Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => Politics & Current Affairs => Topic started by: Nearly Sane on February 01, 2019, 04:59:02 PM
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And a very interesting perspective on it.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1091360126638964741.html
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Patriarchy - so institutionalised that it becomes the cultural norm and women see it as their duty to uphold it.
Masculine envy of female sexuality? Could be. I have never envied women their sexual rewards - if indeed they differ from those of men - if only because of the price women pay for their sexuality.
But then, male genital mutilation (of which I was a victim) appeared to be a female conspiracy. Most births (when I was young) took place at home and the midwife offered the "service" during the first few days of a baby boy's life. My observations in changing rooms at school and at swimming pools was that rather more boys were circuncised than were not.
I don't watch Call the Midwife but I bet there is no sign of it there!
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I watch, 'Call the Midwife', and there has never been talk of male circumcision on that programme. ALL genital mutilation in both female and male is wrong if it is done for cultural or religious reasons . Boys should only be circumcised if they have a condition, which makes it medically necessary.
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But then, male genital mutilation (of which I was a victim) appeared to be a female conspiracy. Most births (when I was young) took place at home and the midwife offered the "service" during the first few days of a baby boy's life. My observations in changing rooms at school and at swimming pools was that rather more boys were circuncised than were not.
I don't watch Call the Midwife but I bet there is no sign of it there!
Without disagreeing with you, I have noticed how threads about FGM - not just on this forum - almost always morph into threads about male circumcision. Can I suggest that, for once, we try to avoid that?
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OK, why don't you post something about the conviction then? That way you could steer discussion back to FGM.
What is there, in the make-up of homo sapiens, that encourages the species to deliberately damage the genitalia of its young offspring in so many different cultures?
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Patriarchy - so institutionalised that it becomes the cultural norm and women see it as their duty to uphold it.
Masculine envy of female sexuality? Could be. I have never envied women their sexual rewards - if indeed they differ from those of men - if only because of the price women pay for their sexuality.
But then, male genital mutilation (of which I was a victim) appeared to be a female conspiracy. Most births (when I was young) took place at home and the midwife offered the "service" during the first few days of a baby boy's life. My observations in changing rooms at school and at swimming pools was that rather more boys were circuncised than were not.
I don't watch Call the Midwife but I bet there is no sign of it there!
There was an episode that dealt specifically and in wince-inducing detail with FGM. I don't recall one dealing with circumcision, but 'Call the Midwife' doesn't shy away from uncomfortable issues, such as kids in care being shipped out to Australia, supposedly for a new life of opportunity, only to be exploited and abused - they've covered that twice. Also the limited opportunities for the disabled in the early 60s.
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There was an episode that dealt specifically and in wince-inducing detail with FGM. I don't recall one dealing with circumcision, but 'Call the Midwife' doesn't shy away from uncomfortable issues, such as kids in care being shipped out to Australia, supposedly for a new life of opportunity, only to be exploited and abused - they've covered that twice. Also the limited opportunities for the disabled in the early 60s.
Regretably we are in sore need of an update to the 2,000's - the 1960's are, in these terms, ancient history.
As to the reason for the mutilation of the human gentalia it is, in both cases, I think, on tne basis of both the Jewish (masle) and Islamic (female) religious teachings!
Barbaric - too bloody right it is! Are we going to stop it in the next fifty years? I doubt it unless both religions are called to account to force it to be stopped.
In America the reason for MGM is almost always given as 'hygiene'
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There is a great need for more writers like that of the article, with close family experience of this dreadful mutilation, to get something done to force a change of attitude and eventually stop it.
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Without disagreeing with you, I have noticed how threads about FGM - not just on this forum - almost always morph into threads about male circumcision. Can I suggest that, for once, we try to avoid that?
Why? Male circumcision can be a problem if it is performed by an incompetent. My husband's was messed up when he was a baby, and must have caused him a great deal of pain.
