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Mother circumcises son despite father’s pleas to save him

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Last year insideMAN published a letter from an Iranian father-to-be from London who wrote to us asking for help in stopping his wife circumcising their son.

We recently contacted him to find out what had happened. His response is posted below. We have kept the father’s identity anonymous to protect the identity of his son.

The support I received through insideMAN was invaluable, you were the only people who seemed to understand what I was going through. Sadly, after taking legal advice, I felt the only way to keep my family together was to go along with my wife’s wishes.

At least I could be there to support my son, rather than taking the risk that she would do it behind my back. So we went to a doctor in Harley Street together and I cried throughout the procedure and he was crying his eyes out too. The moment the operation was over I snatch him from the nurses arms and whispered in his ear that he will never have to go through such trauma ever again.

I couldn’t believe how much blood was in his nappy and I had to take him to a second specialist to find out if he was okay, because the first doctor didn’t tell us what to expect.

I still feel frustrated and heartbroken that I was unable to protect my son and since the operation. I have recently developed alopecia, which I think was caused by the stress of this situation.

I’m sad to say that the sparkle from my relationship with my wife has completely gone and I have been so deeply touched by what happened that I don’t think it can be repaired.

But my son is such a delight. I’m being a really hands-on dad and we’ve bonded really well. He loves being in my company and when I return from work he cries out as soon as he hears my voice.

He is the best thing to ever happen to me. We have bonded so well, it feels like he knows how much I care about him and when he is old enough and will share this article with him so he knows what happened.

Photo: Ran Yaniv Hartstein

You can read the original letter here.

The father’s letter and this update are one of the powerful men’s stories included in our crowdfunded book. Help give these inspiring men a voice by clicking below and backing our project:

 

Guardian newspaper tries to silence victims of genital mutilation, because they are men

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The Guardian newspaper has publicly confirmed its policy of banning discussions about genital mutilation in the comment section under articles about genital mutilation.

To be more precise it is trying to ban commentators from sharing views about male genital mutilation that contradict its left-wing, pro-feminist, editorial views on female genital mutilation (FGM).

Many of the people impacted by the ban are committed campaigners against all forms of genital mutilation and men who were victims of genital mutilation themselves.

Campaigners told insideMAN last night that the practice of “moderating” male victims of genital mutilation (and their supporters) who call for all forms on non-consensual, medically unnecessary genital cutting to be banned has been going on for several years at The Guardian.

This week, apparently for the first time, the media group decided to openly “pre-moderate” comments on an article about FGM warning readers that “to keep circumcision of boys out of this particular conversation… comments specifically about male circumcision will be removed by mods as ‘Off Topic’.”

Debating the ban is banned! 

The reason The Guardian gave for banning discussion of male circumcision was that “the effects and cultural practices/significance are very, very different, and essentially they’re two separate debates”.

One campaigner accused the newspaper of issuing a “fiat” that censored fair and reasoned debate and banned commentators from even discussing whether the two practices are linked or not.

To prove the point, another campaigner from New Zealand posted a comment explaining the historical links between FGM and male circumcision in the US and the UK and his comment was removed.

Boys have human rights too! 

The same campaigner, who claimed on a separate forum that The Guardian allows posts supporting male circumcision, told insideMAN:

“It is legitimate for a site like the Guardian to not want every thread on FGC (female genital cutting) to be dominated by MGC (male genital cutting). What is less legitimate is to suppress every mention of MGC, and what is completely disgustingly illegitimate is to allow praise of MGC but not refutation of that praise, which seems to be what they are doing.”

“You could argue that to discuss FGC in isolation from other GC allows you to conflate harm with human rights violation…all GC is a human rights violation regardless of the degree of physical damage.”

Marilyn Milos, a US campaigner who began advocating for genital autonomy after observing the circumcision of baby boys as a nurse, agreed that the focus should be on human rights for everyone. She said:

“I’ve said many times before, genital cutting is not an issue of competitive suffering. The screams of infants and children undergoing genital cutting are genderless and both genders die from these harmful traditional practices. Both are human rights violations and should be dealt with as such.”

Men Do Complain

One man who has been making the case to the UK government that both practices violate human rights, Richard Duncker of Men Do Complain, explained his thinking to us. He said:

“It is difficult to see how a child’s human rights are not breached by non-therapeutic genital modification. The European Court of Human Rights has set a very low threshold for a breach of article 3 – that no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment  – for example the application to the court No. 9078/06 Tarhan v Turkey (17/07/2012) found that the applicant’s Article 3 right had been breached by the forced shaving of his head and beard.”

