change. In the case of FGC,
change has occurred at the points where institutions contradict. I
show how contradictions between institutionalized individualistic discourses and the institution of national autonomy led to apolitical
INTRODUCTION 9
Institutions
Many institutions gured prominently in debates over FGC: the
nation-state and national autonomy, Western medicine, democracy,
human rights, the family and family autonomy (privacy), Islam, and
the practice of FGC itself. Institutions are social patterns or belief
systems that accrete over human history, persist without active intervention, and are not eliminated when individuals fail to comply or
agree with them. The origins of institutions are often unclear or unknown because institutions are age-old practices and beliefs. Their
correctness is taken for granted. In fact, people remain true to institutions without any conscious reection. For example, Americans get
dressed every morning, drive on the right side of the road, and shake
hands when they meet people. These actions are habitualindividuals do not consciously reect on whether to do any of them; they simply
do them. In terms of beliefs, institutions include both concepts (e.g.,
the United States) and values (e.g., human rights, democracy). Thou-
10 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
sands of years of historyparticularly Western historylay the foundation for the assumptions and actions currently institutionalized in
the international system.
Violating an institutionalized principle is likely to generate shock
and anger among community members. Consequently, the ability of
any individual to aect the institutionalized practices and beliefs in a
profound way is slight. The failure to conform to an institution is seen
as a defect in the actor, not the institution. Individuals may reect
on and disagree with institutions, but the institutions persist. For example, individuals may disagree with the assumptions of capitalism,
but capitalism continues unabated. A more trivial example would be
a woman in the United States who dislikes shaking hands because she
fears the spread of germs. Her refusal to shake hands would raise eyebrows and cause her to be labeled odd. It would not undermine the
institutionalized practice of shaking hands. Institutions persist without active reection by individuals and often despite active resistance
by some individuals.
At one level, FGC is (or was until recently) institutionalized. Over
time, the practice became so culturally embedded in some areas that
individuals today cannot remember how it originated. It persists because these individuals take the practice for granted and do not actively reect on whether to do it. If some individuals reject FGC
(such as American and European ethnographers), the community is
shocked and disgusted by those individuals. Their deviation from the
institutionalized practice reects poorly on them, not on the practice.
Thus, the practice has all the components of an institution: it originated historically, its value is assumed, and individual deviations from
it say more about the deviants than about the practice itself.
At the same time, at the international level other institutionalized
ideas directly contradict the practice of FGC. Within international
organizations, the idea that individuals are ecacious actors is taken
for granted. Individuals are assumed to be self-directed, autonomous,
and (incidentally) sexually capable and interested. Because these
characteristics of individuals are so fundamental to the healthy functioning of society, they need special protection; hence the notion of
human rights is critically important in the system. Further, it is assumed that individuals will value and guard their autonomy and in-
I N T R O D U C T I O N 11
violability, and that they will develop and express their sexual energies and passions fully and responsibly. When individuals fail to do
this, it is evidence of their defectiveness or false consciousness, not evidence that these fundamental assumptions are incorrect. Because of
the presumed universality of these individual characteristics, dierences across cultures are considered shocking and dened as problematic.
The assumptions of universalism and rationality embedded in modern Western thought fuel these misunderstandings. As many others
have noted, the institutions embedded in the international system
stem from the culture of the Catholic Church, which itself carried on
the traditions of the Roman Empire. Other universal religious traditions could have generated a dierent institutionalized system under
favorable circumstances, but Western traditions, diused through colonialism and other forms of hegemony, ended up playing this role.
Over time, the rise of the state destroyed the organizational authority
of the Church but absorbed and became dependent on a secularized
version of the Churchs principles. Now existing apart from a higher
spiritual being, these universal secular principles nevertheless continue to dene what ought to be, what is possible, and even what is.
The argument, then, is that historically derived institutionalized
systems frame the collective mobilization of individuals. Unfortunately, most social scientists begin their analyses taking the Western assumptions for granted rather than critically reecting on them.
They assume that various sets of individuals have dierent mobilizing
interests. Successful mobilization is the result of a complex interaction of many factors, including resources, political opportunity, and
status. Moral entrepreneurs are those individuals who are particularly
eective at getting the world to notice their problems. History plays
no part in these processesrather, it seems as if individuals have the
power to recreate the world from scratch every day. Further, failing to
act in accordance with ones interests is considered problematic and
puzzling.
On the other hand, even those who take institutions seriously have
run into problems. These theorists tend to privilege the Westernoriented institutions embedded in the international system. Typically,
they study only the eects of these international institutions and not
12 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
the process through which those institutions come to inuence recalcitrant nation-states and local communities. They rarely recognize the
importance of local institutions such as FGC. The assumption is that
aberrant institutions like FGC will inevitably disappear and therefore do not deserve much attention. Even if that were trueand I
am not sure that it isregard for local institutionalized practices is
critically important in understanding globalization.14 National policies will have little meaning in countries where their underlying spirit
cannot be enacted. Giving women the right to vote is meaningless
in a country where women are unable to move about freely. More
to the point of this text, national laws banning FGC may be useless
in countries if nearly all families in these countries continue to excise the genitals of their female children. Although it is true that in
the long run reforms do tend to inuence individuals, understanding
why, when, and how this happens is essential. It provides insight into
why and how Western ideologies are constantly expanding and where
the limits to this expansion might be.
I N T R O D U C T I O N 13
14 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T R O D U C T I O N 15
dependent on the legitimating power derived from linking into institutionalized beliefs. However, nations also tend to adopt policies consistent with global institutions because they are immersed within and
constituted by those very institutions (Ramirez and McEneaney 1997;
Frank and McEneaney 1999). In this context, the appropriateness of
such actions is taken for granted. Global institutions determine what
matters.
16 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T R O D U C T I O N 17
18 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T R O D U C T I O N 19
20 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T R O D U C T I O N 21
22 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T R O D U C T I O N 23
TWO
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Understanding Female
Genital Cutting
I think I am safe in saying that none of us who has studied the practice in
its context are so theoretically myopic or inhumane as to advocate its continuance . . . Understanding the practice is not the same as condoning it. It
is, I believe, as crucial to eecting the operations eventual demise that we
understand the context in which it occurs as much as its medical sequelae.
Janice Boddy, Body Politics, 1991
Although the precise origins of FGC are unclear, the practice dates
back to antiquity (Lightfoot-Klein 1989). FGC is deeply embedded
in the culture of a number of central African nations. FGC is practiced widely in twenty-ve countries and by a majority of families in
fourteen countries (U.S. Department of State 1999). Although the
practice is currently prevalent primarily in African and Asian countries, FGC was performed on white women in Western nations as
recently as the 1950s, as a medical treatment for nymphomania and
depression (Barker-Beneld 1976, 1975). In the modern era, the practice continues to occur in the West in small numbers, predominantly
among certain groups of new immigrants. The World Health Organization estimates that worldwide more than 130 million women and
girls living today have undergone some form of genital cutting (World
Health Organization 1997).
Controversy rages over what to call the practice. Communities that
engage in FGC use dierent terms (Gruenbaum 2001, 24). The Arabic words most commonly used to describe the practice are tahur, or
the variant tahara, which translates as purication. These terms suggest the achievement of cleanliness through ritual. In a number of
communities, FGC is referred to as sunna. This means tradition, spe-
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 25
cically a tradition that the Prophet Mohammed engaged in or supported during his lifetime. The practice has many other names derived from an array of dierent languages.
Often, a community uses the same or related terms for FGC and
male circumcision. As a consequence, Westerners initially referred to
the practice as female circumcision. Activists object to this phrase
because it exaggerates the similarities between the male and female
operations. FGC typically reduces or eliminates sexual sensation for
women. Male circumcision does not have the same eect. To distinguish FGC from male circumcision and to highlight its ill eects,
Fran Hosken, founder of the Womens International Network, coined
the term female genital mutilation. This term is still widely used
by actors in the international system, for example, the World Health
Organization. Nevertheless, African feminists and scholars have criticized female genital mutilation for being ethnocentric, and many
activists and scholars now avoid the term. For example, Obiora (1997)
and Gruenbaum (2001) continue to use the term female circumcision in deference to African cultures. Gunning (199091) refers to
the practices as female genital surgeries to emphasize the similarity
to unnecessary cosmetic surgeries in the West. Others adopt the term
female genital modications because the acronym FGM has become widely recognized.
I choose to use the term female genital cutting because Asma
Abdel Halim 1 at the U.S. Agency for International Development specically requested that I use that term and because it is an accurate,
nonpoliticized description of the practice (see Bibbings 1995). I use
circumcise as a verb because it is widely understood, but I acknowledge its inaccuracy. I should also note that when I mention the practice or procedure of FGC, I am actually referring to an entire range
of dierent practices and procedures.
In fact, there are many types of FGC. At one time, these were
grouped into two categories, sunna and Pharaonic, but today it is common to distinguish three categories (Toubia and Izett 1998). Across
the three categories, sunna is the least invasive procedure and is most
comparable to male circumcision. In sunna cuttings, the prepuce, or
hood, of the clitoris is removed. This type of cutting is common
among the Bedouin in Israel (Asali et al. 1995). It was also the type
26 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 27
28 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 29
bands preferred circumcised women (Carr 1997), and similar ndings appear in Tanzania (Kijo-Bisimba, Lee, and Wallace 1999). As
this suggests, men play an important indirect role in the perpetuation
of the practice by insisting that their wives be circumcised (AHaleem
1992).5 This is true despite the fact that mothers typically take responsibility for having their daughters circumcised. Other factors that perpetuate the practice include the ceremonies surrounding the practice; FGC may be one of the few times when a woman (or girl) is the
center of attention in her community (Mabala and Kamazima 1995).
Some sort of celebration, ranging from a sedate womens tea party
to a gala for the entire community, nearly always precedes or follows
FGC. Until recently, the practice was so taken for granted that in many
areas not circumcising ones daughters would have been considered
poor parenting.
In addition, in nearly every location, FGC is an income-generating
activity for some. The individuals who earn money from the practice have an incentive to perpetuate it. On one occasion in Tanzania,
73 circumcisors surrendered all their equipment to the Same district
commissioner after being promised by the Network against Female
Genital Mutilation that they would be given loans to start other businesses. Ultimately, the promise was not fullled, and they have threatened to go back to performing the practice.6
Beyond these common elements, the current manifestation of FGC
diers across locations. The practice is constructed in at least two
very distinct ways, with some communities practicing what seems to
be a combination of the two types. This rst type is linked to Islam.
Islam is an encompassing moral code that emphasizes womens modesty and chastity. Virginity is considered the most precious possession of an unmarried woman, and FGC is believed to protect that virginity (Assaad 1980). These communities are often characterized by a
segregation of the sexes, and FGC tends to be a private aair. Girls
are not circumcised in groups but rather individually. Male circumcision in these communities is also a private event, so there is no cohort of boys being circumcised at the same time a particular girl is
undergoing FGC. Male circumcision tends to generate more celebration than FGC. Cleanliness and purity are seen as positive attributes
of FGC. FGC is also believed to increase male sexual pleasure. Al-
30 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
though FGC did not originate with Islam, its continuation is tied up
with Islamic beliefs in some areas (Boyle, McMorris, and Gmez 2002;
Coleman 1999).
In these locations, such as northern Sudan, girls are circumcised
at a young age, typically between ve and ten years old. Another example of this type of community occurs in Egypt, where a recent survey found that 72 percent of married women believe that FGC is a religious tradition (Carr 1997). The type of FGC is typically inbulation
or clitoridectomy. Boddy (1982) argues that virginity has a somewhat dierent meaning in northern Sudan than in the United States.
Virginity is more about being sexually inaccessible than about never
having had sex. Thus, when women are reinbulated after giving
birth, their virginityinaccessibilityis restored. Historically, FGC
might be justied in these areas as protecting a woman from her natural oversexed nature, but recent Demographic and Health Survey
data from Egypt suggest that this explanation may no longer be particularly prevalent (see Assaad 1980; Carr 1997).
FGC manifests itself somewhat dierently in other communities.
These communities, which are rarely Islamic, see FGC as a rite of passage into adulthood (see, e.g., Robertson 1996; Walley 1997). Girls
might be circumcised when they reach puberty or right before they
are married. Thus, they tend to be older, fourteen to sixteen years of
age, than girls in the communities just mentioned. The form of FGC
is nearly always clitoridectomy. In some of these areas, individuals believe that people are born with two soulsan adult soul and a child
soul. FGC and male circumcision are believed to remove the child
soul and thereby facilitate maturation. In some places, such as parts
of Sierra Leone, the circumcision is part of the initiation into a secret
society (Ahmadu 2000). Consequently, there is often an education
program accompanying FGC that instructs the initiates in the ways
of womanhood.
It is also typical in these communities for girls to be circumcised
in age cohorts. Although girls and boys are segregated, their ceremonies often happen at the same time and are preceded or followed
by a community-wide celebration. Thus, FGC and male circumcision
solidify relationships between members of particular age cohorts. Another important distinction is that, in some of these areas, virginity
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 31
Religion
Whether Islam requires FGC is a contested question (Boddy 1991).
The practice predates Islam, does not occur in most Middle Eastern
countries, and is not explicitly required by the Koran. Further, as just
explained, in Africa groups other than Muslims practice FGC. Many
Coptic Christian women in Egypt, for instance, have been circumcised (Assaad 1980). In Tanzania, where 20 of 120 ethnic groups practice FGC, regions that are predominantly Christian actually have the
highest percentages of circumcised women. The only region in Tanzania in which a large percentage of Muslims coincides with a relatively
high rate of FGC is Tanga, where 25.1 percent of the women are circumcised. Thus, there are many Muslims in Africa who do not prac-
32 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
tice FGC, and there are other religious groups (including Christians)
that do engage in the practice.
Nevertheless, some Islamic leaders advocated the practice historically, and, for the historic reasons just outlined, its occurrence does
coincide to some extent with the rise of Islam in Africa (see Assaad
1980; Coleman 1998; Boyle, McMorris, and Gmez 2002). Further,
my colleagues and I recently analyzed Demographic and Health Survey data in ve African countries and found that being Christian was
a strong predictor of women rejecting FGCin both attitudes and
behavior (Boyle, McMorris, and Gmez 2002). Because of the controversy surrounding this discussion, it is worthwhile to consider the
nature of Islam more closely.
