The Deeply Rooted Parallels Between Female Genital Mutilation and Breast Implantation
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 02:14PM Last week, a UK government review of the French breast implants that have caused panic from Australia to Uruguay concluded that there is no evidence the implants should be removed. The Australian Medical Association thinks women should at least get their implants checked out. But neither the reviews nor the media coverage of the implant panic has dealt with the real question at stake: what makes women voluntarily cut open their bodies to permanently implant foreign objects to the potential detriment of their health?
The answer to this question is potentially uncomfortable. I have often asked the students in my health rights seminars to articulate the principles that make us distinguish between voluntary female genital mutilation in adult women and voluntary breast augmentation surgery. Apart from the fact that the former makes us queasy and the second doesn’t, there really is none.
To be sure, female genital mutilation (FGM) is often performed on girls who are unable to consent to—or, indeed, understand—the violence asserted on their bodies. And, because FGM is prevalent mostly in places where health infrastructure is weak or non-existent, the intervention is often unsanitary and ultimately can be deadly.
But even if FGM were carried out in the best of clinical conditions on a consenting adult woman, we call it a human rights violation. Why? Because it is an intervention which is carried out solely to satisfy stereotyped notions of what a women could or should be, and which has:
- no discernible health benefits;
- a negative impact on women’s sexual health; and
- permanent effects on women’s health more generally.
FGM is often justified with direct reference to fixed gender roles, in particular in the sexual realm. Women “should be” sexually passive and “should not” experience sexual pleasure. Or women who have not undergone FGM are “unclean” and cannot properly serve their husbands. In countries where many see marriage as a woman’s only real possibility for financial security, the intervention is less of a choice, even when performed on adult women with their outward consent.
Breast augmentation surgery is carried out for similar reasons with similar risks and results. The intervention carries no discernible health benefits and potentially has a negative impact on women’s sexual health, as well as a number of other potential serious health effects. As the panic in December 2011 has shown, it is, in fact, not entirely clear how great the chances for complications are. Moreover, breast augmentation surgery is carried out solely to satisfy stereotyped notions of what women could or should be: sexually available and attractive to men. And as with FGM, for some women the intervention might be linked to financial benefits: well-endowed women win out in dating (and marriage), and waitresses with larger breasts generally get better tips than those less well-endowed.
I am not suggesting that we deem breast implants and other selective and exclusively cosmetically motivatednipping and tucking as human rights violations. I am suggesting, however, that we question the underlying stereotypes that lead to unprecedented growth in cosmetic surgery procedures in the United States during the worst depression since the 1930s. If the only reason for an intervention is that others think that’s what we “should” look like, and if the intervention is both semi-permanent and potentially damaging to our health, maybe what we “should” do is reconsider.
Of course, social motives and stereotypes are incredibly hard to both identify and change. When I was in Iraqi Kurdistan a couple of years back as part of a research team looking into the practice of FGM, I was struck by the individual sense of responsibility felt by the mothers, aunts, and sisters who had subjected their relatives to the practice. They were aware of the social connotations, but felt personally responsible for the consequences of the intervention on the girls in their charge. One mother said to us after her interview: “You must think we are monsters.”
Not long after, I had to physically restrain my own daughter while her dentist extracted a rotten tooth. As I was holding down my scared child, both of us crying, I felt connected to that woman through the same absolute belief that what I was doing was for the best of my child, even if it hurt her.
And so I know that nothing is solved by directing guilt or shame at those who, in a specific social context, feel that FGM (or breast implants) is for the best of their child (or themselves) because it is the only way to be accepted by their group or society.
The government, however, can help to change such perceptions. In the case of FGM, much has been said about supporting criminal prosecutions with community action for change. In the case of breast augmentation surgery, the road might be less clear though it is discernible. Research has shown that where girls enjoy and like their bodies, they are more likely to postpone their sexual debut and less likely to be in abusive relationships. Presumably, when these self-aware girls grow into women they would also be less likely to want to alter their bodies, in particular in a way that would affect their sexual health.
So if a government wanted to avoid another silicone implant panic, mandating comprehensive sex education in all schools would be a good start. That, and ensuring that women don’t depend on tips, dates, and marriage for their financial wellbeing. We are not there yet.