“Children are equally entitled to the protection of their human rights. There is a misuse of Article 9 of the Human Rights Act 1998 when adults state that it is their right to manifest their beliefs by modifying their children’s genitals. Article 9 is a qualified right in that a person cannot infringe the rights of another, even if that other is his or her child.”

Sadly, such considered comments from committed campaigners like Richard Duncker are not welcome at The Guardian.

What debate is allowed? 

To its credit, The Guardian probably generates more debate about male circumcision AND female circumcision than any other mainstream media operation. The coverage is heavily weighted towards FGM, which has been the subject of five articles this month alone, compared with male circumcision, which has generated 5 articles all year.

Furthermore, while The Guardian’s coverage of FGM is unequivocally opposed to the practice and strongly rooted in discussion about the UK’s role in ending the practice at home and abroad; The Guardian’s articles about male circumcision offer a mix of pro-circumcision; anti-circumcision and neutral viewpoints and are often presented as “world news” and not connected to the need for the UK to end the practice at home and abroad.

The Guardian claims that while “the two issues are superficially related, the … cultural practices/significance are very, very different, and essentially they’re two separate debates”.

What appears to be happening is that The Guardian has mistaken its editorial, gender political, worldview of genital with the absolute truth and is now insisting that any victims of genital mutilation (and their supporters) who think differently are quite simply wrong.

We can only solve this problem together 

I’ll give the final word to Georganne Chapin of Intact America, who told insideMAN:

“I think it’s rather curious. The Guardian is preaching to the choir if it does a piece deploring the evils of FGM. I do not minimize the problem of FGM in the cultures where it is still practiced, and we cannot deny that western countries with large Muslim populations will have to address the practice from a legal standpoint.

“However, as journalism, the topic isn’t even all that interesting on its own; the party’s over. The Guardian’s readership is universally going to condemn FGM.  What IS interesting is that The Guardian and the mainstream western press, in general, are not willing to even entertain the possibility that in order to solve the FGM problem, we might need to address MGM.”

—Photo Credit: flickr/erix

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Why I think male circumcision is a big issue

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Richard Duncker is one of the UK’s leading campaigners against medically unnecessary male circumcision. Here he explains why circumcision is such a big issue.

—This is article #19 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

There are about three billion men alive in the world today. Approximately two billion of them are allowed to grow up with their genitals intact. The remaining one billion have their genitals cut; they are circumcised without their consent, usually when they are children.

Physical harm and loss of sensation

The removal of about 90 square centimetres of specialised erogenous tissue is clearly physical harm. The anatomy of the penis and the foreskin in particular has been studied by Cold and Taylor [1] and a fair summary is that fine touch nerves and stretch receptors are removed during a circumcision. These are the types of nerves that let you locate a splinter in your finger and create good feelings when you smile. At the junction of the inner and outer foreskin is an extension of the frenulum (banjo string) that is the ridged band of nerves that runs around the opening of the foreskin.

In their 2007 study Sorrells et al [2] identified the ridged band as the most sensitive area of the penis. This area is always lost to circumcision. There is also the fact that nerves that are cut do not join up as they heal and the brain will map the sensation from the affected area unpredictably. It is probably fair to say that a man without a foreskin experiences sex in a similar manner to a person trying to speak after the dentist has numbed their lip [3].

Such a loss compromises the sex life of the man concerned. Frisch et al in their study [4] conclude that “Circumcision was associated with frequent orgasm difficulties in Danish men and with a range of frequent sexual difficulties in women” They also go on to say that a “Thorough examination of these matters in areas where male circumcision is more common is warranted.” So far no one has been willing to fund such a study.

Hospitals regularly care for boys who have suffered complications as a result of circumcision, FOI (freedom of information) requests are pending. It seems from previous FOI requests that an almost equal proportion of casualties resulting from circumcision come from medical and lay operators. Some of these injuries are life threatening as this report of complications in one Birmingham hospital shows [7].

Deaths

That boys have died as a result of genital cutting is now widely known, news stories from London, Manchester, Africa and hospitals in America show that deaths are not rare and represent the most extreme form of physical harm.

