Female circumcision is practiced worldwide. To some, it is a religious ritual and to others, a human tragedy brought on due to male domination. These opinions relating to the practice create conflict in the world between those who hold on to the tradition of female circumcision and those who promote feminism by attempting to prohibit the practice.
The international community must compromise. Those opposed to female circumcision must recognize that the practice is a type of religious and cultural belief. Meanwhile, participants of female circumcision must become more informed about the procedure’s health risks and possible alternatives to the extreme forms of the practice.
Female circumcision is practiced in Africa to this day. Women seem to accept female circumcicision’s religious origins without question. Some Christian groups promote traditional customs and support female circumcision as a link to Africa’s past. Many people in female circumcision practicing societies, especially traditional rural communities, regard female circumcision as absolutely normal, and they cannot imagine a woman who has not undergone mutilation. Others are quoted as saying that only outsiders or foreigners are not genitally mutilated. A
The Western world and notable Western feminists argue that female circumcision was introduced and continues to be practiced in Africa to promote patriarchy and to control women’s sexuality.
7. An unmodified clitoris can lead to masturbation or lesbianism.