British Academics Want to ‘Decolonise’ Female Genital Mutilation

A new paper in a highly regarded British Medical Journal publication has sparked outrage for attempting to launch a debate on the so-called “harms of the current global anti-female genital mutilation (FGM) campaign.”

It says coverage of the practice, where the female genitals are deliberately cut, injured or changed, often relies on “titillating sensationalism,” and complains that this “leads to vilification of migrants, infantilisation of people and their cultures, and failure to recognise the agency of the women concerned and their communities.”

Among the authors’ most controversial claims is that “the time has come to recognise the harm caused by the ‘FGM’ acronym”—like that’s the problem here!—and the suggestion of “more neutral expression[s],” like “female genital practices” (emphasis added).

Writer Jean Hatchet, “disgusted” by the journal article, summarised it as

An attempt to say FGM is not mutilation, not harmful, is celebratory, makes sex better, is just like adding a piercing, happens to boys too really, happens to trans people too and you’re racist if you say it’s bad.

It also effectively asks readers to consider more the harmful impacts on migrant communities of the FGM debate, which “leads to vilification of migrants, infantilisation of people and their cultures, and failure to recognise the agency of the women concerned and their communities.”

One interesting passage says that FGM is perhaps not traumatic for some women, even if “decisions are not always taken by individual selves”—in other words, the practice is forced upon them—because of the “cultural context.” That is, most other women in said ‘culture’ undergo the same practice, creating a “strong sense of identity,” meaning the “derision” of the practice “may itself be traumatic.” God forbid one risks causing upset by speaking honestly.

The paper predictably suggests that the number of FMG practices carried out by migrants living in the West is wildly exaggerated—again, resulting in “harmful consequences for the girls and families involved.” Yet in the Scottish city of Glasgow alone, more than 1,200 women have been treated for FGM since 2019, when still unimplemented laws designed to protect girls were passed there. It is likely that many more cases have gone untreated.

Likewise, we previously reported that more than 35,000 women and girls living in Belgium have either been, or are at risk of being subjected to FGM, with over a third of them being underage.

The authors also say there is a “double standard” in the West, since, for example, “cosmetic surgery in which the female genitals are pared and reshaped is gaining popularity,” although readers are likely to question this comparison.

And they claim that anti-FGM “narratives inherently downplay or denigrate the ceremonial and cultural importance of the practices, an importance which often supports the self-esteem of the women who experience it.” This, of course, begs the uncomfortable question—is the self-esteem of those already victimised more important than working to reduce the number of future victims?

The Women’s Rights Network campaign group said it was “shocked” by the paper because “FGM causes nothing but pain and harm to women and girls. There are no benefits at all.”

It is pure hatred of the female sex and has no place in a world that too often fails to treat girls and women as human beings.

Tory MP Katie Lam described the academics’ claims as “dangerous, disgusting and deranged.”

Journalist Róisín Michaux added that it was the latest example of “the ‘decolonising’ of FMG,” which she said “continues apace.”

Most seriously, Janice Turner wrote in The Times that rather than help to “end a hideous form of child abuse,” the paper uses “abstruse language to muddy the ethical waters” and “sophistry to turn those fighting abuse into the bad guys,” meaning—“voilà!—the problem magically disappears.”