Reader Comments (3)
Marianne, thank you for this blog post. The parallels are indeed striking. And I know you are prochoice on abortion, but I do have to ask, as someone involved in a pro *every* life group: aren't these procedures also parallel, in so many instances, to induced abortion? After all, if one looks at the circumstances in which women have abortions, whatever its legal status, women so often find it is their only "choice" because of gender stereotypes and constraints. These include intense shame and stigma (still) upon single women not to show any evidence they are sexual or reproductive beings, and beliefs and policies which decree that being pregnant and raising children cannot mix with women's social and financial independence. Among so many others. And abortion is always a matter of two profoundly interconnected bodies and lives, the woman's and the child's. No matter how physically safe it can be made for the woman, it is inherently unsafe for the child, and so often emotionally distressing for the woman. Shaming and ostracizing women in difficult pregnancies so obviously isn't a solution to abortion; alleviating its root causes is, just as with FGM.
Marysia,
I typed out an answer to your post and it promptly disappeared into the internet--very annoying. I will try again, but if you get this in stereo, that is why.
In my experience interviewing dozens and dozens of women who have had abortions (and perhaps more who were not allowed to have one, even though they felt they needed it), the stereotype most frequently at play in restricting women's access to abortion and to means to prevent pregnancy in the first place is the assumption that all women want to be mothers, at all, or again. Another assumption, completely unsupported by medical research as the US Supreme Court had to recognize in Carhart v Gonzales, is the myth that most women suffer permanent distress after having an abortion. None of the women I have spoken to who had decided to have an abortion had taken this decision lightly. By the same token they did not suffer lasting distress because they had thought through what they were doing and decided what was best for them.
Research and experience from across the world indicates that the most effective policy package to ensure full protection of human rights AND to bring down the number of women and girls who need abortions is a package that allows for informed and autonomous decisions by both men and women, independently, in the area of sexuality and reproduction and that provide everyone with the means to implement these decisions. This means comprehensive sex education, access to contraception, access to health care as needed (including access to safe and legal abortion), and support for decisions to have children such as paid parental leave, support for infant care, and paid sick leave.
In fact, I see no parallels at all between FGM and abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure some women need, including at times to protect and preserve their health and lives. FGM is never, as I understand it, medically necessary. FGM has a lasting and extremely destructive impact on a woman's sexual health and general health, even if carried out in clinically safe conditions. Abortion, when carried out in safe conditions, in the vast majority of cases has no lasting health effects and presents less risk to the pregnant woman or girl than carrying through the pregnancy when carried out in good conditions early in the pregnancy. Of course, when abortion is unsafe (which it generally is when it is illegal) it can be deadly. Thus the need to make sure women and girls who need abortions get access to these medical interventions as early as possible in their pregnancy and obviously in safe conditions.
Best, Marianne
Thanks for your respectful response.
I do not intend in any way to perpetuate the stereotype that all women can or should be mothers. As much as it possibly can be, motherhood should be a choice, and women deserve every possible measure in place to make that a reality, whether through comprehensive sex education, respect for same sex relationships, effective and accessible permanent and reversible methods of contraception, complete health care and social supports for all kinds of families (birth, foster, adoptive, dual parent, single parent, LGBT, etc), and the abolition of stigma against people who wish not to conceive or rear children.
Obviously, here there is obviously a lot of room for agreement and cooperation.
I just do not agree that prenatal lifetaking is in general a constructive means to the valid end of voluntary motherhood. As a former social worker, I too have listened to many women's stories of abortion. Even for women who felt they had done their best in their situations, even when the procedure was medically safe for them, it was often quite emotionally distressing (and it is never safe for the prenatal life).. I agree, women don't have abortions lightly. I have spoken up for years against the cruel phrase "convenience abortion." Sometimes women feel coerced or pressured by important people in their lives or by their circumstances into abortion. I have heard many women describe abortion as (their words) "rape" or "rape like," whatever their ethical or political or religious/spiritual perspectives on the issue. Just as soldiers can experience great emotional distress over war whether they feel it can be justified or they become pacifists.
In the US, laws (whether proposed by prolife or prochoice) regarding abortion just worsen the pitting of women against their own children, because they do not do anything to marshal public resources and help women prevent unintended pregnancies and get through and beyond difficult pregnancies. I am concerned that this approach to the issue is spreading to other countries.
As for abortion-related maternal mortality...I read in The Lancet that there is one way to prevent fully 90% of these joint maternal and fetal deaths worldwide. Ensure contraceptive access for the 200 million plus women who want but lack it. I wish there were as many resources put into this (and other helpful measures) as there are devoted to destructive woman-versus-fetus bills.