Miles Jackson wrote:
> It's pretty easy for us to rhetorically strut around assuming
> our moral superiority, but anybody's who has seriously
> studied FGM knows it's a convoluted tangle of ethical
> ambiguities.
>
> Consider:
> 1. The practices are accepted by, carried out by, and encouraged
> by the vast majority of women in these societies. It is not
> something men "do" to them; it is part of what these women identify
> as womanhood. Yes, it's hard to us to believe, but mothers
> do this to their daughters willingly: according to their cultural
> standards, this is what it means to be a good mother.
The fact that women support something means nothing. Women do not stand apart from the society in which they are born and bred, especially a traditional society.
I have no problem in saying that you don't get to slice children up period. "Culture" is not a substitute for reflection and compassion.
And there's no need for westrners to feel superior. We slice ourselves up all the time, and we don't even have the excuse that we're five years old and someone is doing it to us. Most of plastic surgery is equally barbaric, and as I mentioned yesterday five female infants a day get their clitorises cut off in the U.S. every day because some adult decides they are too big.
So, if you want to avoid cultural superiority, there's plenty to fight on our own turf.
Joanna