Advanced apologies to Mudy and others for the revolting topic to follow and for polluting this thread with something vile. Didn't know where else this could go. For a long time didn't want to post this. But then, after reading the news item HH put up on how the US helped their minion Jihadistan go Nuklear, as well as G Sen's article on British 'intelligence' loons meddling in India, I felt I really ought to show my appreciation and gratitude to the great western powers. Hence I am highlighting those wondrous aspects of western civilisation which are sadly not as general knowledge as they should be; and the heights whereof us lesser (heathen) mortals have never even strived to reach.
And if the Nandu Rajurikars of this world ever wander by again, we can refer them to this. After all, if they <i>will</i> blindly worship everything about "the west" and insist on following it in <i>everything</i>, then can remind them what they should not forget to worship and follow as well.
Contrast the following with India:
The glorious enlightened western practise of <b>Female Genital Mutilation</b> (FGM).
Article courtesy of Hateward itself, so Michael WitSSel is no doubt a foremost proponent of seeing the Californian school books include the following excerpt in the next editions.
(The Hateward article is - for a change - somewhat more honest than the usual garbage coming out of that centre. Even so, the writers carefully choose to change FGM to FGC - C for Cutting - <i>at the very start itself</i>. That way, they handily avoid its negative connotations when they thereafter discuss the western practise too. Goes to show how powerful language is in conditioning minds.
However, FGM - M for MUTILATION - is the <i>only</i> applicable term for what's described below, it hardly need be said.
Next to that, the whole reason for them to bring the matter of FGM up at all, is to drive home their own point which is on a rather different topic - something that does not concern this post.)
Some extra paras preceding the relevant bit are included because they give other insights.
www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol40_1/ehrenreich.pdf
(Intersex Surgery, Female Genital Cutting, and the Selective Condemnation of "Cultural Practices", by Nancy Ehrenreich with Mark Barr)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>b. Western Medical Practice as Culture-Free</i>
By labeling African genital cutting a âcultural practiceâ but not applying the same label to North American intersex surgery, FGC opponents imply that medical treatment around intersex cutting is culturefree. 85 In so doing, they also imply that procedures deemed necessary by doctors in the United States cannot possibly constitute âcultural practicesâ or âritualsâ of the sort that exist in Africa.86 This conclusion is consistent with common, hegemonic understandings of Western medicine as providing objective, apolitical, and accurate descriptions of physical processes and conditions.87 To the extent that scientific (in this case, medical) assessments of, and treatment protocols for, various human conditions are seen as merely descriptive of a biological reality, they are not seen as cultural, socially constructed, or contingent.88
This rhetorical association of Western medical knowledge with objective science as opposed to contingent culture ignores not only the cultural understandings behind intersex treatment protocols (to be discussed further below),89 but also <b>the history of female circumcision in the West</b>âas well as modern feminist critiques of medicine and of science more generally. 90 <b>As critics of mainstream anti-FGC discourse have pointed out, female circumcision was long used in Western societies, and its use was justified on grounds of medical necessity premised upon patriarchal assumptions about women.91 Clitoridectomy was performed in Great Britain until the 1860s, as well as in France and Germany. In this country, female circumcision began in the late 1860s and, despite the fact that the British medical establishment repudiated it in 1867, continued well into the twentieth century.92 The surgery was usually performed to address female âhysteria,â a diagnosis that was frequently applied to women who violated gender norms of the era. Behaviors âtreatedâ with the surgery included masturbation, hypersexuality, melancholy, and nervousness, as well as â[l]esbianism and aversion to men.â93 Middle-class white women, the same demographic group agitating for womenâs rights during this period, were the main recipients of clitoridectomies.94</b> Like current recipients of FGC on other continents, they often consented to these treatments, convinced that the surgeries were necessary to alleviate their depression or âcureâ their âdeviantâ impulses.95 Other recipients of genital surgeries did not have that luxury, however. No option to refuse was given, for example, to the slave women and poor white immigrant women who were subjected to shocking âpracticeâ surgeriesâas many as thirty per womanâ performed by the now-infamous Dr. Marion Sims to perfect the clitoridectomies and other gynecological techniques he would later use on privileged white women.96
Isabelle Gunning, discussing the important research of Ben Barker-Benfield, places these surgeries in historical context. <b>Following the Civil War, white men in the United States were concerned not only about âdisorderlyâ women who posed a threat to the established patriarchal order by seeking to wear bloomers and speak in public, but also about immigrants who posed a threat to the âracial purityâ of the United States.</b>
Thus, female circumcision practices arguably expressed social concerns of the dominant male elite about threats posed by both middle class women and lower class immigrant populations. Those concerns were addressed by controlling the sexual and reproductive behavior of both groups of women. <b>Moreover, these surgeries also might have helped to elevate the status of the field of gynecology, which arose as a specialty during this period.97</b> Barker-Benfield describes gynecological practice of the era as âcharacterized by flamboyant, drastic, risky and instant use of the knife.â98 These dramatic surgeries arguably enhanced the image of gynecological practitioners, presenting them as god-like transformers of the bodiesâ indeed, the very natureâof North American women.
<b>Thus, Western nations are not immune from patriarchal cultural practices that involve female genital cutting. Moreover, these historical accounts cannot be dismissed by arguing that the United States is simply more advanced than non-Western nations, having abandoned practices that those nations still employ.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->With that statement of "female circumcision was long used in Western societies, and its use was justified on grounds of medical necessity premised upon <b>patriarchal assumptions about women</b>", they are referring to christianism and derived mentality.