Psychological harm

After circumcision there are a number of possible psychological outcomes. Some men, an unknown proportion of those circumcised, will go on to live happy lives oblivious to any adverse effects their circumcision may have had on them. Lindsay Watson in his excellent book “Unspeakable Mutilations” [5] describes this state as the “circumcision coma” and that such men are in denial or are genuinely happy with their status but no one knows the proportions, it seems that no one wants to know or study the answer.

Some of the men circumcised will have a negative reaction to their circumcision and may be described as suffering from Post Circumcision Syndrome referred to by Dr John Warren in his video interview with James Loewen.

There has been work done on the psychological damage caused by circumcision and a good place to start is – Circumcision and Resources Information Page – where you will find links into a lot of work on this subject. There is a spectrum of psychological, economic and social damage that remains to be studied. Some men report depression, inability to form relationships and shame about their bodies.

I have been told, by impeccable sources, of at least two suicides where a note showed that circumcision was a significant contributory factor for the suicide.

So to conclude – of about a billion men that is 1,000,000,000, some live possibly in ignorance and unaffected by the damage they have been caused. A proportion of that billion live only too aware and resentful of what has been done to them and others may feel damaged but unable to identify or admit the cause. The numbers of men in each category are unknown and the dead are uncounted. What is certain is that male circumcision is a big problem. Even if only a small fraction of that billion are damaged it is still a large amount of suffering. It is surely time that non-therapeutic male circumcision followed the path identified by the sociologist C Wright Mills and moved from being a private trouble to becoming a public issue.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] “The prepuce: specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision” J .R. Taylor, A.P . Lockwood and A. J. Taylor Department of Pathology, Health Sciences Centre, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

[2] “Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis” Morris L. Sorrells, James L. Snyder, Mark D. Reiss, Christopher Eden*, Marilyn F. Milos†,Norma Wilcox and Robert S. Van Howe

[3] Lower lip key to smile and kisses

[4] “Male circumcision and sexual function in men and women: a survey-based, cross-sectional study in Denmark” International Journal of Epidemiology 2011

[5] “Unspeakable Mutilations Circumcised Men Speak Out”  Lindsay R Watson

[6] C. Wright Mills: power, craftsmanship, and private troubles and public issues

[7] Botched circumcision put 100 boys in A&E in Birmingham 

—Picture credit: Men Do Complain website 

To find out more about Richard Duncker’s Men Do Complain campaign you visit their website or follow them on facebook or twitter.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

 

Why it’s rational to say circumcision is worse than FGM

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Is it rational to compare male circumcision and female genital mutilation and come to the conclusion that one is worse than the other, asks Glen Poole?

If I asked you what’s worse, damaging your arm or damaging your leg what would you say? If you had the most rudimentary skills of rationalization, you’d probably say well that depends what type of damage you’re taking about?

Clearly it’s worse to die of a gangrenous leg wound than to get a small bruise on your arm that disappears after a couple of days. Whereas grazing your knees is not as bad as getting your arm trapped under a rock on a remote mountainside and having to saw it off with a penknife to stay alive.

So which is worse, injuring a leg or injuring an arm?

Well there are so many variables that you can’t simply say that one is worse than the other. It is, however, perfectly reasonable and rational to say that damaging one of your upper limbs is different and sometimes worse than damaging one of your lower limbs—and vice versa. No-one with a sane mind would say otherwise.

And so to ritual circumcision, a practice that’s often viewed as benign and even beneficial, but in reality is a medically unnecessary practice that is both painful and dangerous and can cause discomfort, disease, deformity, disability and sometimes death.

We know that routine circumcision is medically unnecessary because the majority of men and boys all over the world live happily and healthily with their foreskins intact. We know, from research, that it’s painful; that even when performed in a “safe” medical setting that there’s a risk of complications and that in worst case scenarios baby boys and young men die from unnecessary male circumcision every year. We also know that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is painful and causes many problems and complications including death.

So which is worse male circumcision or FGM?

Many people argue that FGM is worse. Tanya Gold, in the Guardian, for example referred to “the revolting juxtaposition of female genital mutilation, which is always torture, and often murder, with ritual male circumcision, which is neither” (despite the fact that it kills people).

Then there’s Lynne Featherstone who, as the UK’s Junior Minister for International Development, spoke about FGM in way that suggested she was unaware of the practice of male circumcision saying: “Quite frankly if it was boys’ willies that were being cut off without anaesthetic it wouldn’t have lasted four minutes, let alone 4,000 years”.

But aren’t Gold and Featherstone, who both come from communities that cut boys but not girls, simply voicing a view that we all instinctively know to be true—that it’s worse to do it to girls?