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Why? Male circumcision can be a problem if it is performed by an incompetent. My husband's was messed up when he was a baby, and must have caused him a great deal of pain.
Because it's not the same topic.
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Because it's not the same topic.
But it comes under the heading of genital mutliation, imo, although of course FGM usually has a more devestating outcome.
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But it comes under the heading of genital mutliation, imo, although of course FGM usually has a more devestating outcome.
And it's not the same topic. Changing subjects to talk about men as opposed to women happens too frequently. The issues are different.
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And it's not the same topic. Changing subjects to talk about men as opposed to women happens too frequently. The issues are different.
I don't think they are different, mutilation of the genitals is very wrong for both sexes.
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As the person responsible for the deviation from the true path, I was not trying to re-instate MGM but looking to see if there was any cultural reason other than religion to account for both MGM and FGM.
As to the reason for the mutilation of the human gentalia it is, in both cases, I think, on tne basis of both the jewish and islamic relious teachings!
Then how do you account for its presence in places where the Abrahamic religions had held no sway?
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Then how do you account for its presence in places where the Abrahamic religions had held no sway?
some mindless idiot a long time ago got hold of some idiotic, stupid idea and proceded to enforce it; and enough unthinking people, possibly in fear of their lives, went along with said idiotic idea, resulting in millions of women being tortured totally unnecessarily.
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Circumcision is orders of magnitude less important than FGM. It has no impact on the man's later life, whereas FGM has a huge impact. Let's keep a sense of proportion here. The brouhaha about it is just an attempt to have a pop at religion by atheists. Perhaos, therefore, we could stick to the thread subject, which is female genital mutilation, which is quite rightly a scandal.
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Circumcision is orders of magnitude less important than FGM. It has no impact on the man's later life, whereas FGM has a huge impact. Let's keep a sense of proportion here. The brouhaha about it is just an attempt to have a pop at religion by atheists. Perhaos, therefore, we could stick to the thread subject, which is female genital mutilation, which is quite rightly a scandal.
Religions which require the female or male of the species to be mutilated should be castigated.
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Religions which require the female or male of the species to be mutilated should be castigated.
Oo-er missus!
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Religions which require the female or male of the species to be mutilated should be castigated.
There you go again, making it all about men...
... oh castigated. Sorry, I misread that.
Anyway, the thing I find quite incredible is that FGM has been illegal in the UK for 30 years and yet this is the first successful prosecution.
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Patriarchy - so institutionalised that it becomes the cultural norm and women see it as their duty to uphold it.
Masculine envy of female sexuality? Could be. I have never envied women their sexual rewards - if indeed they differ from those of men - if only because of the price women pay for their sexuality.
But then, male genital mutilation (of which I was a victim) appeared to be a female conspiracy. Most births (when I was young) took place at home and the midwife offered the "service" during the first few days of a baby boy's life. My observations in changing rooms at school and at swimming pools was that rather more boys were circuncised than were not.
I don't watch Call the Midwife but I bet there is no sign of it there!
I know someone very well who was a District Midwife during the period that 'Call the Midwife' was made, working in a very poor area (not Poplar). I remember you said once before that midwives offered circumcision and I asked her about it. She was horrified at the thought, said that it wasn't part of her training and she had never performed circumcision, neither had her colleagues. So you were unlucky HH. It was often performed in hospital, by doctors, my husband was circumcised but he was born in a maternity home, with no problems.
Apparently it is fairly routine in America. I wonder why.
However, going back to FGM, it's really horrific to think of mothers and grandmothers mutilating their little girls.
Steveh, I saw that episode of CtheM (I've seen every episode at least once), that you mentioned in which the pregnant woman had had the procedure, the midwives and the doctor hadn't seen anything like it before. They did some research and found out what it was about, thankfully. The woman had a C section. It was a very traumatic episode.