When the fictional Englishman Phileas Fogg was busy saving the fictional Indian Parsi Aouda from a fictional "Hindoooo Suttteeee", he forgot to save his mum from being mutilated by the W-European practise of FGM <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo--> Tsk, tsk: Fogg galavanting over the globe, playing hero elsewhere and neglecting the distressed damsels in his own land...
And if the Nandu Rajurikars of this world ever wander by again, we can refer them to this. After all, if they <i>will</i> blindly worship everything about "the west" and insist on following it in <i>everything</i>, then can remind them what they should not forget to worship and follow as well.
Contrast the following with India:
The glorious enlightened western practise of <b>Female Genital Mutilation</b> (FGM).
Article courtesy of Hateward itself, so Michael WitSSel is no doubt a foremost proponent of seeing the Californian school books include the following excerpt in the next editions.
(The Hateward article is - for a change - somewhat more honest than the usual garbage coming out of that centre. Even so, the writers carefully choose to change FGM to FGC - C for Cutting - <i>at the very start itself</i>. That way, they handily avoid its negative connotations when they thereafter discuss the western practise too. Goes to show how powerful language is in conditioning minds.
However, FGM - M for MUTILATION - is the <i>only</i> applicable term for what's described below, it hardly need be said.
Next to that, the whole reason for them to bring the matter of FGM up at all, is to drive home their own point which is on a rather different topic - something that does not concern this post.)
Some extra paras preceding the relevant bit are included because they give other insights.
www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol40_1/ehrenreich.pdf
(Intersex Surgery, Female Genital Cutting, and the Selective Condemnation of "Cultural Practices", by Nancy Ehrenreich with Mark Barr)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><i>b. Western Medical Practice as Culture-Free</i>
By labeling African genital cutting a âcultural practiceâ but not applying the same label to North American intersex surgery, FGC opponents imply that medical treatment around intersex cutting is culturefree. 85 In so doing, they also imply that procedures deemed necessary by doctors in the United States cannot possibly constitute âcultural practicesâ or âritualsâ of the sort that exist in Africa.86 This conclusion is consistent with common, hegemonic understandings of Western medicine as providing objective, apolitical, and accurate descriptions of physical processes and conditions.87 To the extent that scientific (in this case, medical) assessments of, and treatment protocols for, various human conditions are seen as merely descriptive of a biological reality, they are not seen as cultural, socially constructed, or contingent.88
This rhetorical association of Western medical knowledge with objective science as opposed to contingent culture ignores not only the cultural understandings behind intersex treatment protocols (to be discussed further below),89 but also <b>the history of female circumcision in the West</b>âas well as modern feminist critiques of medicine and of science more generally. 90 <b>As critics of mainstream anti-FGC discourse have pointed out, female circumcision was long used in Western societies, and its use was justified on grounds of medical necessity premised upon patriarchal assumptions about women.91 Clitoridectomy was performed in Great Britain until the 1860s, as well as in France and Germany. In this country, female circumcision began in the late 1860s and, despite the fact that the British medical establishment repudiated it in 1867, continued well into the twentieth century.92 The surgery was usually performed to address female âhysteria,â a diagnosis that was frequently applied to women who violated gender norms of the era. Behaviors âtreatedâ with the surgery included masturbation, hypersexuality, melancholy, and nervousness, as well as â[l]esbianism and aversion to men.â93 Middle-class white women, the same demographic group agitating for womenâs rights during this period, were the main recipients of clitoridectomies.94</b> Like current recipients of FGC on other continents, they often consented to these treatments, convinced that the surgeries were necessary to alleviate their depression or âcureâ their âdeviantâ impulses.95 Other recipients of genital surgeries did not have that luxury, however. No option to refuse was given, for example, to the slave women and poor white immigrant women who were subjected to shocking âpracticeâ surgeriesâas many as thirty per womanâ performed by the now-infamous Dr. Marion Sims to perfect the clitoridectomies and other gynecological techniques he would later use on privileged white women.96
Isabelle Gunning, discussing the important research of Ben Barker-Benfield, places these surgeries in historical context. <b>Following the Civil War, white men in the United States were concerned not only about âdisorderlyâ women who posed a threat to the established patriarchal order by seeking to wear bloomers and speak in public, but also about immigrants who posed a threat to the âracial purityâ of the United States.</b>
Thus, female circumcision practices arguably expressed social concerns of the dominant male elite about threats posed by both middle class women and lower class immigrant populations. Those concerns were addressed by controlling the sexual and reproductive behavior of both groups of women. <b>Moreover, these surgeries also might have helped to elevate the status of the field of gynecology, which arose as a specialty during this period.97</b> Barker-Benfield describes gynecological practice of the era as âcharacterized by flamboyant, drastic, risky and instant use of the knife.â98 These dramatic surgeries arguably enhanced the image of gynecological practitioners, presenting them as god-like transformers of the bodiesâ indeed, the very natureâof North American women.
<b>Thus, Western nations are not immune from patriarchal cultural practices that involve female genital cutting. Moreover, these historical accounts cannot be dismissed by arguing that the United States is simply more advanced than non-Western nations, having abandoned practices that those nations still employ.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->With that statement of "female circumcision was long used in Western societies, and its use was justified on grounds of medical necessity premised upon <b>patriarchal assumptions about women</b>", they are referring to christianism and derived mentality.
When the fictional Englishman Phileas Fogg was busy saving the fictional Indian Parsi Aouda from a fictional "Hindoooo Suttteeee", he forgot to save his mum from being mutilated by the W-European practise of FGM <!--emo&:o--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ohmy.gif' /><!--endemo--> Tsk, tsk: Fogg galavanting over the globe, playing hero elsewhere and neglecting the distressed damsels in his own land...