An African woman can hardly believe that despite her uncut genitals, American author Katherine A. Dettwyler still managed to find a husband. In “Dancing Skeletons: Life and Death in West Africa,” Dettwyler explores female genital cutting, or FGC, under a spotlight of culture clash.
According to the World Health Organization, this tradition is “internationally recognized as a violation of human rights” and involves surgical alteration or removal of young girls’ external genitals.
Often, untrained individuals perform the surgery in less-than-sterile locations. This leads to serious health complications and even death.
However, WHO’s online overview of FGC distorts, to a degree, the risks that stem from inadequate surgeons and settings. Instead, it generalizes all FGC as life threatening.
Meanwhile, WHO supports practices like male circumcision, but only, according to their website, when “provided by well trained health professionals in properly equipped settings.”
WHO’s website also addresses a lack of informed consent among girls undergoing FGC. It explains “the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing is a strong motivation to perpetuate the practice.”
The African woman is conditioned throughout childhood to believe in FGC’s necessity and simply cannot imagine feeling unashamed without being cut.
While Westerners underwrite these women’s ability to decide, they overlook similar domestic situations.
Anyone undergoing cosmetic surgery faces health risks. Western society minimizes these risks by purchasing medical equipment, training and sterilizing, not by banning unnecessary surgery.
Western cultural attitudes justify cosmetic surgery by referencing the idea of free will.
Though they argue these surgeries are by choice and that forcing one to undergo a medical procedure against their will violates human rights, free will is not always such a simple concept.
Just as foreign cultural norms pressure young girls into undergoing FGC, Western advertisements select what qualifies as beautiful and pressure youth into conforming.
Perhaps more flagrant than a ritual quietly performed upon private body parts, Western advertisers slather youth’s world with images of large breasts, symmetric faces, heavy makeup and thin waistlines.
“Makeup is kind of like a safety net for me, so I feel good. I don’t leave without it,” said Madison Pinto, a psychology sophomore.
But this is only pressure, not force, Westerners argue. Unlike Africa, where girls must undergo FGC, here the concept of choice absolves advertisers from responsibility.
However, the fact that Western pressure is not explicitly coercive makes it even more dangerous; its effects sometimes go unnoticed. We see this in the large number of girls who have cosmetic surgery performed.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 91 percent of plastic surgeon patients in 2009 were female.
Also, tummy tucks in 2009 were up 84 percent from 2000. Breast augmentations, the most common cosmetic surgery, in 2009 were up 36 percent.
Efforts to defend humans from painful procedures performed against their wills are undeniably honorable. But when these efforts cross the hazy border between choice and force, assumptions are too often based on attitudes of Western supremacy.
Before judging acts of another culture, one should take a thorough look at influences he or she passively accepts at home.
Alex can be reached at alexandria.gregory@asu.edu