It depends what criteria we use to compare

If you look at the scale of the problem, WHO estimates that 125 million women and girls are affected , compared with around one billion men and boys. If you look at the severity of the problem, there seems to be more deaths around the world from male circumcision than FGM, even in a country like the UK where the practices are relatively rare.

If you look at the seriousness with which we, in the West, take the issue, we ban one practice but permit the other. This means that any man who considers himself to be a victim of unnecessary male circumcision, spends a lifetime of secondary victimisation being told that what happened to him wasn’t a crime and he should get over it and move on.

Imagine if the same were true of arms and leg. Imagine if there were many, many more arm injuries in the world; that more people died from arm injuries and that, unlike leg injuries, there was no serious recognition that arm injuries were a problem that deserved equitable attention to leg injuries. If all of these things were true, then it would be rational to argue that arm injuries are worse than leg injuries.

So is the same true of unnecessary male circumcision?

Is it reasonable and rational to argue that it’s worse than FGM? I think that a rational person who cares passionately about the subject could validly make that argument at a superficial level. Taking a deeper perspective, I think, like arms and legs, the rational way to compare the unnecessary removal of healthy tissue from people’s genitals is this:

FGM is different and sometimes worse than unnecessary male circumcision and unnecessary male circumcision is different and sometimes worse than FGM.

If you find this a difficult concept to understand then this 5 minute video explains how the different scales of severity of the two practices overlap with each other—and how one practice is sometimes worse than the other (and vice versa).

Right now, this rational and obvious truth is considered not only a radical view, but often a “revolting” view. I’m sure, in centuries to come, we’ll look back and wonder how rational and intelligent human beings could ever have believed that the practice of FGM was always worse than unnecessary male circumcision, when the practice kills and injures people.

Why is this? I am convinced that the overriding reason why Westerners believe that FGM is always worse than male circumcision is sexism, because when it comes to helping people of different sexes in the West, we remain collectively more tolerant of any harm that happens to men and boys.

So what do you think? Is one practice worse than the other or are they simply different (and sometimes worse) than each other?

—Photo credit: Flickr/Keoni Cabral

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Half a million boys killed and hospitalised by tribal circumcision

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Around half a million boys have been killed and hospitalised by circumcision in South Africa in the past eight years according to local reports, writes Glen Poole.

Research published by the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL) claims that more than 500,000 boys have ended up in hospital since 2008 after being subjected to traditional circumcision practices.

The South African media has also revealed that circumcision has killed more than 500 boys in the Eastern Cape region of the country in the past eight years, with the toll reaching 528 last month.

Traditional circumcision is seen as a rite of passage into manhood in some tribal communities. Boys face huge social and cultural pressure to take part in these dangerous rituals and males who haven’t been circumcised are not considered to be real men and face being ridiculed and ostracised.

Circumcision schools have become death traps 

In the Eastern Cape of South Africa, boys attend initiation schools where they spend several weeks in the mountains during the circumcision season. “The initiation schools are seen by many as death traps for young people,” said the Reverend Dr Wesley Mabuza, Chair of CRL’s  Rights Commission. “The South African society is being confronted with issues that force it to re-examine its ways of doing things”.

South Africa isn’t the only country where traditional circumcision practices are increasingly being recognised as a social problem.  In Kenya, men from tribes who don’t practice circumcision are chased and rounded up by members of the Bukusu tribe and forcibly circumcised. Elsewhere, in Australia, the safety of ritual circumcision became a topic of public debate when three boys were airlifted to hospital after being injured in an aboriginal initiation ceremony.

Meanwhile the South Africa state is promoting circumcision as a weapon in the fight against HIV/AIDS and has set itself a goal of circumcising 4.3 million men and boys from 2010-2016. Both the ethics and efficacy of using circumcision to try and c

ombat the disease have been heavily criticised but the state seems determined to hit its targets and is exploring the introduction of infant circumcision to help it reach its goals.

African boys killed by circumcision in UK 

The social and cultural acceptance of male circumcision as a legitimate practice places boys in African families all over the world at risk. High profile incidents of African boys being subjected to forced circumcision in the UK include Goodluck Caubergs who died aged just 27 days old after being circumcised by a midwife and Angelo Ofori-Mintah who died aged 28 days old after being circumcised by a Rabbi. Last month we also reported the story of a trainee doctor who divorced her African-born husband after he had their son circumcised without her consent or knowledge.