Islamic law, known as sharia, is based on two sources (Bielefeldt
1995). The primary source is the Koran, which contains Gods own
proclamations to the Prophet Mohammed. The Koran says nothing
supportive of or in opposition to FGC. Muslims also turn for guidance to a collection of the sayings and practices of Mohammed called
the Sunna. Each individual saying or custom is termed a hadith. Not
all hadith are considered authentic. Muslim scholars spend a considerable amount of time researching the genealogy of various hadith to
determine whether each is truly traceable to Mohammed (Coleman
1999). For a hadith to be considered authoritative, the genealogy must
demonstrate an uninterrupted connection to the Prophet.
There is a hadith that addresses the practice of FGC.7 It describes
Mohammed suggesting to a female circumcisor that excision is allowed but should not be overdone because a more limited cutting
brings more radiance to the face . . . and is . . . better for the husband (Abu-Sahlieh 1996, cited in Coleman 1998, 731, n. 41). The
hadith also suggests that Mohammed called genital cutting a makrumah, or honorable deed for women. This hadith is contested, however,
because the relevant authority is obscure and its genealogy questionable. Nevertheless, the hadith has had an important eect in parts of
Africa. For example, a fatwa issued by an important Islamic cleric in
Egypt in 1950 declared: Female circumcision is an Islamic practice
mentioned in the tradition of the Prophet, and sanctioned by Imams
and Jurists, in spite of dierences on whether it is a duty or a sunna
[tradition]. We support the practice as sunna and sanction it in view
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 33
of its eect on attenuating the sexual desire in women and directing to the desirable moderation (Assaad 1980, 5). As noted in chapter 1, Sheikh Gad el-Haqq, the head of Al-Azhar University in the mid1990s, issued a similar fatwa. Despite these periodic references to the
controversial hadith, most Islamic clerics refute the notion that Mohammed condoned FGC (Bashir 1996). Thus, Boddys (1991) assessment that the practice is not Islamic but is religious for many of the
women who practice it is perhaps most accurate.
Medical Complications
A recent World Health Organization report related a number of shortand long-term health consequences from FGC (Toubia and Izett
1998). The risk of these problems is reduced but not eliminated when
FGC is performed in modern medical facilities. Although serious
complications can accompany any form of FGC, inbulated women
are especially vulnerable. Further, when complications arise during or
after inbulation, they tend to be more serious and last longer than
complications arising from other forms of FGC. Having a trained professional conduct the procedures reduces but does not eliminate the
health risks.
Severe bleeding is the most common immediate complication of
FGC. One study estimated that hemorrhaging accounted for 25 percent of all complications. Because children tend to move during the
cutting, injuries to neighboring organs also sometimes occur. Urine
retention, lasting for hours or days, can occur but is usually reversible.
Infection is also very common, with the degree of infection varying
from a supercial wound infection to a generalized blood infection.
Using a sterilized instrument to perform FGC greatly decreases this
risk. Because the genitals are highly sensitive, the procedure is extremely painful when performed without anesthesia. Even when anesthesia is used, the application of anesthesia itself can be very painful
(Toubia and Izett 1998, 2627).
Long-term complications arising from clitoridectomies include a
failure to heal, abscesses, cysts, and keloids (Toubia and Izett 1998,
27). Abscesses occur when an infection becomes buried under the
wound and usually require a surgical incision and proper dressing as
34 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
treatment. Cysts result from the embedding of skin tissue in the scar.
The glands in the skin will continue to secrete body uids under the
scar and form a cyst or sac full of cheesy material. Keloids are the
excessive growth of scar tissue. Although cysts and keloids are not
serious health risks, as disgurements they can be very distressing. A
clitoridectomy may also result in urinary tract infections or a painful
scar neuroma.
In addition to these complications, inbulationthe most serious
form of FGCcarries other long-term health consequences. These
include reproductive tract infections, painful menstruation, chronic
urinary tract obstructions, and incontinence (Toubia and Izett 1998,
2829). Inbulation also requires that a woman be deinbulated prior
to childbirth. If an experienced attendant is unavailable to deinbulate, obstructed labor causing moderate to severe complications for
mother and child can result.
Currently, there is no evidence that FGC is a major contributor
to the spread of AIDS, hepatitis B, or other blood-borne diseases
(Toubia and Izett 1998, 3031). Although some have hypothesized
that FGC (especially inbulation) may increase rates of maternal and
neonatal mortality, there are currently no studies demonstrating this
connection. Fundamentally, it is dicult to separate delivery complications that result from pregnancy among very young girls and those
that result from FGC.
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 35
that! She says: A body is a body and no circumcision can change that.
No matter what they cut away from youthey cannot change that!
(1989, 2526, emphasis in original). The incident brought home to
Lightfoot-Klein that she was dealing with real people with real lives
and real relationships. Ultimately, close to 90 percent of the Sudanese women she interviewed claimed to have achieved orgasm at some
time in their lives. Although she surmised that this number was too
high, it does indicate that the eect of FGC on sexuality is much more
complex than a simple anatomy lesson.
Other studies also suggest that FGC does not necessarily eliminate
sexual pleasure. In Egypt, 94 percent of the 54 women interviewed
by Assaad (1980) said that they enjoyed sex. Earlier surveys in Egypt
had found that about 41 percent of the women surveyed had experienced orgasm (Obermeyer 1999). In a survey of the Ibo in Nigeria, 59
percent of circumcised women reported experiencing orgasm, compared with 69 percent of uncircumcised women. In all of these cases,
the women had undergone some form of clitoridectomy.
As with other health consequences, with respect to sexuality, inbulation appears to be the most debilitating form of FGC. One study
found that although more than 80 percent of women who were inbulated had never experienced orgasm, only 10 percent of women
with mild clitoridectomies had never achieved orgasm (the same percentage as among uncircumcised women) (Shandall 1967). El Dareer
(1982) found that among a sample of north Sudan inbulated women,
50 percent of the women reported no sexual pleasure and 23 percent
were indierent to sexual intercourse, but the remainder experienced
pleasure from intercourse all or some of the time. More studies, especially studies involving comparisons across groups, are needed to precisely determine the varying eect of FGC on female sexuality.
One might wonder how it is physiologically possible for women to
enjoy sex after FGC. One possibility is that some portion of the clitoris may still be intact after the procedure. For example, Gruenbaum
(2001) found that some midwives in Sudan did not remove the entire clitoris beneath the inbulation when they performed FGC. They
feared that the girl would hemorrhage if they removed the clitoris
entirely. Another possibility is that the remaining erogenous zones of
the body experience enhanced sensitivity to compensate for the lack
36 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
Psychological Consequences
As with sex, the psychological eects of FGC are largely undened
(Toubia and Izett 1998). The FGC event is often traumatic and can
leave a lifelong emotional scar. For example, a twenty-one-year-old
woman interviewed by Lightfoot-Klein reported that she thought circumcision was a crime. After her inbulation, she read books on sexuality and began to realize what she had lost: Her feelings of rage are
quite clear as she talks about this. She expresses hatred toward her
parents for allowing this to be done to her (1989, 249). Similar expressions of outrage and disappointment are common in autobiographies and ethnographic accounts.
At the same time, many women also have positive associations with
the event, such as being the center of attention, bonding with peers,
and receiving material gifts (Mabala and Kamazima 1995). Often,
mothers try to diminish the trauma of the event for their children. As
Parker, who witnessed several inbulations in Sudan, noted: People
clearly sympathized with the girls painfor they themselves had all
been pharaonically circumcisedand everyone was gentle with her.
In fact Ziyarra [her mother] never left her daughter for the two hours
or so that I was there. Mat guum, mat guum Dont leave, dont leave,
the girl kept saying, hanging her arms around her mothers neck. And
she held her tight, gently assuring her that she would not go (Parker
1995, 50910). Another example comes from an American teacher in
Kikhome village in Kenya whose female and male students told her
with boisterous pride of their circumcision ceremonies immediately
upon her arrival. Many ethnographic accounts conrm that special
memories often surround FGC.
At least until recently, there were also areas where the pressure
to circumcise ones daughters was society-wide. In these areas, girls
who were not circumcised could face psychological hardships; they
could become social outcasts. In some ethnic groups, uncircumcised
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 37
38 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
U N D E R S T A N D I N G F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G 39
investigation by the Vatican resulted in the policys reversal. The investigation purportedly determined that Egyptian womens oversized
genitals justied excision (Mackie 1996). Although not linked to the
same false conception of anatomy, the opposition of Christian missionaries in Kenya to FGC in the early nineteenth century also failed
to eradicate the practice (Murray 1976; Natsoulas 1998). Missionaries
of the Church of Scotland mobilized against the practice among the
Kikuyu of Kenya in 1906 but merely politicized the issue rather than
decreasing its occurrence (El Dareer 1982, 92).
Another attempt at eradication among Christian converts in Kenya
occurred in the 1920s but met a similar fate (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
Jomo Kenyatta, who later became Kenyas rst president, took this
opportunity to cast the practice in a favorable light. In his nationalist treatise, Facing Mount Kenya: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu (1978, rst
published in 1938), he criticized Europeans and missionary societies
for seeking to eradicate FGC without truly understanding the practice. He disparagingly described how several European delegates to a
conference on African children in 1931 referred to FGC as a barbarous and heathen custom that should be criminalized. He agreed
with the majority of the conference participants, who thought providing education and free choice to the Gikuyu was the preferred course
of action.
Although Kenyattas primary argument was that Europeans should
not be involved in local African social traditions, he also went on
to exalt FGC as the very essence of an institution which has enormous educational, social, moral, and religious implications (Kenyatta 1978, 133). Both male and female circumcision occurred at puberty among the Gikuyu. Kenyattas account of FGC minimized the
physical hardship:
The initiates spend about half an hour in the [cold] river, in order
to numb their limbs and to prevent pain or loss of blood at the
time of the operation . . . A woman specialist, known as moruithia,
who has studied this form of surgery from childhood, dashes out
of the crowd . . . She takes out from her pocket (mondo) the operating Gikuyu razor (rwenji ), and in quick movements, and with the
dexterity of a Harley Street surgeon, proceeds to operate on the
40 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
girls. With a stroke she cuts o the tip of the clitoris (rongotho) . . .
At the time of the surgical operation the girl hardly feels any pain
for the simple reason that her limbs have been numbed, and the
operation is over before she is conscious of it. It is only when she
awakes after three or four hours of rest that she begins to realize
that something has been done to her genital organ (Kenyatta 1978,
143, 146, 147).
In part because of Kenyatta, the attempt to eradicate FGC among
Christian converts in Kenya was temporarily abandoned.
Although most of the world was completely unaware of FGC rituals
at mid-century, knowledge of the practice had spread outside of the
missionary community to some scholars and members of the emerging international community. The rst time FGC was openly discussed
outside of Africa was in the late 1930s by the British Parliament (Murray 1976).8 The discussion was followed initially by an informal coalition to eradicate FGC between the wives of British ocials in Sudan
and educated Sudanese men. In 1943, the British launched a formal
education campaign in Sudan, and in 1946, the colonial government
passed a law forbidding the most extreme form of FGC, inbulation.
As with earlier eorts in Kenya, the law once again politicized the
issue and, rather than reducing the practice, led to the collective and
secret circumcision of many girls in a short period (El Dareer 1982,
9495; Dorkenoo 1995).
Opposition to FGC waned in the late 1950s as African politics began to focus more on independence and nationalism. Up to this point,
eradication eorts had had little eect on rates of FGC (Assaad 1980;
Keck and Sikkink 1998). The temporary shelving of opposition coincided with the globalization of the nation-state system and a rise in
international interest in FGC (Berkovitch 1999a).
THREE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
42 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 43
44 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
tation that these leaders would reect the values and interests of the
individuals they ruled. The resulting tension faced by political leaders
between appealing to a local constituency and reecting higher
principles (now secularized)continues to permeate national politics. Indeed, this tension is clearly present when states adopt policies opposing FGC even though the local population supports the
practice.
Sovereignty, as an ideal, is now institutionalized in the international system. The preamble to the United Nations Charter explicitly recognizes the sovereign power of member states: Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to
intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. Social and cultural mattersincluding gender
relationswere considered domestic matters at the time the charter
was written (Berkovitch 1999b). For decades, the belief that cultural
matters were domestic matters foreclosed international intervention
to eradicate FGC.
The same Enlightenment ideas that linked states to their subjects,
and later their citizens, led to the promotion of human rights. As Beccaria wrote in 1764, The true relations between sovereigns and their
subjects . . . have been discovered . . . Such good things we owe to the
productive enlightenment of this age. [This knowledge will curb] the
unbounded course of ill-directed power which has continually produced a long and authorized example of the most cold-blooded barbarity. Continuing to evolve since this early discourse, human rights
have become a critically important component of the international
institutional structure. The Geneva Assembly codied the discourse
of universal human rights in 1948 with the adoption of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Along with the International
Covenant on Civil Rights and Political Rights and the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, both adopted by
the assembly in 1966, the UDHR is said to constitute an international
bill of rights. The UDHR focuses broadly on rights seen as essential
to all humans, including the rights to health and individual autonomy,
which are relevant in the discussion of FGC (Smith 1995). Since 1948,
there have been several conferences further detailing the means to
protect and honor the rights outlined in the UDHR.
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 45
Immediately after World War II, the international community implicitly assigned gender equality (including the practice of FGC) to
the sovereign autonomy rather than the human rights frame. Although the United Nations condemned FGC as a violation of human
dignity and rights to health in 1964, international organizations were
unwilling to get involved in actual eradication eorts (BoulwareMiller 1985). Not only did WHO and UNICEF refuse to work to eliminate the practice; they refused to even study the incidence of FGC.
Even as late as 1975, there was no discussion of FGC at the First World
Conference on Women (Berkovitch and Bradley 1999, 489). The widespread view was that the practice fell outside the jurisdiction of the
international system.
46 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
guing that FGC was a serious problem requiring immediate international attention. Feminist mobilization in the 1970s spurred the international system to take a new look at FGC.
Early second-wave feminists argued that FGC was a tool of patriarchy and a symbol of womens subordination.2 These feminists argued that FGC was sadistic and part of a global patriarchal conspiracy.
