Female Genital Mutilation: The Libertarian Imperialist Feminist Case Against (Day Thirty-Seven)

Today's featured article on Wikipedia draws attention to political, social, cultural, and moral issue on which I take a strong stance.  

Female genital mutilation (FGM), "also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. Typically carried out by a traditional circumciser using a blade or razor (with or without anaesthesia), FGM is concentrated in 27 African countries, Yemen and Iraqi Kurdistan, and found elsewhere in Asia, the Middle East, and among diaspora communities around the world. The age at which it is conducted varies from days after birth to puberty; in half the countries for which national figures are available, most girls are cut before the age of five.

The practice is rooted in gender inequality, attempts to control women's sexuality, and ideas about purity, modesty and aesthetics. It is usually initiated and carried out by women, who see it as a source of honour, and who fear that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion. Over 130 million women and girls have experienced FGM in the 29 countries in which it is concentrated. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that 20 percent of affected women have been infibulated, a practice found largely in northeast Africa, particularly Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and northern Sudan.

FGM has been outlawed or restricted in most of the countries in which it occurs, but the laws are poorly enforced. There have been international efforts since the 1970s to persuade practitioners to abandon it, and in 2012 the United Nations General Assembly, recognizing FGM as a human-rights violation, voted unanimously to intensify those efforts....

Yet, believe it or not, "[t]he opposition is not without its critics, particularly among anthropologists. Eric Silverman writes that FGM has become one of anthropology's central moral topics, raising difficult questions about cultural relativism, tolerance and the universality of human rights."

Ugandan law professor Sylvia Tamale argues that early Western opposition to FGM stemmed from a Judeo-Christian judgment that African sexual and family practices – including dry sex, polygyny, bride price and levirate marriage – were primitive and required correction. African feminists "do not condone the negative aspects of the practice," writes Tamale, but "take strong exception to the imperialist, racist and dehumanizing infantilization of African women."

The debate has highlighted a tension between anthropology and feminism, with the former's focus on tolerance and the latter's on equal rights for all women. Anthropologist Christine Walley writes that a common trope within the anti-FGM literature has been to present African women as victims of false consciousness participating in their own oppression, a position promoted by several feminists in the 1970s and 1980s, including Fran Hosken, Mary Daly and Hanny Lightfoot-Klein. It prompted the French Association of Anthropologists to issue a statement in 1981, at the height of the early debates, that "a certain feminism resuscitates (today) the moralistic arrogance of yesterday's colonialism."

As one who quickly disregards my multi-cultural principles when the individual is to be left tyrannized by the community, tribe, and/or family, I take a hard anti-anthropologist line on this matter. And if being against the anti-FGM campaign makes one an imperialist, do understand that I am "imperialist" because of my libertarianism. The state is not the only source of force in the world;–that is, culture can be as rippling to individual liberty as any government, be it democratic or despotic. 

Also, as one who finds nymphomania as an aspirational value for both the individual and society, at large, I cannot rectify how FGM is not sexual theft. What else can it be, when according to Understanding the Female Orgasm (July 2003), by Al Cooper, that

• Fifty to 75 percent of women who have orgasms need clitoral stimulation and are unable to have an orgasm through intercourse alone. 
• Even for women who do orgasm through vaginal intercourse alone, most still need the right position to provide clitoral stimulation.

Putting my libertinism aside, this again speaks to my liberal nature: individual sexual choices and experiences should never be sacrificed to any community's prejudices.

In short, on the issue of FGM, I am proudly a libertarian imperialist feminist!

P.S. Since many people I have spoken with over the years seem not to be aware of what exactly is be cut during FGM, here is illustration to explain:

Bases Loaded Deux: The Things I Have Missed for the Last Three Days (Day Thirty-Four, -Five, and -Six)

Here is what I missed from the last three days, at least, according to the best website online, Wikipedia:

On Feb. 3rd,

State Route 67 (SR 67) is a state highway in San Diego County, California. It begins at Interstate 8 (I-8) in El Cajon and continues to Lakeside as the San Vicente Freeway before becoming an undivided highway through the eastern part of Poway. In the town of Ramona, the route turns into Main Street before ending at SR 78. SR 67 provides direct access from the city of San Diego to the East County region of San Diego County, including Ramona and Julian.

The route has existed as a railroad corridor since the turn of the 20th century. A highway known as the Julian road was built by 1913, and was designated as Legislative Route 198 in the state highway system by 1935. Route 198 was renumbered SR 67 in the 1964 state highway renumbering. A freeway south of Lakeside was built in the late 1960s, and opened to traffic in 1970. Since then, the portion of the highway north of Lakeside has become known for a high number of traffic accidents and related fatalities. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has made several attempts to remedy the problem and make the road safer.

On Feb. 4th,

"Damien" is the tenth episode of the first season of the animated television series South Park. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on February 4, 1998. In the episode, the boys' class is joined by a new student named Damien, who has been sent by his father Satan to find Jesus and arrange a boxing match between the two. The majority of South Park residents bet on Satan to win the match due to his enormous size and muscular physique, but Satan ultimately throws the fight and reveals he bet on Jesus, thus winning everybody's money.