Those campaigning against male circumcision in South Africa, like the group NOCIRC-SA are currently in a minority. Groups like CRL are not opposed to the ritual, but are focussed on reducing the obvious risks.

CRL Chairperson, Thoko Mkhwanazi-Xaluva said: “We cannot have mothers lose their boys up there and be told only when the other boys come back. At this rate [the practice] is going to die of natural causes because….people are scared of taking their kids to initiation schools.”

—Photo by: Flickr/Speaking of Pictures

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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How did a women’s equality campaign get turned into a social media movement against male circumcision……..?

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Earlier this month Cynthia Maloney, a 48 year old mother of two from Newtown, Massachusetts, started a social media craze that has seen women all over the internet publicly supporting the global campaign to end unnecessary male circumcision.

She didn’t plan it. In fact this online phenomena was so spontaneous that Cynthia was still in bed in her pyjamas when it kicked off. “The morning I was called into action I wasn’t really thinking,” she told insideMAN magazine, “all I knew was that I saw red when I saw a picture of a young woman holding a sign”.

The picture that stoked Cynthia’s anger came from the news site Elite Daily, which asked 12 of its female staff what they would do differently if they were men and posted photographs of the women holding their answers alongside the hashtag #IfIIWereABoy.

The young women’s responses were a list of personal grievances against men including:

  • #IfIIWereABoy I’d treat girls as humans that should be respected
  • #IfIIWereABoy I’d educate myself about feminism
  • #IfIIWereABoy I’d keep my hands to myself
  • #IfIIWereABoy I’d never tell a woman to ‘smile’
  • #IfIIWereABoy I’d be courteous and remember to put the seat down

But it wasn’t these messages that caused Cynthia to leap out of bed, but the words of a woman holding up a sign that said: “#IfIWereABoy I’d be able to make choices about my own body”.

As an intactivist (a campaigner against male circumcision and other genital mutilation), Cynthia was instantly struck by the absurdity of making such a statement in a country where routine infant circumcision is still prevalent.

“It really speaks to how blind the American culture is to the forced genital cutting of infant boys,” said Cynthia. “The same women who are complaining about not having choices are handing over their own sons to have their genitals amputated”.

Cynthia knew, without thinking, that she had to take action and hastily scribbled her own message and posted on the Elite Daily website. Without pausing for breath, she began to encourage others to do the same and before she knew it, the internet was flooded with pictures of women holding up placards with messages like this:

“#IfIWereABoy I would have been strapped down to a board and raped with a knife 27 years ago. My outrage at this violation would have been ridiculed. Instead of enjoying sex as nature intended it, I would be missing the most sensitive part of my penis. #Boys deserve better #genital cutting is not a parental right.”

Cynthia is overwhelmed by the response and is convinced it can make a difference.

“It’s raising awareness” she told us. “People see it in their newsfeed with their morning coffee. It’s sparking conversations. The more we talk about it the more the truth will be exposed to the light. Once it’s seen, it can’t be unseen. It will soon be socially unacceptable to take a knife to the genitals of all babies: male, female and intersex. Cynthia has always believed circumcision is wrong and is committed to ending the practice for ever. “I knew the difference between intact and cut sex and I knew intact sex was better,” she says. “I also knew from working with babies that there was a drastic difference in their personalities before and after circumcision. But it wasn’t until I really started researching it when I found out just how dark and twisted the whole thing is.

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Cynthia believes the practice of “forced genital cutting” in America has changed the nation’s psyche. “No-one escapes harm in a cutting culture” she said. “Primarily it’s the men who’ve been cut, but the women are brainwashed to pass over their sons without question. Intact men suffer from these women’s ignorance about the natural male anatomy.

“Every time a woman says ‘gross I would never have sex with an uncut guy’ it’s abusive, it perpetuates the violence against our newborn sons. Once I started learning I couldn’t stop speaking out. As we stay silent more babies are violated. More men live in silent struggles afraid to speak about the violent sexual assault they experienced as an infant. I have to do everything I can to stop this.

One of the unusual twists in this extraordinary story is that some Men’s Rights Activists have joined in with the #IfIWereABoy conversation online seeing it is an opportunity to challenge and ridicule the original campaign with its feminist sensibilities. Some recent tweets carrying the #IfIWereABoy hashtag have included:

  • #IfIIWereABoy being raped by a woman would be called a rite of passage, not rape.
  • #IfIIWereABoy I’d learn that #feminism means all people are equal but women are more equal than men
  • #IfIIWereABoy then I’d be accused of being a sexist member of patriarchal rape culture just because of my gender by #feminism

For intactivists like Cynthia, circumcision is not a question of feminism versus anti-feminism. We need to stop the gender wars on both sides,” she told us. “We’re all human. If your fellow human being is being violated we need to step in and help them. It’s time we started treating humans humanely.”