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Circumcision is orders of magnitude less important than FGM. It has no impact on the man's later life, whereas FGM has a huge impact. Let's keep a sense of proportion here. The brouhaha about it is just an attempt to have a pop at religion by atheists. Perhaos, therefore, we could stick to the thread subject, which is female genital mutilation, which is quite rightly a scandal.
Are you saying that FGM has no foundation in religion?
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There you go again, making it all about men...
... oh castigated. Sorry, I misread that.
Anyway, the thing I find quite incredible is that FGM has been illegal in the UK for 30 years and yet this is the first successful prosecution.
Where on earth did I make it all about men?
It shameful that it has taken all this time for the first prosecution to take place.
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Are you saying that FGM has no foundation in religion?
I was, rather obviously, I'd've thought, talking about male circumcision, which, if done competently, has no bad effect on the child. FGM is horrific, and it is trivialising it to compare circumcision to it, as though they were equal. As for religion, a quick google would reveal to you, as it did to me, that there is only one small, extreme branch of Islam that insists on FGM. For all mainstream varieties of Islam, it is, like the wearing of the burqa, a cultural practice, not a religious requirement. FGM is quite rightly illegal in the UK, and should be everywhere, but cicumcision, whether medically required or not, should be allowed within proper regulation about who does it and how.
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Where on earth did I make it all about men?
Oh, ffs. "Castigated". Sounds like... . Jeremy was joking! It really is time you had a sense-of-humour implant.
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At first glance, looks like 'castrated', LR.
Quite something when something has to be explained ::).
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At first glance, looks like 'castrated', LR.
Quite something when something has to be explained ::).
Castigated doesn't look in the least bit like castrated to me! ::)
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Oh, ffs. "Castigated". Sounds like... . Jeremy was joking! It really is time you had a sense-of-humour implant.
Oo-er mOh, ffs. "Castigated". Sounds like... . Jeremy was joking! It really is time you had a sense-of-humour implant.
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Where on earth did I make it all about men?
It was a joke. I pretended to read "castigated" as "castrated".
That's dissected the frog nicely.
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It was a joke. I pretended to read "castigated" as "castrated".
That's dissected the frog nicely.
Ehhhhhhhhhh?
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I was, rather obviously, I'd've thought, talking about male circumcision, which, if done competently, has no bad effect on the child. FGM is horrific, and it is trivialising it to compare circumcision to it, as though they were equal.
Whilst I don't think the issue of male circumcision is trivial even when compared to FGM, I completely agree that FGM is a whole different order of magnitude. In terms of what it does, FGM is more akin to cutting the whole end of the penis off. This is reflected in English law in that FGM is illegal but male circumcision is not.
I still don't understand why it's taken 30 years to get the first conviction though. This can't be the first case of FGM in the whole of the UK in the last 30 years.
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Ehhhhhhhhhh?
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/440683-explaining-a-joke-is-like-dissecting-a-frog-you-understand
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I still don't understand why it's taken 30 years to get the first conviction though. This can't be the first case of FGM in the whole of the UK in the last 30 years.
There was a prosecution - about 8 years ago, I think. A gynaecologist, attending a birth, was faced with a woman whose vulva was very badly damaged by FGM - including infibulation. Following the delivery - which itself was very traumatic - he tried to repair the damage that giving birth had done. For some reason, this was considered to be re-installing the infibulation and he was prosecuted for his efforts.
The prosecution case fell apart when other clinicians supported what he did as surgical good practice (or something similar). I wondered whether the fact that the doctor concerned had a brown skin was an important element in the prosecution.
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Poor bloke was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. It's a really horrible business. I wonder how many of you have read, "Possessing the Secret of Joy",by Alice Walker.
Some young adult woman choose to have fgm too, in this country, you wouldn't expect it to happen here especially as it's illegal. However it did happen here in Victorian times and in America until mid 20th century, for various reasons such as hysteria, mental illness. Shameful.
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I think medical checks on children throughout their childhood should be compulsory, and these should include checks to see they are not being abused sexually or physically. FGM would be one of the abuses that would be checked up on.
