Seventh Blog

I was pretty shocked after reading the Female Circumcision article. The book couldn't have titled the section any better than the way it did; Gender and the Prism of Culture. Before reading the article I had my own opinions on the topic, and pretty much assumed that the piece would be written in argument of the practice. Especially after learning about inter-sex people earlier, I have felt strongly against voluntary surgery of babies. I now understand better, Female Circumcision is not something of choice to Muslims living in the West Java region, it is simply a necessary part of life. Before we lay judgement on something, we must be able to look at it in the variety of ways the light may illuminate it. 

Child elective surgery just doesn't seem right. As we talked about with people born with ambiguous genitalia, surgery wasn't just an option, it was mandatory. You were being a poor parent if you let your child go through life not having a clear cut gender. The ridicule and confusion that you could save your child by having surgery just made more sense than the alternative. The problem with this practice was that choosing the  correct gender isn't as clear cut as the 1 inch rule, and in some cases people would rebel against their gender later in life.

Unfortunately, their is still no correct way to go about dealing with children born with ambiguous genitalia. Today, there have been cases of parents leaving the child as is, if only to let the child itself make a decision later on in life. While this seems to be more rational than a parents best guess, it leaves the child to a confused and probably troubled youth. Unless society changes to accept the fact that we all don't fit into the two gender system, people born of ambiguous genitalia we almost have to undergo surgery at some point in life, or suffer societies criticism for being different.

What if the child surgery was done for religious reasons, of no ill effect towards the child. According to the Female Circumcision article, that is precisely what is done. With the tingkeban custom (female circumcision) it is believed that by cutting the clitoris it will not only lead to a smoother and more fluid birth later in life, but also help to stop the passing of physical and moral faults from the parent to daughter. If this were the common thought in western culture I'm sure the practice would be far more common.

More importantly for Muslims is the right of passage into mosque's. If a man or woman is not circumcised, they will not be allowed into pray. One midwife described this fact as making man and woman equal in front of Allah. As for the common western thought that if a woman is circumcised she will not gain the same pleasure from stimulation, the thought seemed ridiculous to the midwives. Their take on it was that such a thing only increased pleasure, and more importantly was cleaner/cleansing to preform. The tingkeban custom seems to be not only accepted in the West Java region, but is simply another part of life. 

When the two procedures are juxtaposed it seems clear which one is more necessary. While a female circumcision would probably be considered child abuse in the US, it is clearly embraced in a different culture. Ambiguous genitalia surgery is also embraced in the US, but for far different reasons. While tingkeban is done religiously it is commonly accepted, surgery to conform ambiguous genitalia into something more recognizable is accepted only because the alternative would not be. It would be easy for a westerner to look at these two practices and question or even find female circumcision horrible in comparison to the trouble-saving sex surgery; I guess it just depends on which way the light bends when you look through your cultural prism.