You can find out more about the #IfIWereABoy initiative at Intact News or on tumblr or Google+.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Learning from the Chinese will help us stop Muslims, Jews, Africans and Americans circumcising men and boys

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Eran Sadeh is a Jewish Israeli father who broke with cultural conventions by refusing to have his son circumcised. Here he explains how we must learn from the Chinese if we want to stop male circumcision being seen as “normal” in circumcising cultures and communities such as Muslims, Jews, North Americans and Africans. 

Nine years ago when my son was born I wasn’t debating whether to circumcise him or not. The thought of not circumcising did not even cross my mind. I did feel a strong resentment, though. I hated the feeling that I’m doing this against my will, just because it is a cultural dictate. And of course I recoiled from the idea that my son’s penis would look weird. In fact, I had no idea how an intact penis looked like.

Three things saved my son from the knife:

  • information against circumcision which I stumbled upon online
  • an online forum, where parents and activists offered support and shared their experience
  • and the third thing was Ronit Tamir

Ronit has a 15 year old intact son and since the year 2000 she organizes meetings between parents who did not circumcise their sons and parents who debate whether to do it or not. Until I met Ronit, the idea of not circumcising felt virtual, because it was confined to information and people I found on the internet. Meeting Ronit in person was a great leap for me that helped me to finalize my decision.

Our families told us it was wrong to leave our son’s penis intact

However, the fear that I’m making my son a freak did not die so quickly. Two months later my wife and I went to a meeting Ronit organized, where we met several couples who did not circumcise their sons. It was very reassuring for me to hear their stories; to learn that their sons were not being bullied for having an intact penis, and that this issue was a non-issue.

Our families did not like our decision to leave our son intact. They told us that what we are doing is wrong for our son, that he would hate us when he grows up, that circumcision is healthy and that an uncircumcised penis is disgusting, and that there are some things that you simply do, period.

So, how do we change a social norm that has such strong religious, historical and cultural roots? I suggest we take a good look at the successful campaign to end footbinding in China.

Footbinding afflicted most Chinese women for a thousand years, from the 10th century to the 20th century. During the 17th century the Manchu emperors tried to abolish footbinding by issuing edicts forbidding the practice, but their efforts failed entirely despite intimidating penalties.

The similarities between footbinding and circumcision are as follows:

  • Both are an ethnic marker
  • Both customs are practised by parents on children
  • Both customs are defended and supported by parents
  • Both are perceived by the parents as culturally mandatory
  • Both are perceived as a prerequisite for marriage or love life
  • Both are self-enforced by social pressure, by fear of shame
  • Both are believed to promote health and defined as aesthetically pleasing compared with the natural alternative
  • In the communities where they are practiced, they are nearly universal, persistent and practiced even by those who oppose them.

The successful campaign to end footbinding started in China at the end of the 19th century, and two decades later the custom was virtually ended. The campaign was comprised of three elements:

  • Explaining that the rest of the world did not bind women’s feet and that China was losing face in the world and was subject to international ridicule
  • Education about the advantages of natural feet and the disadvantages of bound feet
  • Forming natural-foot groups whose members pledged not to bind their daughter’s feet and not let their sons marry women with bound feet

Two very important principles guided the anti-footbinding activists:

  • Respect for the parents. They understood that mothers bound the feet of their daughters not because they are evil but rather they are motivated by a strong desire to guarantee marriage prospects of their daughters.
  • A law cannot by itself change a deeply rooted social norm. They understood that the change must come from within the community, by forming small groups all over the country.

I think that the combination of these elements should be a blueprint for our efforts as well.

Eran Sadeh campaigns for all children to enjoy the right to genital autonomy and he runs the website Protect the Child—Gonnen Al Hayeled. The content of this article is taken from a talk that Eran presented at Genital Autonomy 2014.   

—Photo credit: flickr/epSos.de

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Why the UK has no moral right to tell Africans to stop genital mutilation

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UK girls are being flown to Kenya to have their genitals mutilated but the British have no moral right to complain about this practice when we continue to turn a blind eye to unnecessary male circumcision says Glen Poole.