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I think medical checks on children throughout their childhood should be compulsory, and these should include checks to see they are not being abused sexually or physically. FGM would be one of the abuses that would be checked up on.
Whoa there. Sledge hammer/walnut country.
How much do you think these compulsory checks would cost?
How often would these checks take place?
How is it going to be funded?
Would education in these areas address the issue in a more cost effective manner?
As a wish list it is maybe ok, although I think there are all sorts of issues ravelled up in there in terms of parental responsibility and impact on health care workers. But practically I don't think you have thought it through at all.
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Do children still have health checks at school? My children certainly did - there was a "school doctor" who examined them when they were about six.
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Do children still have health checks at school? My children certainly did - there was a "school doctor" who examined them when they were about six.
I'm unsure whether they still do. What I am fairly sure of is that they would not have had an investigation of the type that would be needed to establish any occurrence of FGM. This would be an intrusion that would have to be handled extremely sensitively and the possibility of claims for some kind of inappropriate behaviour arising from these examinations just makes this sound a bonkers, unworkable idea to me.
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Do children still have health checks at school? My children certainly did - there was a "school doctor" who examined them when they were about six.
I don't think school health checks look for signs of sexual abuse. Besides which, children who are home schooled aren't included in health checks.
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I think medical checks on children throughout their childhood should be compulsory, and these should include checks to see they are not being abused sexually or physically. FGM would be one of the abuses that would be checked up on.
You're a bit of a crypto-fascist on the quiet, aren't you? Civil liberties certainly don't seem to figure highly in your priorities.
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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/09/metal-spoon-alert-authorities-honour-based-abuse-leeds
I thought I remembered something about this, the original advice was to raise an alert for girls about to be taen abroad for forced marriage, but was later updated to include girls who were afraid that they were being taken to be 'cut' as well.
I can't remember seeing anything about it ever being used though.
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You're a bit of a crypto-fascist on the quiet, aren't you? Civil liberties certainly don't seem to figure highly in your priorities.
And you and others who over-emphsise them, civil liberties, have resulted in Judges and magistrates who areb scared to sling well documented little thugs into jail!
Them being kept out of a crowded jail is more important than keeping thier victims out of hospital.
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You're a bit of a crypto-fascist on the quiet, aren't you? Civil liberties certainly don't seem to figure highly in your priorities.
What a STUPID thing to say, even for you. ::) It is children's civil liberties which concern me, like not suffering from abuse!
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And you and others who over-emphsise them, civil liberties, have resulted in Judges and magistrates who areb scared to sling well documented little thugs into jail!
Them being kept out of a crowded jail is more important than keeping thier victims out of hospital.
I made it clear in a recent post on another thread that I think it should be easier to imprison toerags, scrotes, ne'er-do-wells and 'scape-graces, and deplored the recent move by this disastrous government to scrap sentences of less than 6 months, on the grounds that already when anyone issentenced to a short jail term, other sanctions such as probation, tasgging and community service have already been tried and have failed.
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What a STUPID thing to say, even for you. ::) It is children's civil liberties which concern me, like not suffering from abuse!
The compulsory examination you propose could itself be classed as abuse. Small kids have a well-developed sense of modesty before strangers, however kind and well-meaning, and it could be quite traumatic for them.
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Just so we know what is being referred to when someone says "civil lliberties" here is a definition (or two):
1. the freedom of a citizen to exercise customary rights, as of speech or assembly, without unwarranted or arbitrary interference by the government.
2 such a right as guaranteed by the laws of a country, as in the U.S. by the Bill of Rights.
I am not sure why anyone would object to those principles.
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The compulsory examination you propose could itself be classed as abuse. Small kids have a well-developed sense of modesty before strangers, however kind and well-meaning, and it could be quite traumatic for them.
I can't say I have noticed that young children have a sense of modesty before strangers. So are you saying it is far better to protect their private parts from a medical inspection, even if sexual abuse goes undiscovered?
