Female circumcision in Egypt

[taheya]

Hi all i have read today on bbc news that about 90% of egyptian women are circumcised...do you think this is true? I have heard of this practice going on in other countries but did not know it to be true of Egypt. Also it says that this practice has been banned for 10 years yet still is going on. Here is the report:
BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Egypt forbids female circumcision

 

[Suheir]

Yes, I read that news item this morning. 90% must be an estimate, how accurate is anyone's guess. I once worked for an NGO which published a book about Female Genital Mutilation and I had to write the publicity for it - it's absolutely shocking what so many little girls have been subjected to in the name of 'culture'. Reasons given for the practice were that women were 'dirty' if they hadn't been 'circumcised' and nobody would want to marry them.

Good luck to the Egyptian authorities in trying to enforce the ban, I'm sure the practice must go on illegally in the UK, also.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Female circumcision

Yes, I read that news item this morning. 90% must be an estimate, how accurate is anyone's guess. I once worked for an NGO which published a book about Female Genital Mutilation and I had to write the publicity for it - it's absolutely shocking what so many little girls have been subjected to in the name of 'culture'. Reasons given for the practice were that women were 'dirty' if they hadn't been 'circumcised' and nobody would want to marry them.

Good luck to the Egyptian authorities in trying to enforce the ban, I'm sure the practice must go on illegally in the UK, also.

Dear group,
I have an Egyptian friend who will remain nameless here. I did not do her story on this in my "Women in Between" series because I was too afraid someone might recognize her if they read the series and then meet her.
When she was 9 years old, her parents sent her to spend the week at her aunt's house. While she was there, a group of women held her down and removed part of her labia and her clitoris with a razor blade. She was terribly frightened and in great pain and she actually went into shock. She did not know anything about the practice, had never heard a single thing about it and she felt as if the women had attacked her. Yes, the practice still goes on in North Africa, all over the place, not just in Egypt. I am not favor of circumcision for men or women. I think it is a terrible and barbaric practice, that seems to have started so that Hebrews could recognize each other if we go by the biblical implications. Here in the states we always hear about how it helps to stop this or that disease in men,but all we have to do is look at Asian countries where men are generally uncircumcised o see that they are not dropping out like flies from those diseases.
Oddly enough, usually a lot of women can still enjoy having sex even after the clitoris is supposedly removed. They claim to still be able to have orgasms. However, the practice also causes complications in childbirth as there is not enough labial tissue to stretch to have a child without tearing, is extremely traumatizing to those who suffer through it and can cause all kinds of infections that may even led to sterility, as well as painful sex, etc.
BTW, although it is common for Saudi and Gulf men to be circumsised, women never are.
Regards,
A'isha Azar

 

[Zorba]

Thank you A'isha for mentioning the barbarity of male circumcision. While I don't think its as barbaric as what's done to women, its still barbaric. I think its done so much here in the US due to pseudo-religious values.

For anyone wondering, yes I am. And I'll never know anything different so I don't know if I'm missing anything or not!

 

[Reen.Blom]

This acually very sad!

 

[belly_dancer]

Dear group,
I have an Egyptian friend who will remain nameless here. I did not do her story on this in my "Women in Between" series because I was too afraid someone might recognize her if they read the series and then meet her.
When she was 9 years old, her parents sent her to spend the week at her aunt's house. While she was there, a group of women held her down and removed part of her labia and her clitoris with a razor blade. She was terribly frightened and in great pain and she actually went into shock. She did not know anything about the practice, had never heard a single thing about it and she felt as if the women had attacked her. Yes, the practice still goes on in North Africa, all over the place, not just in Egypt. I am not favor of circumcision for men or women. I think it is a terrible and barbaric practice, that seems to have started so that Hebrews could recognize each other if we go by the biblical implications. Here in the states we always hear about how it helps to stop this or that disease in men,but all we have to do is look at Asian countries where men are generally uncircumcised o see that they are not dropping out like flies from those diseases.
Oddly enough, usually a lot of women can still enjoy having sex even after the clitoris is supposedly removed. They claim to still be able to have orgasms. However, the practice also causes complications in childbirth as there is not enough labial tissue to stretch to have a child without tearing, is extremely traumatizing to those who suffer through it and can cause all kinds of infections that may even led to sterility, as well as painful sex, etc.
BTW, although it is common for Saudi and Gulf men to be circumsised, women never are.
Regards,
A'isha Azar

I read (about 2-3 years ago) in a magazine (assuming it was a Mother Jones/ Utne Reader... that genre of magazine...) that this also happens in the US were there are large communities of North Africans recently immigrated here.... ( it mentioned a woman in her 30's who had it done to her (in this country when she was young) & she had to move away from her community for fear her mom or grandma would kidnap her daughter & have it done to her!!!!!...since I do not have the article anymore & it has been more than 2 days since I read it, I may have screwed up some of the facts.. but by no means exaggerated them!)
it is SOOO sad.. but then again, much of life on this planet is...
let us count our blessings....
also agree, there is NO medical reason to get your boy circumcised, & the procedure is quite barbaric.