Wealthy Somalis living in the UK are flying their daughters to Kenya to undergo ritual FGM (female genital mutilation). There they are handed over to traditional practitioners like 80-year-old Dubey Sankader, who uses a support team of 10 women to pin down the girls while performs female circumcision in a temporary shelter made of sticks, wood and leaves.

In an interview published by Bloomberg this month, Sankader is reported to have said: “It’s painful and most of them faint in the middle of the rite, while others make loud noises and cries, but they are subdued by my permanent staff”.

While FGM has been illegal in Kenya since 2011, the practice is still commonplace and the UK is powerless to act when it comes to protecting Somali girls whose families have made Britain their home.

We aren’t legally powerless. Taking a girl out of the country in order to mutilate her genitals is against British law and today the prime minister, David Cameron has announced that new measures will be introduced meaning parents who fail to stop their daughters undergoing FGM will face prosecution.

However, rather than empowering ourselves when it comes to making a difference for women and girls, we disempower ourselves by becoming  moral hypocrites who apply one rule to women and girls and another rule to men and boys. We essentially tell parents from other cultures that their tradition of performing rituals on boys’ genitals is tolerable and but performing rituals on girls’ genitals is intolerable—one act is good and right , the other is bad and wrong.

Men are being forcibly circumcised in Africa

Meanwhile in Kenya, a man was dragged by a gang of men into his local church clinic and forcibly circumcised this weekend, according to media reports. After the operation, the Kenyan Post reported that his wife was overheard saying that she is “now assured of total satisfaction in bed”.

The forced circumcision of men and boys is neither uncommon nor illegal across Africa. There are many forms of ritual circumcisions which kill scores of young men every year, there are incidents of forced circumcision where men belonging to tribes who don’t circumcise are chased and forcibly circumcised by men from tribes who do circumcise and then there is the bizarre importation of circumcision to prevent AIDS by the World Health Organisation, a campaign that has been heavily criticised.  

The situation for men and boys in the UK is less severe and yet many boys in African families living in the UK are at risk and unlike their sisters, their parents don’t need to take them abroad to have their genitals mutilated. High profile incidents of African boys being subjected to forced circumcision in the UK include Goodluck Caubergs who died aged just 27 days old after being circumcised by a midwife and Angelo Ofori-Mintah who died aged 28 days old after being circumcised by a Rabbi. Earlier this month we also reported the story of a trainee doctor who divorced her African-born husband after he had their son circumcised without her consent or knowledge.

Moral double standards

There is a moral double standard at play here. While we essentially tell people of African heritage that they are wrong to perform rituals on their daughters genitals both in the UK and in Africa, we stand silently by while African men and boys in the UK and Africa are dying as a result of being subjected to ritual circumcision. Worse still, we support the highly contentious export of medical circumcision into Africa in the fight against AIDS.

And therein lies our moral dilemma. Anyone who has spent time studying the different types of male and female genital mutilation knows that the following statement holds true—male circumcision in all its forms is different and sometimes worse than the many different forms of female circumcision (and female circumcision is different and sometimes worse than male circumcision).

If we are serious about protecting the genital autonomy of African girls (and girls of all nationalities), then surely we’ll get there a lot quicker—and with far greater moral integrity—if we also take a stand to preserve the genital autonomy of men and boys in Africa, the UK and the rest of the world.

Photo: Courtesy of DFID shows the UK’s government minister for international development Lynne Featherstone supporting the “FGM or excision can kill” campaign in Burkina Faso.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

For more information about male genital mutilation, please visit Norm UK and Men Do Complain

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Also on insideMAN:

Male genital mutilation: one man’s story

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—This is article #41 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

Photo courtesy Men Do Complain

I and my sister were born in the late 50’s in the UK. Soon after I was born my parents taught me what it is to be discriminated against.

They saw to it that my foreskin was cut off and tossed away, but nothing was cut off my sister’s body when she was subsequently born. If I had been born a female I would still have all the genitals I was born with, just as my sister still has.

We hear a lot about FGM and rightly so, as it is an abomination. Sadly, many think that male circumcision is performed for religious and medical reasons: so it can’t be harmful. The truth is that all those men and boys who were circumcised without their personal consent are the victims of the theft of a functional and erogenous body part.

You do not enrich the life of a man by cutting a part of his body off, you make that man a poorer man, even though he may not realise it because he has never known any different.

