Manatee, 'Black savages' or the 'noble savage'? Take your pick, each are just as racist. Finding the middle ground is the interesting bit. But I really doubt it?s a phrase that would ever have been mentioned on here, so I don?t think you need to get angry about it just yet. MN isn?t a political site, it's a parental support site and isn't known for its bigots. People struggle with complex concepts, at times clumsily, but that is hardly a crime and out and out racism is very very rare, which is something that?s seldom celebrated.
Tattifer, I?m a bit confused at to your argument ? it?s not that you ?agree? with FGM, it?s what ? that you don?t think it?s a misogynous practice? I have to agree with Dittany on this one, something that doesn?t happen often, but its pretty conclusive.
I guess from that quote you posted, the most relevant thing for you is the "How can I judge these people when they have so graciously avoided judging me?"
This is understandable, up to a limit. It's just not polite to criticise individuals who you have a complex and interdependent relationship with, when they are doing you a favour by showing you their way of life. It's quite another thing to do the observation bit (hopefully with a broader scope too) deal examine the subjective emotions it throws up, then chart the objective findings and then draw conclusions about what appear to be explicitly oppressive facets of a given culture, home or away. It?s only that objectivity that will save you from falling for either the ?black savage? or ?noble savage? fallacies.
What the woman seems to be describing is the power of tradition. This is also what personal testimony?s of victims of FGM acknowledge. The mothers and grandmothers were mutilated themselves, they accepted their lot and lived with the consequences. It?s an interesting subjective insight but it tells us little about the real function of FGM. There has been a lot of work on this. What seems to be the primary function of FGM is to ensure bride price by guaranteeing virginity. This is why the vagina is sewn up after cutting, the ?infibulation?. This is a new husbands guarantee of his new wife?s chastity. The first night of marriage is taken up in him breaking through the stitches ? an excruciating experience for the new wife obviously. It is this experience that produces the blood on the sheets, not the romantic myth of hymen breaking, which produces nominal amounts of blood, if any, on average.
But the story goes even deeper into our histories than this as men have attempted to control female autonomy over the sexuality and best guarantee paternity since the dawn of our species, and this ?evolutionary arms race? is manifest in our bodies and our psychologies. FGM, is one of the very few things that is unarguably misogynous in nature ? that?s a word that I think is very much overused ? but which is perfectly apt in issues pertaining to FGM.
The writer doesn?t need to judge the individuals if she doesn?t want to ? though I wonder if she would have felt differently had she accompanied the family on their ?cheerful? jaunt towards infibulation. Their rationalisations may tell us a lot about the cultural brutalisation of women. The practice however, can most certainly be judged and on many levels. There is nothing racist about believing in universal human rights and actually, cultural relativism (one rule for you, another privileged one for me) may very well be racist.
I?d recommend you read Hirsi Ali?s book.