Seeing sadism in FGC actually predates feminist mobilization. For example, in one early account, Worsley claimed that the women who
performed FGC always did so with a sadistic smile of delight (1967,
687). In adopting this explanation for FGC, Western women were implicitly assuming that no one would voluntarily choose to undergo the
practice. African women were portrayed as victims who made incorrect choices because they were burdened by patriarchy.
For example, in one of the earliest feminist accounts of FGC, Daly
picked up on the theme of sadism to weave together the experiences
of women around the world: Critics from Western countries are constantly being intimidated by accusations of racism, to the point of
misnaming, non-naming, and not seeing these sado-rituals. The accusation of racism may come from ignorance, but they serve only the
interests of males, not of women. This kind of accusation and intimidation constitutes an astounding and damaging reversal, for it is
clearly in the interest of Black women that feminists of all races should
speak out. Moreover, it is in the interest of women of all races to see
African genital mutilation in the context of planetary patriarchy, of
which it is but one manifestation (1978, 154). The assumption that
self-interest drives action is clearly present. Also present, although at
a more subtle level, is the assumption that action motivated by something other than self-interest (God? A sense of obligation?) is illegitimate. Likewise, Hosken argued: Men in Africa, whether illiterates or
intellectuals, know very well that they derive power from castrations
of womens sexuality. It is a matter of political control. The fear of
female sexuality is after all shared by men around the world (1979, 4).
Again the assumption is that women where FGC occurs would choose
to act in their obvious self-interest but for the illegitimate power
exercised over them. In this quotation, Hosken is also implicitly impugning the idea of sovereign autonomy by arguing that states where
FGC occurs are not representative democracies because they do not
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 47
48 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
Parkers perspective was essentially acknowledging that FGC was institutionalized in some areas. In these areas, history could not be
ignored and interests had to be understood as including not only
those dened by universal standards but also those important to the
local context.
Despite the criticism, the feminist rhetoric captured the attention
of the global community. By 1979, U.N. subcommittees had begun to
study and provide outlets for national governments to discuss FGC.
This occurred despite explicit opposition from some women in practicing cultures (Berkovitch and Bradley 1999). Nevertheless, perhaps
because the feminist rhetoric was so controversial, when IGOs nally
decided to intervene to stop FGC around this time, they did not explicitly rely on the feminists arguments.
Instead, IGOs relied on scientic arguments about womens health
to justify their initial intervention to eradicate FGC. WHO and nongovernmental organizations were already intervening in national
arenas to assist in birth control programs (Ezzat 1994, 16567). Programs to eliminate FGC t well within this mobilization. For example,
international actors placed FGC in a category termed Traditional
Practices Aecting the Health of Women and Children (Slack 1988;
Smith 1992). This was also the title given to a 1979 WHO seminar
held in Khartoum and the term used to describe FGC in the U.N.
annual reports. African nation-states also tended to root their eradication policies in a scientic health discourse. The major joint eort
of nations was named the Inter-African Committee on Traditional
Practices Aecting the Health of Women and Children. Health problems were a universal concern, aecting every nation. By placing FGC
within this framework, international actors did not appear to be singling out African nations for reform. Health rhetoric permitted a
compromise between rights and sovereignty.
Thus, FGC became a health issue despite WHOs early assessment
that it was not. This reframing of the practice may reect the increasing importance assigned to medicine (and science in general) in
the international system. Because health issues were universally applicable to all nation-states and yet narrowly tailored to easily identiable problems, they were viewed as apolitical. Intervening for medical reasons did not threaten sovereignty because medicine was seen
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 49
as neutral and existing apart from politics. Further, medicine was intimately linked with modernization and progress. It would be irrational
and hence inconceivable for a culture to reject modern medicine.
Of course, medicine is not apolitical. Expanding notions of health
to include practices like FGC privileges international politics over national sentiments and leads to isomorphism in national action. Furthermore, Western medicine is based on an individualistic model;
it assumes that health problems arise from the individual body and
should be treated individually. In some cases this is correct, but in
other cases it is not. For example, a huge number of health problems diagnosed in the West today fall into the category of stressrelated illnesses. Presumably, these ailments arise because individuals are having diculty dealing with various elements of their world,
including work, spouse, children, and neighbors. But medicine has
no legitimate authority to address the root cause of such problems. It
is highly unlikely, for example, that a doctor would call an employer
or a next-door neighbor to help solve a persons medical problem.
In other cultures, however, these relational ailments can become the
major focus of healing strategies (see Fadiman 1997). Western medicine is founded on two important assumptions: (1) that focusing on
isolated, independent individuals is the way to solve problems; and
(2) that this rst principle is universally true.
Thus, the fact that Western medicine has been deemed neutral
and apolitical when in fact it is not reects the expansion of universal
human rights and individualism in the global system. The redenition
of FGC as a medical problem subject to neutral intervention simply
occurred, without debate or explicit acknowledgment.
Initially, feminists were willing to reframe their arguments in the
terms adopted by IGOs. Themes of human rights and medicine began
to appear in the feminist literature. For example, in her 1981 report,
Hosken reframed her arguments justifying Western involvement, locating them in notions of human rights and health. She cited a letter she had sent to the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kurt
Waldheim, which had been signed by many thousands of concerned
women and men from all over the world: The mutilation of genital organs of the female body for any reason whatsoever is a fundamental oense against the human rights of all women in general,
50 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
and specically against the female children and women who are mutilated. The RIGHT TO HEALTH is a basic human right that cannot
be abridged (1981, 489, emphasis in original). (Ironically, even the
neutral medical discourse became the basis for distinguishing a
hierarchy of values. For example, Hosken [1981, 415, fn. 1] asserted
in the same report that although Africans continued to call the practice female circumcision, the medically correct term was genital
mutilation.) In the 1980s, feminists and other international actors
reached consensus through an implicit agreement to focus on the
medical consequences of FGC.3 FGC was a violation of the right to
health, and therefore it was appropriate for the international community to intervene in local politics to reduce the occurrence of the
practice.
In sum, radical feminists prompted the international community
to take action against FGC. Realizing that they must act but unwilling to embrace the caustic feminist discourse, community leaders had
diculty developing their own justication for intervention. Science,
in the form of medicine, became a seemingly neutral basis for invoking the human rights frame and intervening in national politics.
In fact, however, the worldwide adoption of this perspective without
debate was a monumental step toward global homogeneity. Individualism carried through medical science was acceptable to international
actors; individualism in the form of assertive arguments about gender relationships smacked of bias and was initially too provocative for
these same actors.
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 51
52 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
vitch 1999b). Most countries in the modern world have signaled their
receptivity to these various conventions and declarations. The conventions and declarations provide a backdrop for understanding the
policy development related specically to FGC.
Thus, the increased attention to FGC coincided with greater attention to womens issues in general. The international system had begun to create formal mechanisms for dealing with gender inequality
around this time. The Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is a case in point.5 The history of CEDAW goes back to 1963, when twenty-two countries introduced a resolution at the eighteenth U.N. General Assembly calling for international cooperation to eliminate discrimination against
women (Fraser, n.d.). The resolution noted that discrimination
against women still existed in fact if not in law despite the equality
provision of the U.N. Charter and the UDHR (United Nations 1963).
On December 18, 1979, the CEDAW Convention was adopted by the
General Assembly, and it came into force on September 3, 1981, when
twenty countries had ratied it. As of June 2002, 170 countries had
ratied the convention. Within the international treaty system,
CEDAW stands distinctly as the symbol that womens rights are human
rights.
The preamble to CEDAW rearms faith in fundamental human
rights and respect for human dignity. Article 1 denes discrimination against women broadly to include both intentional and de facto
discrimination in human rights and fundamental freedoms. Article 2
mandates that states parties 6 pursue, by all appropriate means and
without delay, a policy of eliminating discrimination against women.
Articles 2 through 5 set out the kind of measures to be taken by the
state-legislative, judicial, administrative, and other measures, including armative action and modication of social and cultural patterns
of conduct. Articles 6 through 16 address specic issues as they relate
to women: sexual slavery, political and public life, nationality, education, employment, health care, economic and social life, rural life,
equality in terms of civil law, and marriage and family relations.
Like other human rights treaties, CEDAW relies on a reporting
mechanism as the key to implementation. State parties have an obligation to submit written reports on the progress made in implement-
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 53
ing CEDAW. The reports must be submitted within the rst year of
ratication and then periodically every four years. The convention establishes the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (the CEDAW Committee) to review country reports. The CEDAW Committee is composed of twenty-three experts
who are nominated and elected by the state parties to serve in their
personal capacities.
A number of regional instruments also provide a foundation for
state mobilization against FGC (Smith 1995). For example, the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples Rights and the Charter
on the Rights and Welfare of the African Child contain language that
justies action against FGC. As with CEDAW, the charters do not explicitly discuss the practice but can be construed as applicable to the
issue.
By the mid-1990s, feminist arguments concerning womens rights
as human rights and violence against women became the dominant
basis for action by IGOs. A critical component of the feminist argument was to expand the idea of human rights to incorporate a positive
requirement on states to protect individuals against harmful actions
that occur in the private realm. MacKinnon argued that the privacy doctrine undermined gender equality generally: The very place
(home, body), relations (sexual), activities (intercourse and reproduction), and feelings (intimacy, selfhood) that feminism nds central to
womens subjection form the core of the privacy doctrine. But when
women are segregated in private, one at a time, a law of privacy will
tend to protect the right of men to be let alone, to oppress us one at
a time (1983, 194). This laid the groundwork for later arguments that
the idea of human rights should be expanded to encompass private
abuses (see especially Bunch 1990; Bahar 1996; Charlesworth 1995;
Stevens 1996).
Once privacy became contested terrain, human rights activists
were able to transcend cultural boundaries by grouping a number of
private actions and practices under the broad title violence against
women (Bunch 1990).7 At the international level, activists who promoted this idea were successful in increasing attention to issues such
as FGC, wife beating, marital rape, child abuse, and sexual harassment (Etienne 1995; see generally Peters and Wolper 1995; Dallmeyer
54 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 55
with slavery, then moving on to a committee dealing with discrimination. Ultimately, the issue settled within the jurisdiction of the committee responsible for protecting human rights. By the time the issue
reached the committee on human rights, the framing was complete:
the international community had to eradicate FGC because the practice violated fundamental human rights. FGC oended the institutionalized construction of individuals as ecacious promoters of their
own self-interest.
In even more dramatic terms, the joint statement of WHO,
UNICEF, UNFPA, and UNDP in 1995 labeled the medical basis for
anti-FGC policies a mistake. The reasoning of the joint statement
suggested that much of the medical discourseat least as it was applied locallywas exaggerated and consequently counterproductive.
The second problem with the medical reasoning was more surprising. Essentially, medicalization had been too eective. By making FGC
safer, the international community had undermined the urgency that
originally motivated the eradication of the practice. The organizations attempted to recapture some of that urgency in their repackaged
message: FGC had negative health consequences, butmore importantlyit was a violation of womens rights.
Thus, in the mid-1990s, responsibility for eradicating FGC was once
again reassessed. At that time, the right to health took a backseat to
the human right to be free from abuseincluding abuse from intimates.
56 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 57
CRC, adopted in 1989, was more specic than the declaration, stating, States Parties shall take all eective and appropriate measures
with a view to abolishing traditional practices aecting women and
children (Section 24(3)). When the CRC was drafted, representatives
from Italy and the Netherlands requested that Section 24(3) specically reference FGC. The representative from Senegal argued that the
language should remain general so that the provision would apply to
all countriesnot only African countries (Smith 1995). Although the
more general language was used, the implications of the provision for
eradicating FGC were clear to all state parties. The CRC also included
provisions that target child abuse and the torturing of children. As
with CEDAW, the CRC created a committee that assesses periodic reports of the state parties to the convention.
The motivation of this discourse was not to dismantle the family.
Nevertheless, what a family could doand importantly, could not
dowas becoming institutionalized in a manner consistent with the
tenets of individualism. The idea was emerging that in a proper
family each personeach man, woman, or childshould be an equal
partner. According to this ideal, it is inappropriate to view families
as a convenient amalgamation of individuals linked primarily to the
regulation of physical and social reproduction; the true purpose of
every family is to provide support and love for each member. Once
again, the controversy over FGC had prompted a radical change in
an institutionthis time, the institution of the family.
The global institutional system is always changing. One key aspect
of this change is an ever-expanding notion of rights; as new claims
emerge, the system expands to absorb them (Boyle and Meyer 1998).
This is a contested process, however, because the expansion of individual rights tends to undercut other institutionalized arrangements.
Many have noted the eect on nation-states, some even predicting
the eventual demise of national sovereignty as a result of increasing
economic interpenetration and international human rights intervention.8 Rationalism and individualismas more diuse, symbolic conceptstend to win out over concrete structural arrangements (state,
family).
58 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
The case of FGC provides an important example of how the expansion of rights operates. Mobilization against the practice did indeed undercut national autonomy but may have increased national
authority in some countries. It expanded state jurisdiction over family
relationships. Although states have lost autonomythe justication
for intervening in families is standardized globallythey have gained
authority vis vis their local populations. The mantra that the private is political is now taken very seriously, not only in the case of
FGC but for many other issues as well.
The nation and the family are now seen as important sites for the
repression of individuals and hence violations of human rights. This
evolving individualistic model of the nation and the family contrasts
dramatically with models that existed during earlier historical eras
and still exist in some locations today. These contrasting models assume that individuals exist to serve their nations and families: the
primary role of the nation is to preserve a national culture against
external threats, and the primary role of the family is to aid in this
social reproduction (to pass down important aspects of culture from
one generation to the next). Viewed from this perspective, neither the
nation nor the family exists simply to please individual members.
The model of the family that is currently carried by the international system treats the personal fulllment of individual family members as a top priority. Giddens (1992) labels this the democratization
of personal life. This model has led to the establishment of international law to protect both women and children from the consequences
of unequal power in the family. The complementary model of the
nation-state has led to tremendous isomorphism in national policies.
Will the family ultimately become a global institution, subject to
the same homogenizing processes that nation-states currently experience? This question is important but much too complex to answer
here. Suce it to say that FGC and other issues capturing the attention of international actors today certainly suggest that the family may
be the current site for expanding universal individualism.
With respect to both the nation-state and the family, being constituted by the global system does not spell demise. Nation-states will not
disappear as a consequence of increasing attention to human rights.