On Feb. 5th,

Marcus Ward Lyon, Jr. (February 5, 1875 – May 19, 1942) was an American mammalogist, bacteriologist, and pathologist. He was born into a military family, and demonstrated an early interest in zoology by collecting local wildlife around his father's army posts. He graduated from Brown University in 1897, and continued his studies at George Washington University while working part-time at the United States National Museum (USNM). At the same time, he taught at Howard University Medical School and later George Washington University Medical School. He received his Ph.D. from George Washington University in 1913. In 1919, he and his wife, Martha, moved to South Bend, Indiana to join a newly opened clinic. Prior to moving, Lyon had published many papers on mammalogy, both during and after his tenure at the USNM. In these papers, he had formally described six species, three genera, and one family. Once in South Bend, he began to publish medical studies, too, but continued his work in mammalogy, with a particular focus on the local fauna of Indiana. He published more than 160 papers during his career.

Philip Seymour Hoffman on Doing a Job Well (Day Thirty-Three)

Today's featured article on Wikipedia spotlights the beautiful craft and tragic life of one of the finest actors of the last quarter century.

Philip Seymour Hoffman (July 23, 1967 – February 2, 2014) was "an American actor, director, and producer of film and theater. Best known for his supporting and character roles – typically lowlifes, bullies, and misfits – Hoffman was a regular presence in films from the early 1990s until his death at age 46."

So much of Hoffman's work is readily spoken for by itself. Yet, my main takeaway from this article is how he spoke about doing the craft (any craft) well:

[I]n a 2012 interview he confessed that performing to a high standard was a challenge: "The job isn't difficult. Doing it well is difficult." In an earlier interview with The New York Times, he explained how deeply he loved acting but added, "that deep kind of love comes at a price: for me, acting is torturous, and it's torturous because you know it's a beautiful thing... Wanting it is easy, but trying to be great – well, that's absolutely torturous." 

The Przevalski's Nuthatch (Day Thirty-Two)

Today's featured article on Wikipedia has flocking us back to your feathery cousins.  

Przevalski's nuthatch "(Sitta przewalskii), originally given the nomen nudum Sitta eckloni, is a bird species in the family Sittidae."

The bird is endemic to areas in southeastern Tibet and west central China, including eastern Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan, inhabiting coniferous mountain forests of spruce or fir. The altitude at which it nests varies according to locality, but typically is from 2,250–4,500 m (7,380–14,760 ft). The species was first described in 1891 from a specimen collected in China's Haidong Prefecture. The common name and Latin binomial commemorate the Russian explorer Nikolay Przhevalsky, who discovered the species in 1884. Little is known about its ecology, which is probably comparable to that of the white-cheeked nuthatch.

It was given the rank of full species (separate from the white-cheeked nuthatch) in 2005 in Pamela C. Rasmussen's Birds of South Asia. The Ripley Guide. Other authorities followed suit, but as of 2014, S. przewalskii does not have a full threat-status evaluation by BirdLife International or the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A 2014 phylogenetic study of the species found it to be at the base of the nuthatch evolutionary tree out of 21 species examined, dispelling a hypothesis that S. przewalskii could belong to the same species as S. carolinensis. 

Quiet Desperation

I often find myself fearing my (or my husband's) midlife crisis. I desperately want to live a life I am proud of, one that is satisfying and exhilarating, but I am more often than not, disappointed.

I am currently reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver and a theme I am picking up on is lives of quiet desperation. The narrator is a country farm wife who married young and compares herself to young college students who have traveled and learned things, who have nice clothes and eat exotic food. 

I had a lapse and couldn't remember who coined "lives of quiet desperation," so I looked it up and found this: 

I, Anti-Botanist (Day Thirty-One)

Here is the first featured article of the year from Wikipedia with which I could not care less about:

Lambertia formosa, "commonly known as mountain devil, is a shrub of the family Proteaceae, endemic to New South Wales, Australia. First described in 1798 by English botanist James Edward Smith, it is the type species of the small genus Lambertia. It is generally found in heathland or open forest, growing in sandstone-based soils. It grows as a multistemmed shrub to around 2 m (7 ft) with a woody base known as a lignotuber, from which it regrows after bushfire."

January Recap

Wow, what a week. I just finished a 10-hour day shooting a promo video for my educational programs at work and I am beat! Even though I am fried, I want to begin the tradition of reviewing how I did over the last month.

Days I learned something new: 30/31
Blog posts: 18
My favorite gist: Definitely learning what eye shadow is made of. It brought out my inner rock nerd.
Books I finished this month: "The Woman I Wanted To Be" by DVF (That is truly unacceptable and I will have a higher number of books next month,
My takeaway from this month: That tracking my progress in something makes time go by more slowly. I like that.