‘It royally fucks up a man’s sexuality’

I recently spotted the following comment in response to an online petition against infant male circumcision: “I was circumcised as an adult… I can confirm that it royally fucks up a man’s sexuality.”

This came as no surprise to me since it was as obvious as my lack of a foreskin that my wife was enjoying a more ‘earth-moving’ sexual experience than me. We are now separated after spending almost 30 years together and I reflect that sexual issues were very much the undoing of our marriage. My sex life was not what it should have been. I now live alone and am a chastened man.

It is my personal belief that all infants, whether they be male or female, should enjoy the basic right to be born unto parents that do not feel it is their right to modify the genitalia of their offspring.

‘It should have been my own decision’

My late parents felt that it was their right to condone my circumcision as an infant without medical necessity. This is something that has caused me considerable pain and anguish and I shall eternally regret. It should have been my own decision as to whether or not I chose to give up an intimate and personal part of my body, because once it is done, it is done.

Children are in the custody of their parents until they reach maturity and are not their property. I am not Jewish or Muslim, but there are men I know of that were born unto Jewish/Muslim parents that also resent the fact that they suffered the same indignity of forced circumcision.

The majority of men in this world are genitally intact and perfectly content with their status. I believe that it is a profound injustice that there is not statutory legal protection for all infant boys against non-therapeutic circumcision (such as there is for girls in the UK, US and elsewhere), regardless of the religious affiliation of their parents.

If men want to be circumcised for religious reasons let them volunteer for it once they are adults, and can give meaningful consent.

By Patrick Smyth, trustee and secretary of NORM UK

For more information about male genital mutilation, please visit Norm UK and Men Do Complain

 You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

Further articles:

NHS Midwife referred baby for genital mutilation against mother’s wishes

NHS Midwife referred baby for genital mutilation against mum’s wishes

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A British mother has revealed that an NHS midwife secretly referred her son for a backstreet circumcision, writes Glen Poole.

Speaking outside the annual meeting of British Medical Association (BMA) representatives in Harrogate last month, the mother of two calmly described the shock of coming home to discover her four-week old son’s foreskin had been cut off in her sitting room.

The woman, named only as Emily, told her story to anti-circumcision campaigners from the group Men Do Complain, who were staging a “Stop The Chop” protest to encourage medics to oppose unnecessary circumcision in the UK.

Emily, a trainee GP from Winchester, married a Nigerian man she met working in West Africa.  She told campaigners that the birth of her first son created tension between the couple because her husband wanted to follow his tribal tradition by circumcising the boy at seven days old.

Emily took medical guidance from the NHS and spoke to two paediatricians who gave her conflicting advice. The first advised against circumcision while the second, a Nigerian, told her “it’s a bit of skin, it’s no big deal”.

On balance, the trainee medic concluded that that male circumcision is a painful, medically unnecessary procedure that would put her son at undue risk and decided to veto her husband’s request.

When Emily became pregnant again, she hoped for a daughter to avoid having to repeat the process, but gave birth to a second son.  In a video made by Men Do Complain, Emily tells the story of how she discovered her son had been circumcised when she came home to feed him after her first day back at medical school.

“The baby was four weeks old,” said Emily, “he wasn’t waking up for a feed, he was just very pale and hadn’t woken up so I decided to change his nappy to try and wake him up so I could feed him. Then I saw that he’d been circumcised and there was a lot of blood in the nappy and he’d had a ring put around the end of his penis. I was really distraught but it’s not illegal in this country so there was really nothing much I could do.”

For the next two years, every time her son cried, Emily worried that the cause of his discomfort was residual pain from the circumcision. She also lived with the fear that she would come home to find her eldest son had also been circumcised.

To this day, the trainee GP still doesn’t know who carried out the circumcision, what training they had or whether they gave her son local anaesthetic. The only information she gleaned from her husband was that the cutter was recommended by an NHS employee. “The person who did it was someone who’d been referred by one of the midwives that my husband had spoken to when I was in labour, working for the NHS,” she said.

Emily has now divorced her husband to protect her eldest son from being subjected to a painful, non-consensual and risky circumcision.

While Emily’s case is unusual, this isn’t the first time a UK midwife has been implicated in the genital mutilation of baby boys in the UK. Last year a midwife who claimed to have conducted hundreds of backstreet circumcisions, was struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council after a boy she circumcised with scissors bled to death in Oldham.

You can see Emily sharing her story at Men Do Complain’s vimeo page.

—Photo Credit: flickr/DFAT

Written by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men.