T H E E V O L U T I O N O F D E B A T E S 59
They are necessary to move the projects of modernity and individualism forward. Families will not disappear as a consequence of international attempts to equalize their internal power relationships. Rather
than disappearing, organizations constituted by and within global institutions may lose autonomy and become rather standardized repositories of institutional principles.
FOUR
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
International Mobilization
Teamwork must bring together government, political and religious institutions, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and
funding agencies in their eorts to eliminate this harmful practice.
World Health Organization, Female Genital Mutilation (1997)
Letters in my correspondence le perhaps best illustrate the dierent
early positions of international organizations on the issue of FGC. In
1998, I had just begun to study the issue. My research assistant, Mayra
Gmez, and I sent letters to a long list of international organizations
asking for any information they had on anti-FGC programs. In our letters, we referred to the practice as female genital mutilation. Among
the responses was a letter from the U.S. Agency for International
Development (USAID).1 The letter, written by Asma Abdel Halim,
suggested that we use the term female genital cutting because the
USAID Task Force on the issue had found female genital cutting
to be less pejorative and better received by the communities that
practice the procedure. This state-sponsored organization implicitly
acknowledged disagreements between Americans and at least some
Africans. Further, the organization was clearly concerned about alienating African women.
Two years later, Mayra and I wanted to share some of the results
of our research with the organizations that had generously sent us information. Once again, we sent a mailing to all of the organizations
on our list. This time we used the term female genital cutting. Once
again, many organizations replied. This time, the cover letter from
the Womens International Network (WIN) targeted our terminology.
The letter said that women in Africa had never heard of female geni-
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 61
tal cutting and that the appropriate term was female genital mutilation. WIN is a private organization established by Fran Hosken to
address gender inequality throughout the world. It specically targets FGC. In contrast to the letter from USAID, this letter wanted to
promote the idea that all womenwhether American or African
agreed unequivocally with the condemnation of FGC.
International organizations in recent years have been consistent in
their desire to eradicate FGC. Nevertheless, as these two letters suggest, dierent organizations adopted dierent perspectives in their
eorts to accomplish that goal. My argument is that the unique roles
played by dierent types of organizations in the international system interact with important principles to produce predictable variation in organizational strategies. The implication is that organizations linked into the current power arrangement (the sovereignty
system) are likely to be more cautious and deferential than other organizations. This argument runs parallel to my argument in chapter 8
that the structural location or local cultural milieu of individuals inuences the basis by which they explain their opposition to FGC.
Over time, as the eradication of FGC has become a taken-forgranted goal of the international system, the strategies have begun
to look similar. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) began the
period with highly critical rhetoric but tended to tone down their language over time (with the possible exception of WIN). State-sponsored organizations operated more timidly at rst but became more
assertive over time. To continue with the example of terminology,
today many state-sponsored organizations use the term mutilation
and many private organizations use the term cutting. One NGO,
Equality Now, indicates that it will not judge contributions to its Web
site by the term used to describe FGC. Nevertheless, the two letters
do illustrate a pattern of dierences that was important in the early
stages of anti-FGC mobilization.
What is it about organizations and their contexts that caused them
to adopt distinctly dierent anti-FGC strategies? It seems that organizations connection to the state sovereignty system is one important
factor. Specically, the structural location of actors in the international system appears to be closely linked to the anti-FGC strategies
they adopt; the greater their dependence on the sovereignty system,
62 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
the more deference they give to local culture and politics. The contrasting letters from USAID and WIN illustrate this dierence. In general, the approach of state-sponsored organizations started out being
more assimilative, while the approach of private NGOs started out
being more confrontational. Once their cause become globally recognized, the strategic dierences become less pronounced.
International Actors
The most privileged entity in the modern international system is the
state. States are the implementers of policy. Their purposive action
takes center stage in the international arena (Boyle and Meyer 1998).
States have taxing power and therefore key resources. But along with
privilege comes responsibility. States are under pressure to demonstrate their commitment to international ideals. Because they hold
key resources, states are frequently the focus of inter- and intranational mobilization (Keck and Sikkink 1998). However, because
states must pay for new policies and deal with intranational groups
that oppose change, they are slower to act than other international
actors (Meyer and Jepperson 2000). Further, states adopt policies but
may decouple those policies from action and buer local populations
from the changes. Nation-states are linked to international norms, but
because they are concretely responsible for reform and must deal with
reactions to reform, they tend to be cautious.
The states privileged status in the international system has led
some to treat it as the only relevant unit in international relations.
Numerous scholars have pointed out the inaccuracies of such a perspective (see, e.g., Boli and Thomas 1999a; Keck and Sikkink 1998;
Price 1997). States exist within a global society that legitimates their
existence and inuences their actions (Boli 1999; Thomas and Meyer
1984). The many characteristics that very dierent states share are evidence of the importance of international norms in creating state identity (Finnemore 1996). Other international actors, including international governmental organizations (IGOs) and NGOs, are important
members of the global community as well.
IGOs (such as the U.N.) are very inuential in shaping state action
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 63
around the globe (Boli and Thomas 1999b; McNeely 1995; Barnett
and Finnemore 1999). IGOs are not reducible to independent state
interests, but unlike NGOs, IGOs are dependent on the sovereignty
system for their existence. If there were no nation-states, there would
be no IGOs. Consequently, although IGOs may be sympathetic to
many types of principled ideas, the principled idea of sovereign autonomy carries particular weight for IGOs and limits the intrusiveness of their reform strategies. In essence, the criticisms and strategies of IGOs are constrained by their dependence on the sovereignty
system. When issues of sovereign autonomy are involved, IGOs avoid
hasty action. For example, the Sub-Committee on the Prevention of
Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (one of the rst IGOs to
take action against FGC) took two years (198284) to study and discuss whether to take action against FGC. IGOs push for reform but
are sympathetic to nation-states desire to act cautiously.
NGOs (such as WIN and Amnesty International) derive their authority from scientic and moral claims institutionalized in the global
system.2 Their authority is based largely on the legitimacy of their
causes; they incorporate the prevailing model of the individual and
the logic of authority based on sovereignty into their rhetoric. Their
legitimacy is enhanced by their frequent rejection of self-interest in
the name of more collective goods.
Such sources of authority endow them with identities that are
universal and transcend national borders. Their continued existence
does not depend on sovereignty (Meyer and Jepperson 2000). Consequently, NGOs assign less importance to local culture than do either
IGOs or states. They are more likely to adopt an outspoken and critical discourse in part because they are not responsible for the implementation of and have little nancial accountability for the ideas
they propose. Although they provide crucial information to IGOs,
NGOs do politicking involving more than simply information politics.
For example, NGOs enhance the legitimacy of the United Nations by
showing that the United Nations is embedded among the people.
Even individuals with no formal political standing theoretically have
access to the United Nations through NGOs. NGOs can also mobilize material resources for U.N. causes (e.g., the International Cham-
64 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 65
range of strategiessometimes attempting to assimilate local communities into reform eorts but at other times adopting a punitive
strategy to motivate reform.
Ultimately, the diverse strategies of IGOs, NGOs, and states
prompted policy reform around the world. This chapter details the
actions of particular segments of the international community, starting with IGOs, moving next to NGOs, then to the media, and nally
to states. Throughout the chapter, the analysis links the dominance of
certain principled ideas to the form of eradication eorts, explaining
how the strategies of international actors were driven by their diering structural locations in the international system.
66 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
Reform Strategies
Guseld (1986) notes that some of the most contentious political
issues have nothing to do with individuals economic interests; instead, they are battles over status. When particular practices distinguish members of dierent cultures, it becomes important to place
those practices into a hierarchy of lifestyles. They become symbols
of social status. When the dominant group feels its position is threatened, it reacts by imposing its social practices on other groups. The
case of FGC is quite dierent from Guselds case (abolition) because
FGC is a matter of international rather than national politics. Nevertheless, Guselds theory of status politics may provide some clues to
explain the timing of the international communitys concern about
this local cultural practice.
Widespread international mobilization against FGC occurred only
after countries from all continents were explicitly joined in a single
community through the United Nations. Guseld suggests that
threats from immigrants can create the impetus for national status reform. The FGC experience suggests that the same eect might occur
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 67
68 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 69
and cried, she recalls. I just wanted to be like everybody else and t
in (UNIFEM 2002). Kittony explains that when she was older, she
learned of the negative health consequences of FGC and thanked her
parents for forbidding her from being circumcised. According to the
UNIFEM Web site, Kittony is optimistic that MYWO will succeed in
eradicating FGC.
The UNIFEM-sponsored project explicitly recognizes the symbolic
value of FGC among certain communities in Kenya. Furthermore, it
calls for unique programs tailored to each communitys unique characteristics. For example, the project report states: Giving the communities the opportunity to go at their own pace and to plan according
to their needs was key to the success of the program, and Answers
must come from communities, and we must remember that in each
one, change takes a dierent form.
In the village of Tharaka, rather than eliminating initiation ceremonies altogether, they devised an alternative rite of passage called
Ntaniro Na MugamboCircumcision with Words (PATH/MYWO
1998). The aim of the project was to substitute circumcision with training on empowerment, health, and human rights (PATH/MYWO
1998). The project team attempted to garner support from village
elders and to educate young boys about the harms of FGC.
The extent to which the project teams eorts will reduce FGC in
Kenya is unknown. At the time of the project report in 1998, none
of the thirty girls who were in the Circumcision with Words program
had experienced FGC, and the report stated that the bigger picture is even more promising. However, a more cautious assessment
emerges from Kiyofumi Tanaka (2000) of the International Development Center of Japan, who conducted an anthropological study of
the Gusii (also known as the Abagusii) ethnic group in Kenya. He
accepts the PATH/MYWO assessment that the rate of FGC has decreased from 100 percent among women aged 50 or older to 78 percent among teenage girls. Nevertheless, he fears the trend away from
FGC may be slowing, in part because members of MYWO are losing
their resolve to oppose the practice: Despite advocacy by MYWO and
[Seventh Day AdventistRural Health Services], it is reported that so
far only a few people in the district have stopped circumcising their
daughters. What is apparently slowing down the trend towards end-
70 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
ing the practice is the lack of openness among the anti-female genital
cutting crusaders. Focus group discussion participants reported that
some community leaders such as MYWO representatives, who preach
against the practice, are known to take their girls for the operation
secretly. This double standard attitude among the community leaders
discourages community members who might like to adopt an anticircumcision stand (Tanaka 2000, 35). As the projects own report
noted, the girls adopting the alternative rite of passage were teased
and ostracized in social circles for failing to be circumcised. For this
and other reasons, it is dicult for community members to resist the
pressure to circumcise their daughters.
The UNIFEM-sponsored project illustrates one important assimilative strategy favored by IGOsto encourage grassroots movements
in the countries where FGC is practiced. It is not dicult to nd
local grassroots organizations; many existed prior to international
mobilization. Cumulatively, the 1979 Khartoum conference, the 1980
Copenhagen conference, and the 1980 Cairo conference energized
preexisting African womens organizations and led to the creation
of new African organizations. In addition to MYWO, these organizations include the Somali Womens Development Organization, the
Central African Republic Organization, Le Mouvement Femmes et
Societe in Senegal, the Union National des Femmes du Mali, and
the Babiker Badri Scientic Society in Sudan (Boulware-Miller 1985;
Kouba and Muasher 1985). Marie Bassili Assaad and El Saadawi of
Egypt; two Sudanese doctors, Asma El Dareer and Nahid Toubia; and
other African women, such as Efua Dorkenoo, have written books and
articles and organized educational campaigns to eradicate the practice. In sum, international actors recognized a sizable opposition to
FGC within African countries around 1979, and a coalition of interand intranational organizations was forged.
In 1982, the United Nations began to commission studies to determine the prevalence of FGC and eradication strategies (United
Nations Yearbook 1982). The World Health Organization brought Africans and Westerners together again in Dakar, Senegal, in 1984 to
discuss anti-FGC policies. This seminar resulted in the creation of the
splinter organization Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Aecting the Health of Women and Children, derived from
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 71
72 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
ments. Forcing the issue of FGC into the public in dramatic narrative
forms had this eect. For example, CNNs live lming of the ten-yearolds cutting in Cairo resulted in tremendous negative publicity for
the Egyptian government. NGOs simultaneously arranged a heated
anti-FGC campaign. As noted before, the timing maximized the level
of international attention.
The year after the CNN lming, the World Health Organization,
UNICEF, UNFPA, and UNDP issued their joint statement against FGC,
suggesting that the shaming strategy had captured their attention.
At the same time, the United Nations bestowed the 1995 Population
Award on the Inter-African Committee for its eorts in eradicating
FGC. By not granting the award to the CNN lm crew, the United
Nations may have been attempting to distance itself from the NGOs
strategy of public humiliation. Nevertheless, the NGOs strategy had
grabbed the attention, if not the approval, of both IGOs and the
Egyptian government.
Furthermore, the coercive reforms were eective. At the end of the
Cairo conference, the United Nations declared: Governments are
urged to prohibit female genital mutilation wherever it exists and to
give vigorous support to eorts among NGOs and community organizations and religious institutions to eliminate such practices . . . Measures should be adopted to eliminate and enforced to eliminate . . .
FGM (Smith 1995, 56).
In July 1996, Egypt led its third periodic report to the CEDAW
Committee. The change in Egypts position since its rst report six
years earlier was evident. While continuing to maintain that the practice of FGC was dying out, the report acknowledged the states responsibility for eradicating the practice. Just as the report was being
led, the Egyptian Health Minister expanded his decree to forbid any
medical professional from performing female circumcisions, even in
private hospitals.
Since the Copenhagen conference in 1980, coercive strategies have
been criticized by a number of Africans (Obiora 1997; Dawit and
Mekuria 1993). Initially, the criticisms seemed to have little eect on
those deploying coercive strategies, perhaps because their strategies
were eective at gaining international attention. But, over time, it appears that NGOs have cut back on their confrontational strategies.
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 73
Media Coverage
Personal stories and narratives are the true core of NGO mobilization,
which links NGOs very closely to the media. The media represents
a unique type of NGO; it is independent of the sovereignty system,
but neutrality is one important basis for its legitimacy. The media
sometimes engaged in coercive reform tactics but eventually settled
into milder forms of criticism. Andrea Hoeschen and I (2001) analyzed twenty years of newspaper stories on FGC to get a sense of how
the international media has dealt with the controversial issue.
