The Rhetoric of African Genital Mutilation

Female circumcision has been a rite of passage practiced for centuries in Africa to prepare young girls for womanhood and marriage. Often performed without anesthetics and the proper sanitary conditions, this practice causes death, permanent health problems, and severe pain. Despite these known risks, its practitioners look on it as an integral part of their cultural identity and defend the painful practice.

The issue of female circumcision is relatively recent. It has been rarely spoken of in Africa and only in the late 1950s did it get attention from the World Health Organization. Critics of the procedure claim that the procedure is a violation of women’s rights and their reproductive health. Clearly, women of the Western world are outraged by this practice and have promoted activism in eliminating this from the African culture. However, it is the African women classified as the “victims” (by Western women) of genital mutilation themselves who defend the conservation of this procedure. A statistic shows that in 28 North African countries, 43%-97% of females at a reproductive age undergo circumcision despite international efforts to stop this. In addition, only one of the six countries for which data is available for women’s opinion on circumcision has a majority of its women favoring discontinuation of this practice. In Eritrea, surveys actually showed that more men than woman were against the ritual of female circumcision. These data show that women themselves are perpetuating the practice of female cutting. Despite the pain and risks, they believe that their rhetoric makes sense.

In an attempt to explain this cultural practice, I will refer to Bordieu’s three steps to explaining a rhetorical phenomenon. First, “all language has meaning in contrast to other socially constructed languages (p. 223).” Although this is mostly an act, it is action that justifies itself through dialects which uphold this cultural practice as a sensible method of marking female purity. Genital mutilation is performed to keep young girls pure, and reassure others of their virginity. Others say that the practice is necessary in the name of religion. By grounding their action on profound such “natural truths”, they erase accountability for their actions. These trends catch on quickly because women are shunned or deemed unworthy of marriage when they resist this practice.

Infibulation is the most severe form of genital mutilation. After excision of the clitoris, cuts are made on the labia to create raw surfaces which are held together by scar tissue until penetration. This is used as a method to ensure that a female stays “pure” until marriage. Mothers will frequently check on their infibulated daughters to check that they are still “closed.” Clearly, the women serve as “token torturers” that uphold the tradition, not because they want to harm their daughters, but to uphold the family’s honor and to make sure that their daughter can find a husband: a male figure needs to be present for a female to survive without rape and enslavement in their adult years.

Addressing Bordieu’s second point, African genital mutilation is a clear example of how rhetoric can be literally embodied. The scar tissue left after infibulation is a manifestation of an entire cultural thought process on a body. The wounds represent the pursuit of female “purity”, the upholding of patriarchy and male dominance, and maintenance of the existing definition of what constitutes family “honor.” This then leads to his third and final observation, which states that rhetoric is a complex, interconnected system: in this case, involving family politics, sex-based social hierarchies, and adherence to traditions.

This is habitus by its very definition. Female circumcision is the “durable disposition” passed on over time that inclines women in Africa to submit themselves to the persistent practice. Girls desires’ to conform to peer pressure contributes to their willingness to undergo circumcision, since those yet uncut are teased or looked down upon by their friends. Furthermore, ritual cutting is glamorized, as it is often embedded in ceremonies in which the girls are feted and showered with presents and their families are honored. In the midst of such celebrations, it is difficult and often useless for a young girl to resist circumcision. In addition, by associating the practice with a celebration, it gives the young girl a false sense of specialness (much like a sweet-sixteen party), upholding the ritual with a set of rhetorical weapons.

As westerners, we do not understand this “nonsense.” However, to promote change in these countries, opponents of the practice must understand the rhetoric in which this takes place in. Forceful ban by an outside force was met with heavy retaliation. In Sudan, as a law banning infibulation was in the process of being passed, rates of circumcision skyrocketed as parents rushed to have their daughters infibulated before outlawing the practice. This outcome demonstrated the deep cultural roots of this painful procedure, and taught activists that forceful intervention was the wrong method to tackle this issue. More recently, community education giving women the proper sterile tools to perform the procedure; dramas (such as plays) depicting the consequences of female circumcision; as well as alternative rituals as agreed upon through conversation with native African women have been most successfully implemented.

No matter how nonsensical female circumcision may be to us “outsiders,” in order to change the rhetoric, habitus in relation to linguistic and cultural markets of its “insiders” must be understood.