Female Circumcision

Question

Anarchy and circumcision (female) and culture: would (do) anarchists support or condemn such behaviour/beliefs and what would be your reasoning on on either a yes or no answer?

Dave

Answer 1

You'd be really hard-pressed to find /anyone/ that supports FGM, anarchist or otherwise. Because it's painful, unnecessary, not safe, deforming, unpleasant, anti-sexual, a patriarchal practice, not based on any demonstrable medical purpose, against the will of those upon whom it is performed, etc., etc.

Answer 2

But anarchist also are opposed to condemning something on the behalf of someone else.  You cannot 'liberate' someone else, you can only join them in struggle to help them attain their own liberation, or a collective liberation.

Anarchists are opposed to the Western paternalism and cultural imperialism inherent in the pathetic 'movement' of rich white people to oppose what they call "FGM."

Comments

How does one go about liberating themselves from FGM?

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http://zinelibrary.info/files/FinalButchLeelo.pdf

Start reading at page 11.  This is not a story about "FGM," but it closely relates.

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Ok - it may take me a day or two and I'll try to get back to you. I have read 36 pages and haven't reached what I think is the point you are getting at yet. My answer to my own question would be to not consider the question in individualistic terms. I can't imagine how an individual subject of FGM would go about liberating themselves from such circumstance, since it is performed at birth. Collectively, I can certainly imagine a revolt against the practice and it is in this way that I think it is important to pose the question of 'self-determination', solidarity, or other notions of liberation that aren't authoritarian and/or parental. Thanks for the link - so far I am really enjoying this.

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Since when was liberation some magical individual act that erased all the effects of oppression that had happened so far?

Liberation isn't the undoing of past wrongs, liberation is just when the boot comes off your neck.  Liberation is the cessation of oppression.  You can't liberate yourself from an act in the past, but you can be a part of liberating everyone from the ongoing institution (and its ongoing effects in your life).

I'm glad you like the link.  It's one of my old favorites.  It's just a shortened, militant posturing, version of Patriarchy and Accumulation On A World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour by Maria Mies.

I was trying to reference the piece about the women who hunt down and kill traffickers in the sexual slavery industry.  And that those women were people who escaped from that industry, formed a gang, and made war against their oppressor.

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"Since when was liberation some magical individual act that erased all the effects of oppression that had happened so far?"

I think I was just a bit confused by the singular use of "someone else" in the sentence, "You cannot 'liberate' someone else, you can only join them in struggle to help them attain their own liberation, or a collective liberation."

"I was trying to reference the piece about the women who hunt down and kill traffickers in the sexual slavery industry.  And that those women were people who escaped from that industry, formed a gang, and made war against their oppressor."

I see - you were providing an example of a situation that doesn't fit into the style of 'liberation' you refer to as Western paternalism. My apologies for misinterpreting your argument(s).

take care

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The "movement of rich white people" to which you refer has little to with liberation and everything to do with preventing an irreversible act that will affect an individual's life without consent.  Few would go so far as to condemn an individual (regardless of sex) who decides, of their own volition, to undergo circumcision.  The issue, I would think, simplifies to a values debate of whether or not one social group should feel justified in claiming agency over another.