The rst newspaper coverage of FGC emerged shortly after the initial international mobilization in the late 1970s. One of the earliest
stories appeared in the New York Times on July 18, 1980. It provided
coverage of the United Nations Conference on Women in Copenhagen. It began with the dramatic narrative of Nawal El Saadawis
circumcision as a child. As noted earlier, El Saadawi had become an
anti-FGC activist and was speaking in opposition to the practice at the
conference. The article was thorough, beginning with the attentiongetting human interest story, moving on to discuss a World Health
Organization report on FGC, and nally describing the contentious
debates at the Conference on Women over whether anti-FGC mobilization was imperialistic. The article was representative of others written at the same time. It was designed to evoke reader sympathies,
it provided favorable coverage of powerful international actors (the
United Nations and the World Health Organization), and it analyzed
the competing principles of sovereign autonomy and the human right
of bodily integrity. Reports of this type coincided with the emergence
of international cooperation to eradicate FGC.
News coverage of the mobilization against FGC was initially quite
sparse. Over time, the number of articles increased, and the articles
became more specic in their purposes. Beginning in the 1990s, the
number of articles on FGC steadily increased until it peaked in 1996
(the year in which the United States adopted anti-FGC legislation). A
number of key events in the anti-FGC campaign occurred during this
time period. The rst was the release of Alice Walkers novel Possessing the Secret of Joy and subsequent documentary Warrior Marks (with
Pratibha Parmar), both criticizing FGC. The novel and documentary
74 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 75
76 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
State Strategies
In terms of their structural location in the international system, states
have taxing power and therefore key resources. They are linked into
international norms but must also pay for new policies and deal with
local protest groups (Meyer and Jepperson 2000). Because they are
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 77
concretely responsible for reform and must deal with reactions to reform, they tend to be cautious.
Western states, perhaps in part because of the minimal cost to
them, acted early in anti-FGC eorts. They were the rst to adopt antiFGC legislation in the recent period. Former colonial powers were
especially well represented. In 1982, Sweden became the rst Western country to adopt anti-FGC legislation. From 1982 until 1995, all
of the Western laws were local; they banned the practice within national borders or indicated that local assault or child abuse statutes
were applicable to the practice.
The United States was a unique case among Western countries. Actions emanating from U.S. civil society and its elected representatives
were often coercive. For example, the U.S. law linked foreign aid to
eradication eorts in other countries.13 On the other hand, actions
emanating from formal U.S. bureaucracies were more assimilative.
The letter I received from USAID is an example of the latter. USAIDs
representative was clearly rejecting embarrassment as a solid basis for
reform.
This may reect the fact that the U.S. government is a relatively
weak state; civil society is more central in policymaking than bureaucratic experts are. Further, American civil society operates independently of the nation-state system. Although U.S. government ocials,
especially those involved in international relations, may be sensitive
to sovereignty issues, individuals in American civil society operate independently of the sovereignty system. Like NGOs, private American individuals are less likely to be concerned about maintaining the
legitimacy of nation-states than individuals who actually have a stake
in the sovereignty system. This is true not only because Americans are
private citizens but also because the United States has more power
than most other nation-states. Arguably, even if the U.S. government
lost authority, American economic and cultural power would persist.
For these reasons, U.S. anti-FGC positions were somewhat inconsistent across spheres.
Although some African states took action against FGC while still
colonies or immediately after achieving independence, the vast majority adopted anti-FGC policies after Western countries did. A number of African nations were hesitant to incur the local political costs
78 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O B I L I Z A T I O N 79
By contrast, states often take a more realistic and gradualist approach toward international norms, which often serves to disguise (or
is viewed as disguising) reluctance or inability to implement change.
The interaction of these major players in the international arena becomes the basis for action-oriented national reforms, the focus of the
next chapter.
FIVE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Even if the law is not enforced or enforceable, the symbolic import of its passage is important to the reformer. It settles the controversies between those
who represent clashing cultures. The public support of one conception of
morality at the expense of another enhances the prestige and self-esteem of
the victors and degrades the culture of the losers.
Joseph R. Guseld, Symbolic Crusade, 1986
The U.S. State Department issues Human Rights Reports each year
describing the human rights situation in many countries of the world.
These reports have been available for download from the Internet for
several years. At the State Department Web site, each country has its
own link, which leads to the countrys individualized report. Once inside a country report, the Web surfer cannot link to any other country report. Each report is unambiguously independent of all other
reports. The Web site seems to reect the State Departments operating assumption that states are fundamentally independent and act
autonomously (cf. Ferguson 1994).
A closer examination of the reports reveals that even as the State
Department makes an assumption of independence, the goal of the
reports is to standardize action across countries. The content of the reports reects a standardized list of issues that are cherished by Americans. No attempt is made to gauge local national polities attitudes
toward these issues. There is no acknowledgment that local individuals might nd other issues equally or even more important. Each report is divided into six sections. Across countries, the six headings
labeling each section are identical (e.g., Respect for Political Rights:
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 81
82 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 83
tial than local pressure, then very dierent outcomes should ensue.
Anti-FGC laws would be most common in countries with high rates of
FGC because the international community would target those countries. The laws would be passed at similar times in dierent countries,
and their passage would coincide with international events. The language of the laws would follow a common script. And local activists
would lobby international actors to create anti-FGC policies. These
competing conceptions and their empirical implications are the focus
of this chapter. To arbitrate between these scenarios, I trace the international history of national laws and policies opposing FGC.
A preliminary question is whether and to what extent informal
that is, nonlegalanti-FGC policies represent support for the international norm against FGC. Formal laws suggest a more coordinated
opposition to FGC. For example, in a number of countries, such as
Kenya and Egypt, legislation was proposed and failed. In other countries, such as Tanzania, formal legislation was passed. This suggests
that opposition to FGC is stronger in Tanzania than in Egypt and
Kenya. The formality of a policy is relevant as one possible indicator of the degree of conformity to international ideas. Nevertheless, a
governments stated position on FGC is also important. When stated
opposition to FGC is considered, nearly every country where FGC
occurs falls into line with the international norm.
84 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 85
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T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 87
Leone not only because of the lack of a stable government but also
because many of the Western characterizations of FGC (that FGC is
a tool of patriarchy, for instance) do not describe the practice well
there.
In Chad, the government has demonstrated its commitment to
eradicating FGC. In 2000, the Chad Council of Ministers passed a
law to criminalize FGC, but the National Assembly had still not taken
action on the law at the time of this writing. It is estimated that 60
percent of women in Chad are circumcised. Although all types of
FGC are practiced in the country, clitoridectomy is the most common.
As in Sierra Leone, FGC in Chad typically marks the passage into
puberty. However, Leonard (2000) found that young girls in Myab
were seeking FGC as a fashion statement. A number of these girls,
whose mothers were not circumcised, were undergoing FGC without
their parents consent or even against their parents wishes.
The situation in Egypt was explained in detail in chapter 1. In that
country, the government, under pressure from the international community, has taken steps to eradicate FGC. The practice has considerable local support in the country, however, and the Egyptian parliament has been unable to pass legislation against FGC. The fact that
all countries with an active government currently have an anti-FGC
policy among the fourteen where FGC is a majority tradition suggests
that local culture is not particularly inuential in motivating legal
action within this group of nations. This is true despite the prediction several years ago that African governments could not aord to
listen to international edicts against FGC (Weinstein 1983, 175).
In other African states, where FGC is practiced by less than a ma-
88 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 89
90 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 91
92 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 93
This suggests that, at mid-century, local interests were active in tailoring legislation to address their own specic concerns.
When external forces are important, we would expect to see little
variation or tailoring among national laws. Rather, national laws will
follow a particular script that completely bans FGC. Alternate scripts
medicalizing the procedure or limiting the type of procedure (e.g.,
banning only inbulation) will be discouraged by the international
community. Modern laws have all these features. By the 1990s, the
international community was willing to accept only laws mandating
complete eradication of the practice. Consequently, todays anti-FGC
laws do not medicalize the procedure and do not distinguish among
the dierent types of FGC: they simply ban all forms of the practice.
They dier only in their reach: some ban FGC for only persons under
18 (e.g., the U.S. law); others specify that consent is not a defense (e.g.,
the Canada law) (Rahman and Toubia 2000). Thus, the substance of
the laws is the same; only the breadth of their applicability varies.
The U.S. federal ban provides a specic example of the international anti-FGC script. The law is modeled explicitly after the U.K.s
1985 federal ban on FGC (Bashir 1996). The explicit language in the
1985 British ban reads that under this act it is an oense to excise, inbulate, or otherwise mutilate the whole or any part of the
labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person (Black and
Debelle 1995, 3). The consequence for such action includes a ne or
imprisonment for up to ve years, or both (Black and Debelle 1995,
3). In the U.S. language, Whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or
inbulates 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 ned
under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both (Congressional
Record 1996, similar language is italicized). The similarity of this legislative language illustrates that the United States looked to the U.K.
statute in devising the statutory wording. Similarly, in Australia, the
legislative language banning FGC was explicitly modeled o of Canadian legislation (Ierodiaconou 1995, footnote 62). The importance of
external forces is evidenced by marked similarities that characterize
many of the laws passed both in the West and in African nations. The
rhetoric surrounding the issue clearly treated national legal action
as part of an international project. For example, laws banning the
94 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
practice were frequently cited in the context of international statements against FGC (see Black and Debelle 1995; Ierodiaconou 1995;
Hughes 1995).
Central Actors
Finally, the extent to which activists viewed national actors as the instigators of change is an indicator of the relative importance of national
inuences. If nation-states were relatively autonomous local units,
then the initial eorts to eradicate FGC would be directed against national governments. If nation-states were actors who simply play by
the rules of the international community, then eorts would be directed toward the international community. In fact, the pattern of
activity shows that Western feminists and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) interested in the issue tended to bypass local governments and appeal directly to citizens or directly to international
organizations to take action. In the last chapter, I discussed the actions of international organizations. I will only briey revisit some of
those actions here. In the mid-1970s, local African NGOs directed
their attention specically to African citizens (in local radio shows and
seminars), but by the late 1970s, NGOs began to direct their attention to international organizations. For example, they sent detailed
information to the secretary-general of the United Nations. Further,
in looking at the national policies developed to eradicate FGC (see
table 5.1), one sees many partnerships between NGOs, international
governmental organizations, and nation-states.
An important pattern emerges in relations between local areas and
the international community. Keck and Sikkink (1998) describe a
boomerang eect of international action: individuals confront national governments, but if their eorts are thwarted at the national
level, they then turn to the international community to apply pressure. (This is called a boomerang eect because pressure from below
comes back to the state in the form of pressure from above.) The
pattern of national policymaking for FGC is generally consistent with
Keck and Sikkinks analysis but suggests that some subtle modications are needed. First, with respect to certain issues such as FGC, in
many countries, local actors may not even attempt action at the na-
T H E D I F F U S I O N O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 95
96 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
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SIX
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102 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
countries, is a signicant but peripheral international player. Tanzania is a poor country hit hard by an AIDS crisis. Tanzanias external
debt is $7.6 billion94.3 percent of the countrys total gross national
product (World Bank 2000). The country uses millions of dollars of
its revenues each year to service its debts. Of the three countries, Tanzania has the least pull in the international community.
Besides international standing, another distinguishing factor is the
relationship between religion and politics. The United States is predominantly Christian, but courts and other state-run institutions are
secular. Tanzania includes a mix of Christians, Muslims, and followers
of indigenous religions. As in the United States, the government is
secular. Recently, religious dierences have fueled political tension
in Tanzania. Egypt is predominantly Muslim and has a semisecular
state (see Brown 1995). Islam is the ocial state religion. Importantly,
Egypt is home to Al-Azhar University, the oldest and most prestigious institution of higher education in the Islamic world. Because
of the tremendous respect accorded the University, Egyptian administrations have maintained close ties to the institution. Several highprole religious leaders at Al-Azhar University gured prominently in
the debate over FGC in the 1990s.
Finally, the countries dier in the prevalence of FGC. FGC is rare
in the United States. With the exception of binary sex surgeries, the
practice is believed to occur solely among recent groups of immigrants. In Tanzania, a sizable minority of families practice FGC. An
estimated 18 percent of women in the country are circumcised (U.S.
Department of State 2000). The practice occurs in 20 of 130 ethnic
groups in Tanzania and among Somali immigrants to the country
(Center for Reproductive Law and Policy and International Federation of Women Lawyers 1997). In Tanzania, the cutting is performed
by a ngariba (keeper of the tradition) or traditional birth attendant, or by a trained doctor or midwife (Nkoma-Wamunza et al. 1998;
Mabala and Kamazima 1995). There have been a number of reported
deaths from FGC in Tanzania. For example, in the Tarime district,
out of the estimated 5,000 circumcisions performed each year, about
20 girls die as a result of the procedure (Temba 1997; Lukaya 1997).
Egypt has the highest rates of FGC. In Egypt, 97 percent of married
women have been circumcised, and, until very recently, 88 percent
V A R I A T I O N I N T H E M E A N I N G S O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 103
of women in the country either favored the continuation of the practice (82 percent) or had no opinion about its continuation (6 percent)
(Carr 1997).
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V A R I A T I O N I N T H E M E A N I N G S O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 105
reects Egypts ability to operate somewhat independently of international pressure. Such resistance would have been more dicult in
a country with less leverage in the international system, as illustrated
by the case of Tanzania.
To successfully oppose FGC, the executive branch had to distance
itself from the legislature. The legislature was unwilling to make FGC
illegal, so President Mubarak devised a bureaucratic solution to the
contesta health ministry decree. The state also began prosecuting
a limited number of individuals for botched circumcisions. The wife
of President Mubarak, Suzanne Mubarak, now plays a personal role
in making the Egyptian public aware of the dangers of FGC. All of
these strategies have operated apart from local popular sentiment;
indeed, they have been specically geared toward changing that sentiment. The executive action and elite representations about FGC contrast strongly with actual rates of FGC in Egyptian society, illustrating
how the Egyptian state distanced itself from local society.
While Egypt resisted Western intervention in its attempts to ban
FGC, eradication eorts in Tanzania had a very dierent character.