 

[nicknack]

The first time I ever read of FGM I felt physically sick. Have any of you read Waris Dirie's books?Waris Dirie Foundation

Aisha just to explain ...the reason Brit Milah is used as a "sign" of the covenant is because in Kabbalistic terms, the foreskin symbolizes a barrier which prevents growth (when the Torah speaks about getting close to God, it calls upon the people to "remove the Orlah, the foreskin of your heart"). The foundation of Judaism is based on control over our animal desires and channel them into something more productive...nowhere on the body is there more potential for expressing "barbaric" behaviour than the sex drive....hence the little snip at eight days.... it had nothing to do with physical identification (living closely in a tribal society would have lent itself to easier mutual identification)......I have some more biblical foreskin facts but I'll save them for another day.

 

[Aisha Azar]

Foreskin, etc.

The first time I ever read of FGM I felt physically sick. Have any of you read Waris Dirie's books?Waris Dirie Foundation

Aisha just to explain ...the reason Brit Milah is used as a "sign" of the covenant is because in Kabbalistic terms, the foreskin symbolizes a barrier which prevents growth (when the Torah speaks about getting close to God, it calls upon the people to "remove the Orlah, the foreskin of your heart"). The foundation of Judaism is based on control over our animal desires and channel them into something more productive...nowhere on the body is there more potential for expressing "barbaric" behaviour than the sex drive....hence the little snip at eight days.... it had nothing to do with physical identification (living closely in a tribal society would have lent itself to easier mutual identification)......I have some more biblical foreskin facts but I'll save them for another day.

Dear Nicknack,
Actually, it was a sign to God's Chosen People that they were Hebrews, and therefore separate from the ones who were not. It was a sign to separate those who would eventually called Gentiles from the Chosen Ones. I learned this in religion class. There was also something about swearing on your father's genitals...can't remember who it was, but it reads in St. James and other Bibles that are not literally correct, that so and so "put his hand under his father's thigh" to swear that he did or did not do something. In literal translation, he would have been putting his hand around his father's genitals to swear that oath.
I think that Jews today and yesterday were not so concerned as Christians about removing themselves from the "sins of the flesh" and actually had and have pretty different, less puritanical view of sex.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[nicknack]

I think we're having a semantic misunderstanding.....but ancient times were full of strange genital related customs....according my good friend who's at a religous university and required to attend biblical classes, it was an ancient custom for a warrior to remove the foreskin of his dead enemy and present it to his female (second book of samual 3;14)......although he does have an affinity for circumcision stories, there was no way for him to be circumcised in the soviet union so it had to be done at aged seven a few months after they arrived in Israel.....I hear it was painful (even with the pain relief), and it makes me wonder why some cultures wait to perform it on males mature enough to understand the pain.

Circumcision was just one of many signs of seperation, including the wearing of tallit, keeping shabbat etc....there are 613 commandments....too many to go through looking for examples.....

 

[Aisha Azar]

Circumcision, etc.

I think we're having a semantic misunderstanding.....but ancient times were full of strange genital related customs....according my good friend who's at a religous university and required to attend biblical classes, it was an ancient custom for a warrior to remove the foreskin of his dead enemy and present it to his female (second book of samual 3;14)......although he does have an affinity for circumcision stories, there was no way for him to be circumcised in the soviet union so it had to be done at aged seven a few months after they arrived in Israel.....I hear it was painful (even with the pain relief), and it makes me wonder why some cultures wait to perform it on males mature enough to understand the pain.

Circumcision was just one of many signs of seperation, including the wearing of tallit, keeping shabbat etc....there are 613 commandments....too many to go through looking for examples.....

Dear Nicknack,
Could be that we are having a misunderstanding!! I thought you meant that the Hebrews only circumcised for the reasons you mentioned in your first post, but now I see that I was not getting the whole picture.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Reen.Blom]

the little snip at eight days

It is not done on girls at 8 days I assume!

 

[Aisha Azar]

Circumcision

It is not done on girls at 8 days I assume!

Dear Reen Blom,
No, usually sometimes in early puberty or before. Among some Moslem groups, boys are not circumcised until they are 12 years old or so, but I read someplace many years ago that among some Bedouin tribes, men are circumsized just before they get married...Like I said, consider this to be rumor until it can be further validated.
Regards,
A'isha

 

[Reen.Blom]

How sad is that!

 

[Kharmine]

Surprisingly, there's nothing in the Koran that recommends male or female circumcision. The pretext is that Abraham was circumcised, so Mohammad supposedly ordered it for male Muslims, and he supposedly approved of it for women, as well, but I don't know why.

There's an apocryphal story that Sarah, Abraham's wife, ordered it performed on her slave, Hagar, out of jealousy after Hagar bore Abraham the son Sarah could not. Which would be a really strange justification, IMHO.

Anyway, some of Mohammad's comments were taken by some people long after he died to mean that he approved of circumcision for both genders, but not all Muslims agree that's what he meant.

