What do you all think about male circumcision?

"With that attitude you shouldn't expect men to give a shit about women's issues."

I don't.

Especially whiny MRA's.

IME very few men actually give a shit about women's issues. There are a few honourable exceptions and I love and fancy all of them (oh OK, maybe I don't fancy all of them, but I honour all of them), but they're few and far between and if you decided to go looking for them you'd have a long and tiring journey.

Women OTOH, care very much about men's issues and work tirelessly for men for no reward. Men take this as only their proper due and are so accustomed to it, that when a tiny number of women work for women's issues, some of them are utterly outraged by it and see it as an attack on men as a class - after all, women are supposed to focus all their energy and labour on men, not on themselves and each other.

That's lovely, Zippy. Do you always react so angrily?

Without exception, we've all said we oppose male circumcision, but question your motives in posting it in this section. Which is fair.

I didn't say it wasn't an important issue. I said it wasn't a feminist issue. Which it isn't.

I'm sorry, I just don't believe that coming on spouting initials like MRA and then mouthing off is, on the balance of probabilities, someone worth engaging with. And this being the internet, I get to choose not to.

Zippy, I'm genuinely curious about what it is that you want to talk about that you feel hasn't been addressed by the answers given in response to your question.

Perhaps you are looking for a space to discuss this issue because harm has been done to you. That being the case, I can see it might be difficult to begin and while, on the face of it, this mightn't be the most obvious place for a chap to go, I'm sure the posters here will be able to offer some support if you're willing to engage. I will certainly try.

I question your motives far starting this thread op. if you've been on mumsnet long enough you know the views of the majority. I don't know what you were expecting. Especially posting it in feminism.

Feminism doesn't mean 'male issues as well as female' actually. The clue is in the name. However, from that post I am also suspicious of why you've posted in Feminism and prefaced with a 'not a whiny MRA' disclaimer so, as the Dragons say, I'm out.

Maybe OP wants to gauge opinion amongst feminists. I'm keeping an open mind, but would be interested in hearing from OP about the choice of FWR for this thread.

Personally, I'm against circumcision for non-medical reasons, due to the issue of informed consent.

HTH.

I think TeiTetua has probably hit the nail on the head.

Why here? Whiny MRA post from someone who wants to get feminists talking about cocks, that's why.

Bubbles I'd also question why it's in this section specifically, and not AIBU, where there is much more traffic.

A barbaric ritual that serves no purpose other than control.

I didn't have very strong feelings about it until I saw a baby who was healing from his circumcision a couple of days earlier. It looked so sore and raw. Now I'm totally against.

It's a bizarre, incomprehensible practice IMO. Why is such a tiny piece of skin targeted? What on earth is the point in removing it? I have never in all my life heard of anyone getting an infection due to a dirty foreskin - in fact I can't imagine how it would happen unless you really are a filthy fecker and, I don't know, dip your penis in manure on a regular basis. How much dirt actually builds up around the area, realistically? I know urine might collect there but surely it's easy to just give it a bit of a wash in the shower? It just doesn't make sense to me that a religion would decree that a tiny little bit of a person has to be cut off near to birth. Where TF did that come from??

I think it's unnecessary. It's pretty common in the US and a lot of people there believe that foreskins are dirty.

If they didn't serve a purpose, they wouldn't be there.

This OP being in FWR implies antifeminism What other reasons are there for defensively posting about male circumcision in a women's rights section?

I was really surprised to find that my DP was circumcised. His family are an average, white, British, non-Jewish family yet he was circumcised as a child. He doesn't know why, has never asked! He also doesn't know if his older brothers are, or if his nephews are, or if it was done for medical reasons. I find it very odd that he has never questioned it!
If we had sons, I would certainly not let it happen to them .

In reply to just the question:

I think that you shouldn't chop bits off people without their informed consent, unless there is a strong medical need.

I also think that if there is a God or higher power, he/she/it should judge people based on their own thoughts and actions, not the actions of their parents. If there is a God that will treat one child differently to another based on what their parents did, without the knowledge or understanding of that child, that's not a God that I would want to follow. Being circumcised or baptised as a child means nothing because you did not knowingly and willingly choose it.

What's an MRA?

I think that most British people are horrified by it because it isn't the norm here - if you asked this same question on a feminist (or non-feminist) site with a wide base of US users then you'd get a totally different response.

Routine infant circumcision sickens me. I'd never consent to it for my son. (Or daughter, but that's a given, surely)

Ah, thanks Amanda and Eccles.

I agree with your posts.

I think it is a horrid, vile practice.

Where I think the whole MRA debate can get a bit messy is when MRAs start responding to discussions on FGM with 'what about the menz. Male circumcision is accepted'. I think that's an issue because they are fundamentally different things and, you know what, it's ok to talk about a women's issue as just a women's issue. You don't have to talk about prostate cancer every time you talk about breast cancer. You certainly don't need to talk about male circumcision every time you talk about FGM.

I think that if you are an observant member of a religious community, then the questions of what constitutes being a 'good' parent are rather different than the ones which secular parents face. Perhaps the important thing to remember is that - rather than characterising religious parents as in some way less caring - observant parents are also asking themselves about how best to balance tradition with a more modern/'enlightened' approach, when bringing up their children.

intactnews.org/node/142/1327690351/progressive-rabbis-creating-jewish-covenant-without-circumcision