As in Egypt, the law against FGC had functional relevance in Tanzania. The practice is inseparable from the cultural identity, social
values, and standards of certain peoples (United Republic of Tanzania 1999; Kijo-Bisimba et al. 1999; Nkoma-Wamunza et al. 1998).
In some ethnic groups, uncircumcised women are perceived as unclean and impure (Wada 1992). Often they are described in degrading terms (Mabala and Kamazima 1995). And in some communities,
uncircumcised women are forbidden from attending important social
occasions, such as funerals. As these examples indicate, FGC is an important measure of status in a number of Tanzanian ethnic groups.
However, because most of its population does not practice FGC,
one might have expected Tanzania to be a forerunner in anti-FGC
legislation. This was not the case. Tanzania is a diverse country. For
example, roughly 45 percent of the population is Muslim, 35 percent
Christian, and 20 percent other religions (U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency 1999). Since independence in 1961, Tanzanian presidents have
included both Christians and a Muslim. Occasionally, religious tensions have led to political turmoil. The states legitimacy is thus dependent on appearing neutral in the face of local diversity. In this
106 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
context, a law against FGC would be problematic if it appeared to target particular minority groups. This may explain why Tanzania did not
lead countries in opposing FGC.
At the same time, the Tanzanian state had no leverage to ignore
international opposition to FGC. The country borrows internally and
externally from nancial institutions such as banks and corporations.
Externally, it borrows from the Paris Club (developed nations), non
Paris Club members, and multilateral and bilateral corporations such
as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (United
Republic of Tanzania 199798). Many of these nancial institutions
make loans or aid conditional on countries taking certain actions. As
noted above, in 1996, the United States made its funding of loans
through the International Monetary Fund or World Bank contingent
specically on countries adopting anti-FGC policies. This undoubtedly caught the attention of Tanzanian ocials.
The result was an enthusiastic if belated embrace of international
calls to abolish FGC. Local government ocials began prosecuting
and imprisoning people for performing the practice in 1995. For example, in July 1995, local government ocials in Dodoma ned several parents after their daughters appeared in the local health center with excessive bleeding (U.S. Department of State 1996). In 1996,
local government ocials imprisoned ve people in an eort to prevent the practice from being performed on young girls. A formal
law against the practice was passed in 1998the Sexual Oence Special Provision Bill (Act No. 4 of 1998, Section 169). Several persons
were prosecuted in that year (U.S. Department of State 1998). The
bill states that FGC constitutes cruelty to children and therefore is
a punishable criminal oense (Cheng and About 1999). Specically,
the bill provides: Any person with the care, control and custody of a
girl child under 18 years of age who causes that girl child to be mutilated is guilty of an oense and liable to imprisonment for a term not
less than 5 years and/or to a ne. It is an oense to assault anyone
or mutilate a person over the age of 18 without their consent. Note
how the law uses mutilation, a term commonly used by international
actors but harshly criticized for its Western bias (see Gunning 1990
91; Obiora 1997).
In passing the law, Tanzanian authorities relied on the arguments
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girls had been circumcised in the Mara region during October 2001
despite government opposition.
The importance of the West, like the importance of international
organizations, is evident in Tanzanias law. The anti-FGC law is in English, despite the fact that most Tanzanians cannot speak or read English. (This is true of all Tanzanian laws.) And UNICEF (1996) drafted
the anti-FGC laws implementation plan.
Overall support from the government continues despite the diculty this support raises for some politicians. For example, in TarimeMara during a recent campaign, the candidates were asked if they
support FGC. If their response was no, they were not elected (KijoBisimba et al. 1999). In fact, many government leaders in Tanzania are
personally pro-FGC or at least afraid to take a personal stand against
the practice.
Evidence is somewhat sketchy, but it appears that reform eorts
are making more inroads in Tanzania than in Egypt. As of 1996, 82
percent of married Egyptian women favored the continuation of FGC
(compared to the base rate of 97 percent who had been circumcised
themselves). In Tanzania, Nkoma-Wamunza and others (1998) found
that attitudes were changing in regions where FGC rates were high.
For example, in urban Dodoma, 95 percent of both men and women
wanted to see FGC abolished. The percentage of circumcised women
in the region overall is 68 percent. In both Egypt and Tanzania, there
is evidence that parents are requesting less extreme forms of the practice (see Kijo-Basimba et al. 1999; Mabala and Kamazima 1995). There
is also some evidence that the practice is becoming medicalized in
Egypt (El-Zanaty et al. 1996, 177). This may not be an option in
resource-poor Tanzania.
V A R I A T I O N I N T H E M E A N I N G S O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 109
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secution, (2) that the persecution is based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion,
and (3) that if they are deported, harm will be unavoidable. Applicants must also be credible. With respect to each factor, the Board of
Immigration Appeals found in favor of Kassindja. The case was a milestone, because it was the rst successful gender-based asylum claim
in the United States. The Kassindja appeal was decided in the spring
of 1996.
The related case of Lydia Oluloro, from Nigeria, occurred shortly
after the Kassindja appeal. Oluloro had already experienced FGC but
sought asylum to protect her two daughters from the practice. She
successfully argued that if she was forced to return to Nigeria, she
would have to take them with her, and they would almost certainly be
circumcised.
The U.S. federal legislature passed its anti-FGC law in November
1996. Based on this timing, it appears that the asylum cases were
at least part of the motivation behind the U.S. legislation. As noted
above, a key component in seeking asylum is that harm would be
unavoidable if a person were returned to the home country. This
claim would be dicult to make against African countries that had
anti-FGC laws and eradication policies. In tying U.S. foreign aid to
other countries eradication eorts, some in the federal legislature
may have been trying to prevent a tide of African women from seeking asylum on American shores.
Given this background, it is not surprising that the U.S. law is more
outwardly focused than either the Egyptian health decree or the Tanzanian law. The U.S. law targets countries where the practice occurs.
Before the bill was passed, newspaper editorials highlighted the laws
international importance. For example, Joan Beck argued that the
Schroeder bill should be supported, not only because of its eect in
the United States but also because of the message it would send to
countries where the practice is common. 4 Abe Rosenthal suggested
a program in which 1 percent of U.S. foreign aid would be committed
to the eradication of FGC globally.5 The nal law was indeed explicitly
international in character. It did three things: (1) it banned FGC in
the United States, (2) it linked foreign aid and support for loans from
international organizations to countries FGC eradication eorts, and
112 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
(3) it made education about the practice mandatory for all new immigrants. (The law was later revised to limit mandatory education to
immigrants from countries where the practice is prevalent.) Thus, two
out of the three objectives of the law were directed at foreign governments or individuals arriving from foreign countries.
In the United States, as in other Western countries, the anti-FGC
law applied primarily to a marginalized, relatively powerless group
immigrants from Africa. Because FGC is very rare in the United
States, the U.S. law served to rearm American traditions while
othering African women (see, e.g., Gunning 199091; Obiora 1997;
James 1998; Matua 2001). When particular practices distinguish members of dierent cultures, those practices may become symbols of social status, identifying a hierarchy of lifestyles (Guseld 1986). In the
discussion of functionality, I noted how the U.S. law is largely symbolic. The law regulates a group with little political or economic power
in the United Statesrecent immigrants and refugees. The reaction of
Americans to FGC was incredulous and categorical condemnation
(Gunning 199091). The extent to which the American battle over
FGC was a rearmation of traditional American values is illustrated
by the situation of Harborview Hospital in Seattle, Washington.
Harborview serves a largely immigrant clientele. Many of its patients are Somali immigrants or refugees. Initially, the hospital refused pregnant womens requests that their daughters be circumcised.
After lengthy discussions with refugee men and women, however, the
hospital determined that its refusal was likely to do more harm than
good. It appeared that if the hospital did not intervene, girls would
be sent back to Somalia or would visit one of the three local midwives
to be cut. Under these alternatives, the chances that the girls would
experience the most severe form of FGCinbulationincreased.
Consequently, in September 1996, Harborview oered a compromise
position: the hospital would nick the hood of a girls clitoris in a procedure meant to draw blood but with no tissue removal or scarring
(Coleman 1999). A local anesthetic would be used, and the procedure would be performed on only girls old enough to understand the
procedure and give consent (informed parental consent was also required). The belief was that this medically safe procedure would provide an alternative to more dangerous and invasive forms of FGC. In
V A R I A T I O N I N T H E M E A N I N G S O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 113
fact, while some forms of FGC are more comparable to male castration than male circumcision, the procedure proposed by Harborview
was somewhat less invasive than male circumcision because no tissue
would be removed.
The Harborview compromise was never implemented because the
hospital was besieged by outraged opponents (Coleman 1999, 745).
The hospital was inundated with letters and phone calls protesting
the compromise. Opponents suggested that even talking about cutting female genitals legitimizes a barbaric practice (Coleman 1999,
747). A Harborview physician who claimed it was imperative that
we try to understand the cultural practices of other people and that
we respect privacy of families and their physicians (Coleman 1999,
748) received hate mail and death threats for weeks. Apparently, it
was not the harmful physical consequences but the practice itself that
riled the American public. An obstetrician/gynecologist at Harborview suggested that, as an unfortunate result of the failed compromise, the hospital was likely to nd itself dealing with the medical and
psychological repercussions of midwives work in the near future. The
Harborview Hospital experience suggests that Americans see FGC
not only as harmful to the girls who undergo the procedure but also
as a threat to American ideals of gender equality.
Rather than resist international norms, Westerners enthusiastically
embraced themto the point of assertively challenging any hint of
deviation from those norms. The manner in which the United States
targeted FGC reinforced the superiority of Western values in the
global system.
114 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
V A R I A T I O N I N T H E M E A N I N G S O F N A T I O N A L P O L I C I E S 115
lar eect because individuals are not highly motivated to deal with
the problem.
The United States provided one instance of how these policies may
be more extranationally directed in the West than in the periphery. In the case of FGC, although all three countries adopted similar
policies around the same time, the U.S. law was substantially more
international. Not only did the law ban FGC in the United States; it
also linked foreign aid to eradication eorts in other countries. In
contrast, the Egyptian and Tanzanian policies were entirely local.
Taking the United States and Egypt as examples, although both
countries adopted anti-FGC laws in response to the growing international sentiment opposing the practice, the meaning of the laws
in the two countries was quite dierent. The substance of the laws
in Egypt and the United States illustrates how elites assigned dierent meaning to eradication eorts in the two countries. In December 1995, Health Minister Ali Abel Fattah of Egypt issued his decree
banning FGC in all public hospitals in Egypt. His successor, Health
Minister Ismail Sallam, extended the ban to all medical practitioners
in July 1996.6 The decree was directed at a fairly elite group of Egyptiansdoctors. Furthermore, all classes of Egyptians practice FGC, so
the ban aected the upper as well as the lower classes in the country. No aspect of the health decree was focused outside the borders
of Egypt.
In comparison, the U.S. policy on FGC was more externally directed. The U.S. policy attempted to inuence African states and even
international migratory ows. The Egyptian policy was entirely domestic. At the most fundamental level, this dierence suggests one
way in which American hegemony operates. Although from one vantage point, the international diusion of anti-FGC legislation makes
it appear that eradicating FGC was a consensual goal of many nations,
from another, the power relations involved are decidedly more pronounced (cf. Edelman et al. 1999; Waters 1995).
The meaning of policies adopted as a result of international diusion also appears to be very dierent in Egypt and the United States.
Specically, the U.S. policy rearms traditional values, but a similar
policy in Egypt distances the state from traditional values. The inter-
116 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
SEVEN
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Individual Response
A Clash of Alternative
Meaning Systems
We do not believe that force changes traditional habits and practices. Superior Western attitudes do not enhance dialogue or equal exchange of ideas.
Seble Dawit and Salem Mekuria, The West Just Doesnt Get It, 1993
Taken-for-granted truths at the international level are not necessarily truths in the communities where FGC has been passed down
through generations. For example, although most Muslims agree that
Islam does not require FGC, the Mandinga in Guinea-Bissau disagree.
Members of this ethnic group trace the origins of the practice back
to the Prophet Mohammed. They related the following story to ethnographer Michelle Johnson (2000). Mohammeds rst wife was too
old to have children, so he took a younger second wife. After some
time, his rst wife became jealous of the beautiful new bride. While
Mohammed was away on a trip, she pierced the ears of the younger
wife. Because only slaves had pierced ears at the time, the rst wife was
hoping that Mohammed would reject his new wife when he discovered
the piercing. When Mohammed returned home, he heard from God
through an intermediary that he should not worry about his young
wifes pierced ears. God told him the piercing was beautiful and soon
all the women would begin to pierce their ears in the same way. And
indeed, when the other women saw the new wife with gold in her ears,
they began to pierce their own ears. Eventually, Mohammed had to
leave on another trip. This time his rst wife clipped o the younger
wifes clitoris. Once again, when Mohammed returned an intermediary came to him and conveyed a message from God. The intermediary
told Mohammed that the circumcision would make the young wife
118 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
even more lovely and pure. The Mandinga related this story to explain
why they circumcised their daughters.
When Johnson asked a Koranic scholar and holy man whether
the Koran actually contained such a passage, he explained that the
story was a secret passage: Even experts are not always perceptive
enough to see or understand all the mysteries of the Quran ( Johnson
2000, 221). He and the rest of the community believed the story was
real. It did not matter that the story had not been formally recorded in
the collections of Mohammeds teachings. As this example illustrates,
Westerners might be missing the importance of secrecy and hidden
meanings in some African cultures when they claim that there is no
real textual basis for FGC.
The perspective of international actors as they began to ght actively against FGC stood in stark contrast to the perspective of many
individuals in the communities where FGC was practiced. Local political and religious leaders in some communities have supported FGC.
Often, the practice has been linked to nationalism. Jomo Kenyatta,
the rst president of Kenya, condoned the practice and warned that
the abolition of FGC would prevent the Gikuyu from perpetuating
that spirit of collectivism and national solidarity which they have been
able to maintain from time immemorial (Kenyatta 1978, rst published in 1938, 135). Some local communities were strongly supportive of the practice even when the international community was adamantly opposed. In these communities, the practice was sometimes so
taken for granted that it was dicult for women to imagine not being
circumcised.
Most of the literature on FGC considers individualswhy they
practice FGC, how it aects them, and whether they are likely to
change the tradition. This chapter also focuses on individuals, but
rather than attempt a summary of that entire body of literature here,
I focus on the theme of this book: how institutional conict played
itself out at this, the most concrete of levels.