Male circumcision is very common for Muslim babies and is usually the cause of much celebration, as in Jewish communities. Some articles I've read say female circumcision is not practiced widely outside of African Muslim countries and their refugee communities abroad, so I suspect it's actually a pre-Islamic tribal tradition that people simply transferred when they converted.

It's striking that for the two genders circumcision could not be more different.

Having married into a Jewish clan I've noticed that when the bris is performed it is done by a mohel, someone who has special training to make it as swift, hygenic and painless as possible. If a mohel can't be found, a Jewish physician fills in. It's traditionally done on an infant, not an older child, with family and friends and a warm, loving atmosphere presided over by a rabbi.

The baby gets a tiny bit of wine in his mouth to dampen the pain, and the procedure is done so quickly I've heard his cries stop immediately, and no evidence of discomfort after that. There's often a little party afterwards, and the baby gets cuddled and cooed and made much of.

Now, regardless of how one feels about traditional male circumcision, contrast the bris with the rude, crude, scary, crippling, shaming "ritual" performed on little girls!

Which to me is evidence that this has more to do with the ancient, perennial attempt by male-dominated societies to subdue and control women and especially their sexuality. Women may perform this, but they are completely under the domination of their male relatives and religious leaders, and usually uneducated.

There are less-contested writings by Mohammad that give his opinion that wives and husbands should rejoice in their sexual relations together, and it's hard to see how that could happen after female circumcision!

 

[da Sage]

Actually we were just talking about this on another forum. A friend mentioned that there is a less extreme form of female circumcision, basically a cosmetic "lip clip". I still think the ritualized/age linked circumcision is a terrible idea for women/girls.

As for male circumcision slowing the spread of STDs....don't Thailand and Russia have huge AIDS/HIV+ issues? I'm sure there are other factors involved, but it may not be a coincidence.

 

[nicknack]

It is not done on girls at 8 days I assume!

In Jewish tradition circumcision is only (and has only ever been) performed on males, at 8 days old (8 being the number for several reasons), if you mention the word circumcision to a Jew there would immediatly think of a bris....FGM would never come to their minds....and really shouldn't be labled as circumcision because it lessens the impact of the subject when discussed with those in the west that know nothing of the practice (circumcision being a word without negative connotations in this society...especially American society as it is performed on many males for cosmetic reasons).

 

[Reen.Blom]

Thanks Kharmine for great description!

Also Thank you gals for giving so much information! I agree Nicknack mutilations is the word to be used not circumcision when you talk about girls!

 

[Aisha Azar]

Circumcision

Thanks Kharmine for great description!

Also Thank you gals for giving so much information! I agree Nicknack mutilations is the word to be used not circumcision when you talk about girls!

Dear Reen.Blom,
Would not not consider it to be a mutilation for boys also?? Consider how sensitive part, from the skin to the ears to the eyes to the tip of the penis must be on a being just entering this world. Mutilation is mutilation, and what makes us think it is any more pleasant for males than females?

Dear Nicknack,
I think plenty of western circumsized males would disagree with you about the west knowing nothing of the practise of circumcision. MOST western males are circumcized at birth, no ceremony, medical procedure only. They usually do not count it as cosmetic, but as for reasons of cleanliness and because circumsized males are reported to suffer from fewer instances of certain diseases. Also, females here in the U.S. were sometimes circumsized, too, even into the 1950s. I don;t know a lot about this practice but it was done to a friend of mine's Baptists cousin who was born with an overly large clitoris.

Can't remember who, but someone wrote about Russian and Thailand having huge AIDS issues which are being toed to not being circumsized. It might be most Russians are Christians and probably circumsized, though I have never had the chance to ask. Moslem and Asiatic Russians might be another matter, but we have to say that many Africans also go through circumcision and they have a huge AIDS problem there. In Russia, there was a pretty bad problem and still may be, with having to reuse needles in hospitals, not having sterilization equipment, even no bleach, etc, that is reported to have led to both AIDS and Tuberculosis epidemics. In Thailand there is a lot of drug use and also a high rate of prostitution, with little or no government intervention so they can keep those dollars rolling in. this may have more to do with AIDS rates than keeping an intact foreskin.

Regards to all,
A'isha

 

[nicknack]

Aisha I was talking about them not knowing about the practice of FGM.

And by many grown men it is considered cosmetic (just like penis enlargements and that leaves guys in a world of pain too).

 

[Aisha Azar]

Circumcision

Aisha I was talking about them not knowing about the practice of FGM.

And by many grown men it is considered cosmetic (just like penis enlargements and that leaves guys in a world of pain too).

Dear Nicknack,
Yeah, that does happen. Another thing is that there is this weight device that can stretch the skin of the penis back over the glans in order to have it cover it, as the original foreskin would. A friend of mine who wanted a foreskin did this!
He is very happy with the results, but jeez... it looked kind of painful and the thing was heavy!
Regards,
A'isha