The Female Circumcision Controversy. Ellen Gruenbaum
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offer a perspective on the efforts to make fundamental changes in the practices. The first addresses grassroots change, while the second, the final chapter, looks at international covenants and social movements, current approaches to public health education, and practical suggestions for those committed to fostering change.
Dilemmas of Research and Reporting on Female Circumcision
Although one goal of this book is to consider the diversity of practices, contexts, and meanings, it cannot offer a comprehensive review of the full range of circumcision practices and their ethnographic contexts. I have drawn heavily on my own ethnographic research, however. I am fortunate that my examples from Sudan encompass a variety of ethnic, regional, and social class groups and span a period of years of significant social changes. From the diversity within one country and from selected comparisons with other areas, it will be evident that there is no single meaning or reason for female circumcision and there may be multiple routes to change.
In my field notebooks, I had jotted some thoughts on my frustration with fieldwork. How can anyone, I had written, ever achieve the level of confidence in their generalizations embodied in the style of the classic anthropological ethnographies, such as those of Evans-Pritchard? The old ethnographies give the impression that the researcher was omniscient, observing every detail of behavior, understanding every motive, able to generalize confidently about meanings and trends.
Contemporary anthropologists have been critical of that style, arguing that the knowledge is not authoritative, general, and timeless, but based on observations at one point in time. The strong postmodern critique of the study of the “other” recognizes that writing about culture is inherently interpretative and therefore influenced by the observer’s predispositions and opportunities.
But to write about female circumcision, which is considered inherently harmful and a violation of women’s and girls’ human rights, poses an additional dilemma for feminist anthropologists. The feminist commitment to giving voice to—but not presuming to speak for—the experiences of women, as well as the commitment not only to do no harm but also to contribute to empowerment, seems straightforward enough when dealing with many women’s issues. Domestic violence, children’s welfare, and equal opportunities and pay are all examples where giving voice to women’s dissatisfactions is usually supportive of a desire for change and improvement of the situation. But what about a harmful practice advocated by women?
The usual response in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States women’s movement was that women who accepted subordination might be said to have a “false consciousness” and that should not be considered morally blameworthy. Consciousness-raising groups were very popular as a means for providing a support group in which one could express one’s suffering, anger, difficulties, and doubts. The groups offered an opportunity to reflect on one’s analysis of the realities and one’s interpretation of fairness. What I always found significant about this process was that it relied heavily on open discussion, exploration of personal experience, and emotional support. It did not rely on preaching by an “enlightened” leader, passing judgment on other women, or demands for immediate changes in behavior. If a woman could not face the conflict over housework with her spouse, for example, she was not chastised, but offered sympathy, support, and suggestions by others who knew how difficult it might be. Personal growth, developing the courage to confront difficult changes, or just the release of knowing one is not alone were the results. Consciousness was raised by allowing one’s own insights and by listening to others to develop new perspectives.
For the most part, Western feminists have found themselves in a dilemma in dealing with female circumcision. To label women of a different culture as having a “false consciousness” for advocating circumcision sounds like a delegitimization of the culture or beliefs of others. And even if that criticism is restrained, there are major barriers to entering into a “consciousness-raising” process with advocates of circumcision, not the least of which are language, location, culture, and religion. Thus too often the result has been a pedagogy of missionizing, telling others what they ought to do differently for reasons justified only by the “enlightened” outsiders’ beliefs.
As I argue in this book, there is a role for anyone interested in contributing to the process of change. But the starting point is to work on understanding concrete situations in which female circumcision is practiced, as well as exploring and understanding one’s own reactions. I offer my experiences as one place to start.
1 Muslims believe the Holy Qur’an to be God’s direct revelation and the first source of guidance concerning righteous living; the example set by the Prophet Mohammed in his lifetime and handed down in the writings known as the Hadith is a secondary source. Thus Muslims are expected to respect and follow these sunna of the Prophet as much as possible.
2 The challenge that the female circumcision controversy poses to these values is deeply significant. For a short discussion of the topic in relation to Star Trek, see Anderson (1997).
3 According to Leila Ahmed, “in Egypt it [clitoridectomy] is as common among Christians as among Muslims” (1992:176). Nahid Toubia, as a Sudanese Christian, discussed the extent of the practice among Christians in the Arabic-speaking northern part of the country in her radio interview for Fresh Air in 1996, in which she commented on her own mother’s determination, as she matured, to prevent it for her younger daughters. See also Toubia 1993:31–32 on Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. Additional discussion of Islam and female circumcision is found in Chapter 2, below.
4 Mainly the Ethiopian Jews known as the Falashas, many of whom now live in Israel.
Chapter 1
Patriarchy
My first female circumcision party occurred shortly after my husband Jay and I moved into a house in the Khartoum neighborhood known as As-Sajjana, just south of Qurashi Park. We were younger then—it was the mid-1970s—and still in the glow of the excitement of our second year living in this dusty, hot city. Here our milk was delivered by a man wearing a flowing white jalabiya and turban, riding on a donkey. The neighbors’ goats ate the garbage dumped in the central square beyond our walls, somehow turning it into milk for the evening tea. We joined the rhythm of the neighborhood, more or less, awakened each morning around 4:30 by the call to prayer, enhanced by the loudspeaker from the minaret of the nearby mosque, and retiring in the evening to the sounds of the neighbors’ radios or visitors on the other side of the wall that divided our courtyards.
From our lawn chairs on the second-floor balcony, we could see a lot of neighborhood life. We had covered the balcony rail with straw mats to afford ourselves a little more privacy than the builder of the rather fancy, modern, red-brick house had provided and had decorated with four large clay pots of bougainvilleas from a nursery near the Nile. From the balcony we could see barefoot children playing soccer on the smooth, dusty field and school kids in uniforms wandering home. Itinerant glass-bottle buyers and broom sellers called their trades in nasal chants as their donkeys trotted their routes through the neighborhood. Creaky old cars (like our ancient orange VW bug) had to drive slowly down the bumpy dirt road to avoid scattered broken bricks and drainage ditches. In the mornings we saw women in colorful tobes returning to their homes with baskets of purchases from the market. At noon and at sunset men, and a few women, hurried to the mosque to pray at the appointed times, especially on the holy day, Friday.
In the glaring sun, these public moments burned images into our minds. But one of the reasons we had decided to move to this house from our first apartment, in a high-rise building near the airport, was to be more involved in a neighborhood. Watching was not enough, so we walked a lot, practiced our Arabic by chatting with shopkeepers, bought fresh fried tamiya (felafel) in the evenings from a man preparing it at a nearby corner, and introduced ourselves to the neighbors in the small mud-brick houses on either side of us. But it was not easy to become a part of this neighborhood, as different as we were and living in a house so clearly above (both in height and in social class) the neighborhood norm.
So Jay and I were very pleased the day a neighbor came by and invited us to a party that evening. We eagerly