From Children to Women
When a friend told me she had been circumcised as a child, I was quite shocked. She must have seen my eyes widen, and anticipating the inevitable questions, said,
"But it doesn't really make a difference one way or the other."
Which threw me. Because I hadn't had any. I was merely going to mutter a few platitudes and quickly move on from the horror of it.
However, her nonchalance challenged me. To ask why? Why it was done. And how it felt. And why she thought it was of no consequence. And how she could possibly know that since she would never know any better.
At the time, I thought I learnt more that day than a teenager needs to. But no. We are never too young to see the disparities when it comes to such a glaring condonation of wrong over right; and this was and still is wrong on so very many levels.
The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is an annual reminder - should we need it - that a frightening 3 million girls are subjected to this brutal practice every year. It is unconscionable.
So too is the fact that even though the WHO* unequivocally states that 'FGM** is an extreme form of discrimination against women, reflecting deep-rooted gender inequality', society seems to willingly turn a blind eye to this fact.
Waris Dirie, famous Somali model, author, actress and human rights activist who as a survivor of FGM has long fought for its elimination, hit the nail on the head when she said, "Anything to do with females is considered less important."
This was highlighted once again this weekend in a BBC news magazine slot marking 50 years of women being allowed to vote in Switzerland. Unthinkable in a country well-known for its neutrality, peace-building and humanitarian organisations.
Apparently one of the more spurious arguments put forth for women not being permitted to exercise such a basic human right for so long - besides it being "against nature" - was that their brains were too small.
However, I think the reason that truly got my back up was that a woman's vote was merely an extension of her husband’s wishes anyway, so why would she need to bother.
You see I'd only days before seen a Twitter thread in which a married lady had been embarrassed (dare I say harassed?) by immigration officials because her passport was still in her maiden name. I was perplexed, flabbergasted and hopping mad - all at once.
This is the crux of the matter.
Men still making decisions about things they will never experience, and therefore cannot understand.
FGM, in pandering to the needs and egos in extreme patriarchal communities the world over, is in reality just a by-product of an advanced form of bondage. Which has managed to evolve from traditional village practice to a supposedly essential aid to purity in a deviant world.
All I know is that personal beliefs aside, each human being must have a say in what pertains to them on such a deeply personal level. And so, we fight on because this is not a battle that we as women can afford to lose.
We must continue to speak up and out and decry such evil practices before they permeate our collective culture and become the norm. The quality and longevity of our lives depends on how we raise our voices.
Our children deserve nothing less.
*World Health Organisation
* Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. - WHO