At the international level, conict over FGC was procedural. In
determining whether they should intervene, international organizations contrasted the idea of national sovereignty with the idea of universal human rights. At the national level, the conict was also procedural. Here, the process of representative democracy was pitted
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 119
120 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
the next chapter. In both analyses, we controlled for both region and
country so that the individual-level analyses could be compared and
conceptually connected.
In terms of what aects attitudes and behaviors with respect to
FGC, we looked at a number of factors but were particularly interested in the eect of religion. Because it is central to identity, religion is likely to be a key determinant of the salience of international
norms for women. Religion provides a transcendent explanation for
action that bolsters individuals choice of traditional norms instead
of international norms. Islam has served as a base of resistance to a
number of global norms. The global system itself arises from Christian countries, so Christian womens ideology is more consistent with
the international ideals. Because Christian women are more likely to
identify with the Western ideas carried by the international system,
we also expected to nd that the eect of exposure to Western discoursecollege and public mediawould be greater for Christians
than for Muslims.
Our analysis revealed that Christianity is a strong predictor of rejecting FGCin both attitudes and behavior. In addition, we found
evidence that anti-FGC ideas among college-educated women are
more inuential for Christians. Likewise, the mass media has more
impact on discouraging the practice among Christian women than
Muslim women. It is not sucient for individuals to be exposed to
the norms of the international system. Exposure to Western ideas appears to work better if it is accompanied by a meaning system that
is supportive of those ideas. Local culture can provide an alternative
meaning system for women, providing the scripts for resisting or accepting international FGC reform eorts.
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 121
Empirical Background
The recent increase in international data on FGC has led to many
new empirical studies of the practice (e.g., Williams and Sobieszczyk
1997). Specically, recent DHS modules on FGC oer a unique opportunity to evaluate changes in an individual behavior that has been
targeted for change by the international community. The nationally
representative surveys were administered in local languages and used
locally recognized terminology. The surveys in Egypt, Kenya, Mali,
Niger, and Sudan 3 asked women a series of questions about FGC,
including (1) whether they favor the continuation of the practice,
and (2) whether they have circumcised or intend to circumcise their
daughters. Despite the sensitivity of the questions, there was no evidence that women refused to answer or that the results were biased
toward particular responses. Because mothers are primarily responsible for having their daughters circumcised, the surveys focused on
their attitudes and behavior as an indication of change in rates of
FGC.
I briey describe some of the countries key similarities and differences here (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency 1999; Information
Please Almanacs 1999). I have discussed Egypt at length elsewhere
but incorporate some basic additional information on that country.
122 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
Because the Central African Republic is included in the next chapters analysis, I also describe its basic characteristics to provide a point
of reference. National statistics are provided in table 7.1. In the modern historical context, all of the countries have experienced European colonization or occupation.
The Central African Republic, Mali, and Niger were French colonies that claimed independence in the early 1960s. Kenya was a British
colony but became fully independent in 1963. Britain occupied Egypt
until 1953 (following a history of occupation by Turks and then an
Anglo-French coalition). Egypt and Britain jointly administered Sudan until 1953 under a condominium agreement signed in 1899.
Recent histories thus hold a common theme of occupation and colonization, although the colonial powers involved were dierent.
With respect to womens rights, all of the countries except Sudan
have laws or constitutional provisions that call for gender equality (although Kenya only recently amended its constitution to prohibit gender discrimination). In Sudan, the government maintains the Public
Order Police, who are commissioned to enforce proper social behavior, including restrictions on immodest dress by women. Gender
segregation is also common in social settings in Sudan. In the other
countries, laws mandating gender equality are largely decoupled from
practice and are often inconsistent with more specic laws, such as
those regarding marriage, inheritance, and travel. In the countries
where Islam is the dominant religion, actual practice tends to coincide
with Islamic beliefs regarding womens proper role in society. For example, in Egypt and Kenya, women must have the permission of their
fathers or husbands to obtain a passport. In all of the countries, it
appears that girls are more likely than boys to drop out of school because of the pressure to begin families, and there is strong social pressure against women working outside the home.
With respect to current political and economic conditions, Egypt is
the most developed country, followed by Kenya. The life expectancy
for a person in Egypt is six years greater than that of the next highest
country, its fertility rate is the lowest of the six countries, and its GDP
per capita is nearly double that of the next highest country. Sudan is
the most unstable of the six countries. Twenty years of civil war be-
Table 7.1 Background Statistics for the Central African Republic (CAR), Egypt, Kenya, Mali, Niger and Sudan
124 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
tween the north and the south have claimed 1.5 million lives, more
than 4 percent of the countrys total population. In Niger, a group of
army ocers overthrew the elected government in 1996 and continue
to hold power. The Central African Republic is also relatively unstable
(U.S. Department of State 2000). The president, Ange Felix Patasse,
was rst elected in 1993 and won reelection in 1999 by a narrow margin. The militarys loyalty to Patasse is questionable (many members of
the military mutinied in 1996). In 2000, Patasse dissolved that branch
of the military responsible for domestic security and created a new
Special Presidential Unit. From 1998 to 2000, a special U.N. peacekeeping force was present in the country.
In contrast, Kenya held its rst multiparty elections since independence in 1992; the most recent elections were held in 1997. The
governments in both Egypt and Mali have also been relatively stable,
although religious tensions in both countries have led to numerous
deaths in recent years. Economically, Mali, Niger, and Sudan are the
poorest countries. All of the countries tend to rely on international
donors to fund gender equality and childrens welfare programs because the governments lack the resources to fund social programs internally.
Despite Western interpretations of the practice, not circumcising
ones daughters is considered deviant in many regions of these countries. FGC is practiced on nearly all girls in Egypt. Sudan and Mali also
have high rates of FGC: 89 percent and 94 percent, respectively. The
rate is lower but still substantial in Kenya (about 37 percent) (Carr
1997). Approximately half of the women in the Central African Republic have been circumcised. In contrast, in Niger, FGC has always
been a minority tradition. In Niger, the percentage of women who
have experienced FGC is about 14 percent. Inbulation, the most extreme form of FGC, is the most common form in Sudan, while excision is more common in Egypt, Kenya, Mali, and Niger. Although the
governments in the six countries formally oppose FGC, the degree
of specic action against the practice has varied. As noted earlier, in
Kenya FGC was historically linked to nationalist movements; it was
a plank in the anticolonial platform of the 1930s, and the founding
father of the country explicitly linked FGC to nationalist pride.
Sudan legally banned FGC in 1974, but the practice continues to
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 125
126 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
salient awareness of the contradiction is a precursor to change, however. One of the reasons the West did not act sooner with respect to
FGC is that most Westerners had never heard of the practice. They
were shocked to learn that such a practice occurred; it was antithetical
to many ideas that they take for granted.
Likewise, individuals operating within systems where FGC is institutionalized will not abandon the practice unless they realize that
FGC is not institutionalized everywhere. One key empirical factor,
then, that links macro and micro levels is the exposure of these individuals to the powerful scripts embedded in the international system.
Exposure alone is insucient to generate change, however. In addition to exposure, those individuals must nd some salience in the
alternative institutions. Individuals who practice FGC will have to sufciently identify with the international system to imagine that its perspective on FGC has some legitimacy and relevance to them.
A related, alternative explanation for change is suggested by modernization theories (Inkeles and Smith 1974; Inglehart and Baker
2000). According to modernization theories, exposure to modern
structures leads individuals to adopt a particular type of personality,
emphasizing rationality and secular beliefs. For example, Bell explains that during the process of industrialization, individuals move
from a state of war against nature to a state of war against fabricated nature (Bell 1976, 1973). As part of this process, individuals
begin to emphasize materialism over religion, and, ultimately, selfexpression over materialism (see also Etzioni 2000). From this perspective, change is less about institutional conict and more about the
functional evolution of values.
Modernization theorists have been critiqued for implying that
Western notions of the world are somehow more evolved than other
perspectives and for placing the blame for underdevelopment on the
victims of imperialism. Although these assumptions are present in
some modernization texts, they are not essential to modernization
theory. Divorced from such assumptions, modernization theory suggests a powerful, interesting, and empirically testable process. Is there
something about an individuals relationship to nature that fundamentally aects his or her worldview?
There is a great deal of similarity in the predictions of neoinstitu-
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 127
128 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
Table 7.2 Attitudes toward FGC among Women in The Central African Republic,
Egypt, Kenya, Mali, Niger, and Sudan
stered the reliability of our ndings and allowed us to explore dierences in how attitudes and behaviors are inuenced.
There is evidence of some erosion in the occurrence of FGC at
the individual level. Table 7.2 shows a modest reduction in the intergenerational continuity of the practice in a sample of women from
the Central African Republic, Egypt, Kenya, Mali, Niger, and Sudan.
With the exception of Niger, all of the countries show that fewer
women favor FGC than have actually been circumcised. Although
the percentage favoring FGC is very high in several countries, it is
considerably less than perfect intergenerational reproduction. Predictably, our measure of intergenerational stability, a womans own
circumcision experience, had the most powerful impact on both her
behavior and her attitude toward FGC.
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 129
130 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 131
Resistance
Factors increasing resistance to modern ideas were commitment to
Islam, rural dwelling, and agricultural employment (Inkeles 1971).
Whether Islam requires FGC is a contested question (Boddy 1991).
The practice predates Islam, does not occur in most Middle Eastern
countries, and is not explicitly required by the Koran. Nevertheless,
some powerful Islamic leaders advocate the practice, and in Africa
its occurrence has historically coincided with the rise of Islam (see,
e.g., Lancaster 1995). The Mandinga example at the beginning of the
chapter illustrates how FGC can sometimes be viewed as a positive
attribute of Islamic identity and culture. We therefore hypothesized
that Christian women would be less likely than Muslim women to
favor the continuation of FGC or to circumcise their daughters. As hypothesized, we found that Muslims and women of traditional African
faiths were three times more likely to circumcise their daughters and
four times more likely to favor the continuation of FGC than Christian
women.
We also hypothesized that Christian women would nd the antiFGC message of international activists more salient than other women
because the international norms would be more consistent with their
overall view of the world. The interaction terms testing this proposition demonstrated an interesting eect. As expected, college-
132 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 133
134 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L R E S P O N S E 135
EIGHT
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
One of the most powerful tools was a lm showing a woman who had not
been mutilated giving birth. People didnt understand that they could deliver a baby fairly easily.
Equality Now, Around the World: Canada (1997)
In 1910 the Anglican Church founded two neighboring missionary
stationsKigare and Kabarein Kenya (Murray 1976). Two Canadian brothers founded the stations, which followed a similar course
for two decades. In January 1930, the bishop who oversaw these two
stations issued a pastoral letter condemning FGC and requiring the
church leaders to take disciplinary action against individuals who engaged in the practice. In Kigare, the then-current missionary (Reverend John Comely) was known for his caring love, his willingness
to listen, and his unwillingness to compromise once he received divine guidance. Upon receipt of the bishops letter, Reverend Comely
asked the church elders in his community to publicly renounce FGC.
By 1931, he had the full support of the elders. With his backing, they
issued a resolution calling for the excommunication of any church
members who allowed FGC. Reaction was swift and far-reaching:
Schools went on strike, churches emptied and within a short time
dissidents were commencing independent schools and conducting
prayers separately (Murray 1986, 99). Lands that had been donated
to the church by clan members were reappropriated. The heavyhanded approach of church leaders drove parishioners away.
In Kabare, in contrast, church leaders devised a dierent strategy
to deal with the bishops letter. The missionary at that station, Reverend William Rampley, and his church elders came up with a com-
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 137
138 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 139
140 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 141
142 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
Mali, and Sudan 5 asked women whether they favor the continuation
of FGC and, if not, why not. Our sample included explicit and implicit adherents to the international anti-FGC movementthe women
from the ve countries who did not favor the continuation of FGC.6
In other words, our analysis was based on a subsample that included
only anti-FGC adherents.
The surveys used an open-ended question to determine why
women opposed the continuation of FGC. Women were allowed to
give multiple responses. Individuals administering the surveys assigned womens responses to one of nine 7 categories, including
other and do not know. Table 8.1 illustrates the distribution of
women across all nine responses and also clustered into categories
that coincide naturally with the two discourses suggested by the theoretical literaturethat is, human rights and medical discoursesas
well as a residual category that includes constitutive explanations
(i.e., a woman says she opposes FGC simply because it is bad). As
we noted, there are a number of ways to interpret the constitutive responses, including identity, apathy, ignorance, and so forth. This category provides an important contrast to medical and human rights explanations because all of the responses in this category share a lack
of connection to international discourse. In the medical category, we
included women who indicated that FGC caused medical complications or was painful. The human rights category included women who
responded that FGC denied womens dignity or reduced sexual satisfaction.8 In the constitutive category, we included women who responded that FGC was a bad tradition, was immoral, or was against
their religion.9
Table 8.1 breaks down the explanations given by anti-FGC adherents in the Central African Republic, Egypt, Kenya, Mali, and Sudan.
(Because women could give multiple responses, the total amounts are
more than 100 percent.) The percentage of women giving a constitutive explanation was very high, 66 percent of all adherents. Constitutive explanations when unaccompanied by other types of explanations are particularly telling, and these percentages were also quite
high. More than half of the uncircumcised adherents (58 percent) and
more than one-fth of the circumcised adherents (21 percent) em-
Note: Because multiple explanations were allowed, percentages total to more than 100.
Table 8.1 Percentages of Anti-FGC Adherents Giving Medical (M), Human Rights (HR), or Constitutive (C) Explanations, by Circumcision Experience
144 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 145
the practice of FGC if she is told that it can result in serious hemorrhaging rather than that it is an aront to womens dignity.
In fact, we found that when women used one of the frames suggested by international activists, they were much more likely to use
the medical frame. Very few women gave a human rights explanation
for their opposition to FGC; only 18 percent of circumcised women
and 19 percent of uncircumcised women cited harming womens dignity or reducing sexual satisfaction. In the responses for both groups,
after bad tradition, the next most common explanation for opposition to FGC was medical complications (28 percent). Further, 14 percent of adherents opposed FGC because they called it a painful experience. Although the human rights framing was promoted by international organizations, activists may have actively discouraged such
framing at the local level because it subtly implies that circumcised
women are exotic others (Gunning 199091; Kouba and Muasher
1985). This result may also indicate that elaborated frames are not
necessarily more persuasive than restricted frames, when considered
at the individual level.
