SoCo Intactivists
03-16-2014, 12:12 AM
From Intact America's March 2014 newsletter:
MUTILATION IS MUTILATION.
We've all heard the argument before: "Male circumcision isn't nearly as bad as female genital mutilation." When the American Academy of Pediatrics proposed easing the federal ban on FGM to allow doctors to make a "nick" in the clitoris, Intact America and other human rights activists roared loudly, and the proposal was soon abandoned.
Yet every day, every THIRTY SECONDS, an American baby boy is strapped onto a molded board as a doctor cuts away the most sensitive part of his body. And mainstream women's rights and human rights organizations don't say a word.
Brian D. Earp, a researcher and ethicist at Oxford University, published an essay (https://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=x%2BLdsJUb7jb4aMthiTdMMFTGUeGWXqWR) last week on Oxford's Practical Ethics blog examining the pervasive refusal to treat male and female genital mutilation as identical violations of children's rights. Saying it's "time to confront the double standard," Earp makes the point that while all forms of FGM—whether minor or invasive, whether carried out by doctors or ritual practitioners—are mutilations, and outlawed, the story is very different when it comes to male circumcision. "In no jurisdiction is the practice prohibited, and in many it is not even restricted: in some countries, anyone, with any instrument, and any degree of medical training (including none) can attempt to perform a circumcision on a non-consenting child—sometimes with disastrous consequences."
It comes down to this: Cutting the genitals of children—female or male—is a heinous violation of their basic human rights, regardless of the sexual identity of the child, the nature of the cut, or the level of resultant harm.
This woman, Karen Straughan, understands the sexist double standard and calls it out on her video blog Feminism and the Disposable Male:
https://youtu.be/vp8tToFv-bA?t=8m22s
(https://youtu.be/vp8tToFv-bA?t=8m22s)While this woman, state senator Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa, completely does not get it and spouts that tired, factually incorrect trope about female circumcision being not comparable to male circumcision because 'they cut off her clitoris.' Thankfully Msssss. Evans will be termed out of the state legislature at the end of this year.
https://youtu.be/4n4S6CQTPJQ?t=9m55s
A 2007 study confirms that yes indeed, male circumcision is genital mutilation:
"A new study in the British Journal of Urology International shows that men with normal, intact penises enjoy more sexual sensitivity — as much as four times more — than those who have been circumcised. Circumcising slices off more of a male's sensitivity than is normally present in all ten fingertips. ..."
https://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/03/prweb512999.htm (https://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/03/prweb512999.htm)
MUTILATION IS MUTILATION.
We've all heard the argument before: "Male circumcision isn't nearly as bad as female genital mutilation." When the American Academy of Pediatrics proposed easing the federal ban on FGM to allow doctors to make a "nick" in the clitoris, Intact America and other human rights activists roared loudly, and the proposal was soon abandoned.
Yet every day, every THIRTY SECONDS, an American baby boy is strapped onto a molded board as a doctor cuts away the most sensitive part of his body. And mainstream women's rights and human rights organizations don't say a word.
Brian D. Earp, a researcher and ethicist at Oxford University, published an essay (https://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=x%2BLdsJUb7jb4aMthiTdMMFTGUeGWXqWR) last week on Oxford's Practical Ethics blog examining the pervasive refusal to treat male and female genital mutilation as identical violations of children's rights. Saying it's "time to confront the double standard," Earp makes the point that while all forms of FGM—whether minor or invasive, whether carried out by doctors or ritual practitioners—are mutilations, and outlawed, the story is very different when it comes to male circumcision. "In no jurisdiction is the practice prohibited, and in many it is not even restricted: in some countries, anyone, with any instrument, and any degree of medical training (including none) can attempt to perform a circumcision on a non-consenting child—sometimes with disastrous consequences."
It comes down to this: Cutting the genitals of children—female or male—is a heinous violation of their basic human rights, regardless of the sexual identity of the child, the nature of the cut, or the level of resultant harm.
This woman, Karen Straughan, understands the sexist double standard and calls it out on her video blog Feminism and the Disposable Male:
https://youtu.be/vp8tToFv-bA?t=8m22s
(https://youtu.be/vp8tToFv-bA?t=8m22s)While this woman, state senator Noreen Evans of Santa Rosa, completely does not get it and spouts that tired, factually incorrect trope about female circumcision being not comparable to male circumcision because 'they cut off her clitoris.' Thankfully Msssss. Evans will be termed out of the state legislature at the end of this year.
https://youtu.be/4n4S6CQTPJQ?t=9m55s
A 2007 study confirms that yes indeed, male circumcision is genital mutilation:
"A new study in the British Journal of Urology International shows that men with normal, intact penises enjoy more sexual sensitivity — as much as four times more — than those who have been circumcised. Circumcising slices off more of a male's sensitivity than is normally present in all ten fingertips. ..."
https://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/03/prweb512999.htm (https://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/03/prweb512999.htm)