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I think medical checks on children throughout their childhood should be compulsory, and these should include checks to see they are not being abused sexually or physically. FGM would be one of the abuses that would be checked up on.
Imagine what you need to do in order to check if a six year old girl has been subject to FGM. That will probably tell you why it is not being done routinely.
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I would have objected very strongly to my children having their genitals examined, never even heard of it. If there are suspicious circumstances, that's different.
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Imagine what you need to do in order to check if a six year old girl has been subject to FGM. That will probably tell you why it is not being done routinely.
It is done routinely in France, I believe.
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Really? Hopefully the doctors just have a look but don't touch. We can all see that little girls are intact when we change nappies and bathe, they're 'closed up'. If they'd been fiddled with, that would be obvious.
If anything had happened to my daughters, they'd have told me and then I'd have dealt with it, with help of kind and sensitive doctors. I was fortunate to have medics in the family whom we all loved. However I suppose a really tiny child, e.g. under three, wouldn't quite know how to express what happened.
Gosh, it all seems too awful to contemplate. Whenever I read or hear about sexual abuse of children (either sex), I freak & cry my eyes out. It's beyond me how or why anyone could do such a thing.
FGM is sexual abuse as far as I'm concerned, whether it happens in infancy or adulthood.
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Examining children is unnecessary anyway. Teachers, social workers etc. Are trained to spot characteristic changes in children's behaviour suggestive of abuse.
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Examining children is unnecessary anyway. Teachers, social workers etc. Are trained to spot characteristic changes in children's behaviour suggestive of abuse.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm! That doesn't appear to stop abuse getting missed.
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It is done routinely in France, I believe.
Firstly, citation needed.
Secondly they also ban people from wearing certain types of head wear and allow cars to drive on their motorways at the insane speed of 85 mph.
Is the fact that France does something, a good reason for doing it here?
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Examining children is unnecessary anyway. Teachers, social workers etc. Are trained to spot characteristic changes in children's behaviour suggestive of abuse.
If they were subject to FGM before they come in contact with teachers, the teachers wouldn’t notice. Social workers might, but if it happens early enough in the child’s life, they might not.
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Littleroses attempted to post this link earlier but had an issue with it - so I'm posting it on her behalf. It summarises the approach taken in France and is well worth a read.
http://news.trust.org/item/?map=france-reduces-genital-cutting-with-prevention-prosecutions-lawyer
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Can't see why all children should not be able to have a full medical, physical/mental/developmental review annually. Adults too actually.
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Can't see why all children should not be able to have a full medical, physical/mental/developmental review annually. Adults too actually.
I think it is necessary for children to have such a review as things, which affect their development can be overlooked.
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Can't see why all children should not be able to have a full medical, physical/mental/developmental review annually. Adults too actually.
Tooexpensive, too intrusive, not necessary.
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Tooexpensive, too intrusive, not necessary.
I think it is necessary for all children, too many kids have their problems undetected.
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I think it is necessary for all children, too many kids have their problems undetected.
How do you know, if they're undetected?
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How do you know, if they're undetected?
Oh Steve, do you ever listen to the news?
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Oh Steve, do you ever listen to the news?
If abuse is undetected, by definition no-one knows about it. News items are about cases that have been detected.
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If abuse is undetected, by definition no-one knows about it. News items are about cases that have been detected.
It is undetected until a child is killed or badly injured. That is why routine medical checks on a child should be a legal obligation, which no parent can refuse.
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Coincidentally I had a charity request yesterday from something called 'Womankind Worldwide', about FGM. I sent them a one off donation and said I would do same again at a later date but don't want to commit to a monthly payment (I would soon be broke if I took out any more subscriptions).
Maybe at a later time I will drop one thing I currently subscribe to and do the monthly 'Womankind' sub. It doesn't feel quite right at the moment but may do in future.
Now I feel bad about talking about money I give - none of which is a fortune - but it's only to you and you don't know me.