Our next consideration was predicting which adherents would
adopt particular explanations. Snow and Benford note that the potency of a frame depends on its relevance to the targeted population
(1992). Because women in our sample who are circumcised must consciously reject a locally institutionalized practice, we predicted that
they would be more likely to articulate a specic explanation for their
opposition and that the frames of international actors would be more
likely to resonate with them. Snow and Benford also suggest that a
frame is more likely to strike a responsive chord [if ] it rings true
with extant beliefs (1992, 140). Being circumcised may indicate adherence to a non-Western belief system, which may make women suspicious of Western notions of human rights (Hoeschen 1999). Women
who are embedded within such an alternative belief system may be
particularly likely to nd the restricted medical frame appealing because it allows them to oppose the practice of FGC without criticizing
other aspects of their culture, such as overall gender roles. Further,
in the case of FGC, circumcised women are the targeted population;
the international organizations want to convince these women to not
circumcise their daughters. For all these reasons, we expected circum-
146 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 147
148 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
cal or human rights explanation. All else being equal, attending college increased the likelihood of giving a medical explanation by 151
percent and of giving a human rights explanation by 103 percent. Encounters with health care professionals increased the probability of
giving a medical explanation by 75 percent and a human rights explanation by 101 percent. In sum, exposure to Western culture through
college and health care professionals notably increased the probability of both medical and human rights explanations for women opposing FGC.
As noted in the last chapter, two important indicators of independence for a woman are whether she lives in an urban area and
whether she works outside the home. Informal social control tends
to be weaker in urban areas, compared with rural areas, because in
urban areas individuals tend to exist more independently and rely
less on their kin for their future well-being. Working outside of the
home may also remove women from l(m)6(ov)-37]TJ
-.00014louts
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 149
150 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
I N D I V I D U A L F R A M E R E S O N A N C E 151
NINE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Conclusion
C O N C L U S I O N 153
equality in the realm of FGC. Without NGO intervention, policies devised through the collaboration of states and IGOs might well have
remained decoupled indenitely. Less predictable and often more coercive, NGOs make radical proposals for change and thus raise the
baseline for the range of action nation-states should take. In contrast,
states often take a more realistic and gradualist approach to international norms, which can disguise reluctance or inability to implement
change. The interplay of these major actors in the international arena
forces a tighter coupling between ideal and action over time.
At the national level, representative democracy sometimes conicted with the notion of universal human rights. This both fueled
decoupling and created an implicit hierarchy of values. FGC illustrated how the policies of separate nation-states are not always the
outcome of local political processes but may well be one component
of an international process.
Viewing national legislation as part of an international process
has important implications for explaining both national and international action. At the national level, reform is often a top-down process. For example, although 97 percent of the women in Egypt are circumcised, the Egyptian health minister has banned the practice and
the wife of the Egyptian president is spearheading an eort to eradicate FGC. This suggests that national laws are developed to change
rather than reect local attitudes. Further, despite the consistency
of legalization across countries, we did nd important West-South
variation in national strategies. In some African countries, local communities gured into the processbut, contrary to democratic principles, as something to be worked around. These countries tended
to avoid formal legislation that would involve representative bodies;
they opted for more bureaucratic policies. Western countries, in contrast, adopted formal laws. This nding suggests that there should be
an extension of institutional theory that incorporates variation in the
manifestation of international ideals in dierent settings (cf. Grattet,
Jenness, and Curry 1996). Whether there is a consistent disjuncture
between bureaucratic policies and local culture in African countries
is an important question.
Viewing lawmaking as an international rather than national process has important consequences. One implication is that the contra-
154 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
diction among international institutions can put a check on the progression of any particular ideal. Specically, in the contest between
democratic representation and human rights in the FGC realm, the
human rights ideal dominates. States adopt laws that prohibit the
practice even when the laws do not reect the desires of their local
constituencies. Nevertheless, the ideal of democratic representation
continues to have an important eect on the process. This is evident
in the deference that IGOs give to the sovereign authority of nationstates. These organizations use primarily assimilative strategies: including African nations in the policymaking process, having Western
countries model appropriate national action, and promoting local
anti-FGC mobilization within African countries. Respect for sovereign
autonomy inuences international actors to adopt less intrusive, assimilative reform policies rather than more directly instrumental, coercive policies. In contrast, actors in the international system who
exist apart from the sovereignty system (NGOs, media, etc.) or who
represent hegemonic authority (the United States, France) tend to be
considerably less deferential to sovereign authority. This suggests that
there may be innite possibilities for social development at the point
where universal principles contradict, so that the development of
any ideal is somewhat constrained.
It also seems to be true that when institutions contradict each
other, the one most closely linked to individualism predominates.
This may indicate that a new conception of power, one that recognizes the empowering possibilities of the global narratives, is needed.
Power and exploitation exist on many levels in the world. While some
link FGC to patriarchal family, religion, and political structures that
exploit women, others link Western pressures regarding FGC to postcolonial imperialism. Regardless, although Western pressure forced
Southern nation-states to adopt anti-FGC policies, many would characterize international mobilization against FGC as empowering local
women who did not want to undergo the practice (see a similar example from Merry [1995] on wife beating). Thus, whether the international system stripped away power or provided power is an open question. In fact, it appears to have done both. Thus, theorizing power is
as important in research focusing on global narratives as in research
focusing on agency and particular individuals.
C O N C L U S I O N 155
156 F E M A L E G E N I T A L C U T T I N G
repression for women and children. Perhaps in the future, the family
will be absorbed within the global institutional arrangement and be
subject to the same processes of isomorphism that nation-states currently experience.
Being constituted by the global system does not spell the demise
of an organization. Nation-states are not likely to disappear anytime
soon because they move the projects of modernity and individualism forward. Rather than disappearing, organizations constituted by
and within global institutions lose autonomy and become rather homogenized repositories of institution principles. FGC and other issues
capturing the attention of international actors today certainly suggest
that the family may be the current site for expanding universal individualism.
Although this book is important as an analysis of the critically controversial issue of FGC, it has broader implications as well. By (1) addressing the complex relationships between international actors,
nation-states, and individuals; (2) explaining the increasing involvement of international actors in local cultural practices; and (3) theorizing the substance and interaction of institutions, I hope I have
oered insights into many other types of cultural conict in the international system.
NOTES
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Preface
1. Erin Moriarty, Not Tonight Dear: Low Sex Drive in Women Can Be
Treated with Hormone Therapy If Properly Diagnosed, CBS News Transcripts, 48 Hours, Burrelles Information Services, 5 April 2001.
ONE
Introduction
158 N O T E S T O P A G E S 4 4 0
N O T E S T O P A G E S 4 2 6 3 159
THREE
1. Pedriana and Stryker (1997) aptly note that this is not a feedback
eect but a feed forward aspect of reform movements.
2. As Wendy Nelson Espeland notes, when an outcome takes on particular importance, whether that outcome is reached becomes the basis for determining the legitimacy of the process (1998, 225). For feminists, sovereign
autonomy could not be legitimate because it allowed FGC to continue.
3. This is consistent with Anthony Giddens characterization of modernization as disembedding local knowledge with abstract, expert systems such
as medical science (1991, 1723).
4. The current structure of the opposition to FGC suggests the presence
of both an epistemic community (Haas 1990) and a transnational advocacy network (Keck and Sikkink 1998). In reality, epistemic communities
and transnational advocacy networks overlap, but they can be distinguished
conceptually by the way they frame the issue. By denition, an epistemic
community focuses more on medical science, while a transnational advocacy network focuses more on the principle of human rights (Keck and
Sikkink 1998, 30); compare Peter Haas, Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination, (1992).
5. Special thanks to Dongxiao Liu, who drafted much of this description
of CEDAW and its history for a coauthored article that we currently have
under review (Boyle and Liu 2002).
6. States parties is the formal term for states that have ratied an international treaty.
7. With respect to women, the rhetoric of the international system focuses on gender equality and women as citizens, with a goal of closing
the gap between the reality of gender inequality and the ideal of equality
(Bunch 1990, 17475).
8. Some suggest that the ever-expanding conception of rights, and
global intervention on their behalf, will force a re-imagining of the nationstate. See, e.g., Waters 1995.
FOUR
International Mobilization
160 N O T E S T O P A G E S 6 7 8 4
FIVE
N O T E S T O P A G E S 8 8 1 1 9 161
making FGC punishable as an assault in 1995, and the law was signed by
Chads president. In Cte DIvoire, the president of the NGO lAssociation
Ivoirienne pour la Dfense des Droits des Femmes has enlisted the support
of the countrys president in the campaign against FGC, and the National
Minister of Communications has been an active participant and speaker at
seminars. The Ministry of Family and Womens Aairs in Cte DIvoire has
launched a campaign against the practice, and the government passed a law
banning the practice in December 1998.
4. This excludes Liberia, where civil war disrupted village life to such an
extent that the practice has been largely discontinued without active state
intervention.
5. There was a rapid increase in immigration between 1990 and 1994
because of a change in immigration policy.
SIX
Individual Response
162 N O T E S T O P A G E S 1 2 1 1 4 2
1. See also the debate over framing the issue in Medical Anthropology Quarterly (Gordon 1991; Ginsburg 1991).
2. The current structure of the opposition to FGC suggests the presence
of both an epistemic community and a transnational advocacy network.
In reality, the two groups are well integrated, but they can be distinguished
conceptually by the way they frame the issue. By denition, an epistemic
community focuses more on medical science, while a transnational advocacy network focuses more on the principle of human rights (Keck and
Sikkink 1998, 30).
3. Reluctance to use a human rights frame was in part the result of controversies at the Copenhagen conference of 1980, in which African women
boycotted the panels of anti-FGC activists (Kouba and Muasher 1985).
4. For example, doctors at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, indicated that they would be willing to conduct medically safe, small
cuts (somewhat comparable to sunna circumcisions) on immigrant girls in
their area. The vocal criticism from human rights activists (and nonimmigrant members of the local community) caused the program to be aborted
(Coleman 1999).
5. We analyzed the data using hierarchical generalized linear models.
For a more specic description of our method and results, see Boyle, Hoeschen, and Carbone (2002).
6. In Egypt and Mali, the surveys were administered to only women who
were or had been married.
N O T E S T O P A G E 1 4 2 163
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180 R E F E R E N C E S
INDEX
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
182 I N D E X
college (continued )
opposition to FGC, 14748; and
salience of Western ideas, 120
colonialism, 11, 12, 45, 97, 108; historic bans on FGC, 40, 92. See
also imperialism
compromise in reform eorts, 17,
119
Convention for the Rights of the
Child, 5657
Convention on the Elimination
of all forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW), 52.
See also Egypt; feminism; gender
equality
Copenhagen conference, 47, 67, 68,
70, 73
core countries, 89
Cte DIvoire, 83, 85
cultural autonomy, 1, 17. See also
sovereign autonomy
cultural conict, 8, 67; and framing, 15051; global nature of, 1;
and national policy, 18. See also
institutions: contradictions in
Daly, Mary, 45, 46, 109
Dareer, Asma el, 70
Dawit, Seble, 47, 117
decoupling, 67, 18, 62, 78, 97, 107,
116
deinbulation, 26, 34
democracy, 9, 18, 4648, 81, 9596
Demographic and Health Surveys:
attitudes toward FGC, 32, 121
25; and medicalization of FGC,
51; rates of FGC, 2, 11920; reasons for opposing FGC, 14144;
reasons for supporting FGC,
2829, 30
development: eect on attitudes
toward FGC, 127, 13233, 135; as
indicator of modernization, 132;
levels of, for select countries,
12224
I N D E X 183
184 I N D E X
I N D E X 185
186 I N D E X
nongovernmental organizations
(continued )
6364, 78. See also assimilative
reform; coercive reform; international governmental organizations; nation-states; and under
names of specic NGOs
Oluloro, Lydia, 111
orgasm. See sexual intercourse
ostracism, 31, 3637, 47, 6869,
105
Patasse, Ange Felix, 124
patriarchy: FGC as, x, 2729, 47;
global, 46; nation-state as, 56
periphery countries, 97, 100
population, of select countries, 123
Population Award, U.N., 72
Possessing the Secret of Joy. See Walker,
Alice
power, 112, 115; and functionality
of policies, 100; of global narratives, 96; international standing
as, 100101, 114; and meaning
of policies, 113; nation-state
increasing, 56, 58
pregnancy, and female genital cutting, 34
Program for Appropriate Technology and Health (PATH),
6870
prosecutions, for female genital
cutting, 8586, 106, 109. See also
lawsuits
psychological consequences, of
female genital cutting, 3637. See
also ostracism
private sphere. See family, autonomy
purity, 24, 29, 47
Quran. See Koran
radio ownership: eect on attitudes
toward FGC, 129, 132, 134; as
I N D E X 187
Steinem, Gloria, 45
Sudan: age of FGC in, 30; anti-FGC
policy in, 85; attitudes toward
FGC in, 12125, 137, 141; colonial ban on FGC in, 40, 92;
interviews with women from,
3435; rates of FGC in, 83, 85,
128; religion and FGC in, 120
21; types of FGC in, 18, 26, 28;
womens planning to circumcise
daughters, 119, 12125
sunna, 2526. See also female genital
cutting
Sweden, 77, 86, 91
Switzerland, 86, 91
Tanzania: anti-FGC law, 86, 101, 106;
compared to Egypt and U.S.,
1012, 107, 108, 11415; debt,
102; explanations for supporting
FGC, 29; FGC and status in, 37,
105; FGC-related deaths, 102;
medicalization in, 51; people
evading FGC law in, 107; political
costs of ban, 108; power in international system, 106; rates of
FGC in, 86, 88, 108; religion and
FGC in, 31; religion and politics
in, 102, 105, 114; responding to
international pressure, 106, 107,
108
Togo, 74, 85, 88, 90, 110
Toubia, Nahid, 26, 70
Traditional Practices Aecting the
Health of Women and Children
(TPAWC), 48
transnational advocacy networks,
74
U.N. Development Fund for Women
(UNIFEM), 6870
U.N. Development Program, 50. See
also joint statement
U.N. Family Planning Association,
50. See also joint statement
188 I N D E X